Mysterious Disease

[cycle]

Hi- I️ have a 55 gallon planted with 9 guppies, 16 neon tetras, 5 kuhli loaches, 5 otocinclus, 5 cory cats, some Nerite snails, amaño shrimp and Cascade 1500 for filtration with seachem matrix as my bio media. Also have the Eheim 350 surface skimmer. Tank has been running since July but issues didn’t start until end of September. We had a Hurricane hit us and loss of power for a week. I️ was able to run the filter on a backup power source but not the lights for a week. Since then I️ have brown algae show up in the hoses and water looks like it has small particles in it. I️ have lost many guppies and a pearl gourami. They end up just sitting at the bottom for a few days before dying. One at a time with no visible disease. Before it was 1 every other week but now I lost 4 guppies this week. It might be unrelated but 1 cory has his tail missing. Looks like a clean cut, not fin rot. None of the other species seem affected. My parameters are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0-20 nitrate, 7.8 PH. I️ have tried using melafix, pimafix, UV sterilizer, and I️ just started Furan 2 today. Any suggestions would be welcomed. Thank you

 

[V227]

Sounds like you touched all bases. Brown algae on the outside and inside of your hoses is very common. Petsmart's sells plastic hose brushes. As for your fish fatalities. No outward symptoms other than lying on the bottom. Possibly an ammonia or nitrite spike or it could be some type of intestinal bacteria infection. Those type of infections are difficult to cure.
I know that your water tested okay, but really concentrate on doing thorough gravel vacs during WC's. Try to do two 25% WC's a week for a few weeks.
Remember some of the listed meds you've been using might damage your BB, you might experience a mini cycle. Good luck.

 

[cycle]

Thanks. I have been checking regularly and have not had a reading for ammonia or nitrites since the tank initially cycled. There was a point I was doing 25% water changes every 3 days trying to fix the issue but nothing ever changed.

 

[V227]

My guess is you're dealing with a bacterial infection. We've all experienced that issue at one time or another. My advice is once you notice a fish suddenly stop eating, hang out near the surface gasping, or just lying on the bottom, remove the noted fish asap. The longer the fish stays in the main tank the more likely the disease will spread. Curing bacterial outbreaks are nearly impossible. Diseases such as Ick, Oodinium and fin rot are very treatable and fairly easy to cure if caught early enough. Hang in there things will level out.

 

[cycle]

Thanks.