Whole tank going downhill, need ideas!

[grimlock3000]

I have a 26g tank with a pair of Blue Rams, 6 Cherry Barbs, 5 male Guppies, one Tetra and a Dwarf Pleco. Over the last few days/weeks, some of my fish were itching against the rocks. It was so infrequent I never thought anything of it. Then some of the Barbs start clamping their fins in the last two weeks and not moving much, followed by a lose of appetite and energy. The Tetra followed with the trend and began not swimming much, then finally one of my Rams started losing color. One young Guppy got eaten after floating at the top for a day. The Guppy was right out of the grow out tank so I was not too worried about it. My tank is just a bunch of pokey looking fish and something is obviously wrong. If you look in my tank right now, the Guppies are swimming around like nothing is wrong, and Cherries, Rams and Tetra are all schooling in some plants in one corner of the tank and hiding.

There is no visible disease or infection in the tank. When I put food in the tank, half the fish barely go after it. There is no Ich noticable in the tank on any of the fish. Nothing in the tank should have Ich as every fish in there have gone through at least 10 days of 88F Ich treatment at one time or another. One one of the Barbs, if you look rreeaallyy closely it looks like it has little clear hairs coming out of his scales on almost his entire body. A flashlight check revealed that many of my fish may have Velvet, the Barbs have a silver/goldish sheen to them. This may be natural though. The Rams are floating a bit head down as well.

Being cautious, I have dosed Velvet Guard twice with the temp raised to 82F. I added my power head as well to get some bubbles going on the surface for extra oxygen. After four days, there does not seem to be any improvement. Now my Rams are floating near the top together in a calm spot. I do not know if they are going down the same path the Guppy did, or if the Velvet Meds made them worse. Since the Velvet Guard appeared to have no impact on anything, I put carbon in the filter to get the meds out of the water. What might be wrong??? If anyone has any good idea, I'll try it when I get out of work on Tuesday. QTing is not an option since over half the fish in the tank are in trouble.

Critical Specs:

Ammo 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates <30, pH 7.1, GH 75, KH 120

I feed the fish Omege One Veggie Flakes once a day, and a couple times a week they get come freeze dried bloodworm or Bio Blend tossed in. The tank is a few months old and is full cycled. I do 25% water changes a week.

Current my tank is running with a power head on for bubbles, carbon in the filter, 82F temp for tha tank, and the overhead light dimmed with sheets of white paper on my glass top.

 

[jubei]

well bud,


This is what I would do, take all the fish out of the bad tank put the in a small container with room for 1/2 again more water. Then mover the container containing the fish and water over to your other tank, add a little water @ a time and get them into that tank. Don't, I mean do not put the mixed water in to the good tank.

thats what I'd do. Or option#2. Just leave the tank alone, see what happens? It sounds like the fish are stressed to the max because you've been messing with the tank a lot. Some times if you bit the bullet and wait good things happen.

decisions, decisions it's up to you! :?

I really hope for the best good luck, and what ever you do don't do a lot more or they will die of stress

 

[grimlock3000]

I think all hell would break out if I put all the fish in my 10g tank. My Betta barely gets along with the Guppies in there now :?

"It sounds like the fish are stressed to the max because you've been messing with the tank a lot."

I thought about this too but they all started looking ill before I did anything by adding the Velvet Guard and raising the temp. The whole tank was going perfect for a few months and had a very set routine.

 

[deli_conker]

I would try out these sites and see if you can see any resemblance to what you are seeing in your own tank. Not sure what it could be myself (pics would help). Hope you find what you need.

Lots of pics here.

http://www.fishpalace.org/Disease.html

http://www.fishbase.org/diseases/DiseaseList.cfm

 

[Allivymar]

Grimmie:

I have NO idea whats going on with your guys but I didn't want you to think it hasn't been on my mind.

I did some research this morning, but nothing definitive came up. Coupla questions tho. Do any of the other fish have the thin hairs? Is it coming from under the scales? Is it one per scale or the number is random?

I have a couple of suspicions, but nothing I can say for sure; for example flukes.

I'll do some more research when I'm home from work. In the meantime, since you have stopped the meds, I'd do a water change.

 

[grimlock3000]

I fed them some Pepso Food for the first time this morning and they ate it right up. I had not seen most of them eat at all over the last few days, so I was happy to see them actively go for the food. I am also keeping the light dimmed and the powerhead is still on making some bubbles. I might just leave it like that at this point. My fish seem to be doing a bit better today, I am going to feed the Pepso Food for a few days and then go back to normal food to see if that helps.

My gut feeling right now is telling me that the whole thing may have started off from Oxygen deprevation. I have recently switched to an underwater spray bar for my canister outlet instead of jetting all the water through one tube right at the surface (and making a whirpool). My Aquaclear 200 was set down to avoid blowing the fish all over the place as well.

The little hair things on the Barbs look like they are on all his fins. They do not stick out, they look like they are flat on him. The fish is really underweight and has always been the fish that doesn't go well with the other Barbs.