ich or just bad water?

[haus]

My grandfather has a 55 gal community tank. He has 5 angels, a large parrot fish, a powder blue gourami, and 4 cories. In the past week he has lost a large pleco and all the cories. The tank has been running for about 6 months. He told me that his parrot fish has white spots on its fins and he believes that they are on his gills too. My first opinion is that it is ich, but he hasn't seen the fish scratching on decorations. He says the fish just seems to be moping around when it is usually a very active fish. I am going tomorrow to test his water, and told him until then to do a water change. I don't believe that he has changed the water in the past three months, and with the pleco and cories dying, I am led to believe that there may be an ammonia or nitrate issue. Is there any other disease that the parrot fish may have that anybody knows about? TIA

 

[Devilishturtles]

Sounds like ich to me too. Advise your grandfather about the heat treatment for ich. Raise the temperature to 86/86F and leave it there fore 2 weeks after the ich is gone. No meds involved, and it's very easy to treat. Regular water changes every few days would be neccesary to keep good water quality too.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/article_view.php?faq=2&fldAuto=32

Good luck.

 

[haus]

Thanks for the heat treatment idea. Never heard of that. Will that adversly affect the other fish. The angels are my big concern, they are my grandmother's babies. I have an empty 10 and 30 gal tank that I could let him use as a hospital tank if needed, but I also fear that the other fish may have ich without the symptoms yet, and it would make sense to treat all the fish, but I don't want to harm them if they are not sick.

 

[Devilishturtles]

Nope. All of the fish should be just fine with the heat. You may want to add in an airstone or bubble wand into the tank during treatment though. Warmer water holds less oxygen, and the fish might feel a little strapped for air.

 

[Jchillin]

...and lowering the water level to create additional surface agitation is also great for more aeration.

 

[haus]

Sorry for leaving everyone hanging. I think the parrot fish has something else. The white spots are not round, they are kind of flakey, and there were dark spots around its head and dorsal fin. All the other fish looked healthy. The other problem that I came across was the ammonia. I tested it and was appalled to find that it was 6.2. That's right 6.2. I changed about 60% of the water for him. I told him to change between 10-20 gallons every other day until the ammonia gets back down to zero. I also suggested that he adds cycle to the tank to get some bacteria in there. Also I told him to slowly raise the temperature up to 86 and leave it there for 2 weeks. I will call him tomorrow to find out how things are coming along. What could cause the ammonia to skyrocket? It's not overfeeding and the trites and trates were both 5 or less. The only thing that I could think of is the possible lack of bacteria to break down the fish poop.

 

[rich311k]

My first thought is did someone change the filter media? A nitrite of 5 is just as bad as the ammonia readings.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Also, Cycle does nothing. I have not seen it work for anyone. Bio Spira is about the only thing that works, most of the time. But it's hit and miss, but has a better chance.

Also, leave the heat up for 2 weeks after the ick is gone. So that could mean 3-5 weeks or more. And the angels will do just fine in that temp, they do prefer warmer water.

 

[greenmaji]

What was the PH? The acidification of all that N might have dropped it, in that case the water changes might become a seious problem.. (too much good too fast)

It becomes a uncycled tank once the KH and PH come back up.. hopefully he has some very soft water and the PH can float around 6 or so.. (wishfull thinking on my part)

good luck to you and your grandfather..