digitalbabe
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2008
- Messages
- 10
A few days ago, I noticed white slime on my 2 large silver dollars. I treated them with Pima and Melafix, but they died. We were very sad, as they survived several moves over 4 years, and an outbreak of parasites last year.
After the large silver dollars died, I thought it was due to an accidental overdose of Pima and Melafix, as someone online said that despite it being made from "natural" ingredients, it's supposedly like Turpentine and can be harsh for some fish-- so we changed the water in the tank thinking that would save the other fish from the medicine (we changed about 60%).
2 days later I purchased a Needlefish, several loaches, and some orange tetras. More fish became afflicted with spiderweb looking slime all over and died too. I added Quick Cure to the 56 Gallon, and one more large Silver fish (not a Silver dollar-this fish has scales and has orange fins, with a silver body), died, but the other did not. He remains with 2 Angelfish, who seem unaffected, and one small "runt" angelfish, which we put in the hospital (he had a small white cottony poof on his side, overnight), along with the other "new" fish, and one loach that was already upside down and gasping, which we saved.
The 56 Gallon fish, seem to have recovered from the slime, as the one silver fish, after having 1 day of Quick cure, looks much better and our 2 other Angels are still unaffected.
Within a day the hospital tank fish's condition improved and I was even able to save the little Dojo loach, who was ready to be flushed the day before. Their slime has disappeared and today was their third day of treatment. Tomorrow, I will change 1/2 of that water, as instructed, and then do another 3 day treatment just to be sure.
A different 10 gallon tank with 1 goldfish, briefly had some of the fish we were trying to rescue, and seem to have infected the goldfish, who died within a day, and also developed a white film during the time I was at work. So I am guessing the net or water swap contaminated his tank.
But now in our other tank, where we keep 2 Angelfish parents that have mated a few times, and were never exposed to any other fish, and are very territorial (hence they are alone in a 33 Hexagon tank), whose water we just changed last week, one of the Angels has a hole in the skin of their eye. The other parent, has a white veily film that is starting to develop on his tail. But we just changed the water in that tank last week, and we always use Amquel Plus. We are also treating them with Quick cure, starting today, as that is the only thing that seems to have saved some of our fish. We've had them for 4 years as well, and don't want to lose them.
Can anyone shed light on what we're dealing with, and if in fact, it is spreading with the net, or some kind of water transfer?
Some sites say we should raise the water to get rid of bacterial infections like white cottony growths and ick (the goldfish had this), and other sites say lower the temp, so that other infections can't thrive. What is the right thing to do? Are we using the wrong medicine? Is it bad to change the water when we see diseases? All of our fish were doing fine, except the silver dollars, which had the slime. But the new fish (Needlefish had that cottony growth on his mouth). So now I don't know what came first. The first tank with trouble was the 56 gallon. Assuming the fish survive, should we set that one up like we are starting over (vaccum all gravel,wash ornaments, change filter bag, etc etc),like it's being set up from scratch to kill other disease, or will the Quick Cure take care of it? I know it's not advisable to kill all of the good bacteria..
At a loss in NJ
Thanks for reading all of this and for your assistance.
Sariena
After the large silver dollars died, I thought it was due to an accidental overdose of Pima and Melafix, as someone online said that despite it being made from "natural" ingredients, it's supposedly like Turpentine and can be harsh for some fish-- so we changed the water in the tank thinking that would save the other fish from the medicine (we changed about 60%).
2 days later I purchased a Needlefish, several loaches, and some orange tetras. More fish became afflicted with spiderweb looking slime all over and died too. I added Quick Cure to the 56 Gallon, and one more large Silver fish (not a Silver dollar-this fish has scales and has orange fins, with a silver body), died, but the other did not. He remains with 2 Angelfish, who seem unaffected, and one small "runt" angelfish, which we put in the hospital (he had a small white cottony poof on his side, overnight), along with the other "new" fish, and one loach that was already upside down and gasping, which we saved.
The 56 Gallon fish, seem to have recovered from the slime, as the one silver fish, after having 1 day of Quick cure, looks much better and our 2 other Angels are still unaffected.
Within a day the hospital tank fish's condition improved and I was even able to save the little Dojo loach, who was ready to be flushed the day before. Their slime has disappeared and today was their third day of treatment. Tomorrow, I will change 1/2 of that water, as instructed, and then do another 3 day treatment just to be sure.
A different 10 gallon tank with 1 goldfish, briefly had some of the fish we were trying to rescue, and seem to have infected the goldfish, who died within a day, and also developed a white film during the time I was at work. So I am guessing the net or water swap contaminated his tank.
But now in our other tank, where we keep 2 Angelfish parents that have mated a few times, and were never exposed to any other fish, and are very territorial (hence they are alone in a 33 Hexagon tank), whose water we just changed last week, one of the Angels has a hole in the skin of their eye. The other parent, has a white veily film that is starting to develop on his tail. But we just changed the water in that tank last week, and we always use Amquel Plus. We are also treating them with Quick cure, starting today, as that is the only thing that seems to have saved some of our fish. We've had them for 4 years as well, and don't want to lose them.
Can anyone shed light on what we're dealing with, and if in fact, it is spreading with the net, or some kind of water transfer?
Some sites say we should raise the water to get rid of bacterial infections like white cottony growths and ick (the goldfish had this), and other sites say lower the temp, so that other infections can't thrive. What is the right thing to do? Are we using the wrong medicine? Is it bad to change the water when we see diseases? All of our fish were doing fine, except the silver dollars, which had the slime. But the new fish (Needlefish had that cottony growth on his mouth). So now I don't know what came first. The first tank with trouble was the 56 gallon. Assuming the fish survive, should we set that one up like we are starting over (vaccum all gravel,wash ornaments, change filter bag, etc etc),like it's being set up from scratch to kill other disease, or will the Quick Cure take care of it? I know it's not advisable to kill all of the good bacteria..
At a loss in NJ
Thanks for reading all of this and for your assistance.
Sariena
