Fish dying 1 after another

[mmcintosh_xo]

I'm new to the fish world and having quite a rocky start.
My mom had the tank and decided after having it for years she was ready to give up the hobby so I quickly jumped on taking and setting it up for my baby to enjoy.
It's a 50G tank, started by cleaning everything, setting it up, adding water conditioner and letting it run for over a week before adding anything.
Picked out about 15 fish (some small fish so sales guy said I had a good number to start and get the tank running smoothly)
Things were fine for about 2 weeks and then one evening I noticed a dead fish. After further inspection I noticed a couple others had what appeared to be ich.
It was strange it came so quick becusse my son and I watch them daily and I hadn't noticed anything before this.
I removed the dead fish and treated for ich, the next morning I did a 30%-40% water change
We did this a total of 3 times when we were certain everything was cleared up.
But water had gotten cloudy and being new I never thought Of the fact the treatements would set the aquarium off balance.
So we had lost about 8 fish before finally treating ich and getting the tank back to a 0ppm amonia nh3 and nh4
Thought all was well... until yesterday one of my white fish (a type of molly I think) started swimming like CRAZY. I'm talking very quick spuratic, spins, loops, upside down, etc before resting in the bottom with laboured breathing. She died before I could try peas thinking a possible case of swimmers bladder.
The only thing I noticed off with her was her fins were all tight to her body prior to dying.
During her big swim fest I see my pelco floating upside down looking as though it's stuck to the surface of the water. Thinking it was dead, I touched it and it quickly swam away. Since then it would continuously do that on and off for the remainder of the day until it stuck to the upper side of the tank, where it's been hanging ever since. Nothing visually seems off except it's behaviour.
Today one of my other fish seems a bit slower then usual, fins not tucked right Into body but not as streatched out as normal.
Last night I did a few peas up and fed it to them. All the fish ate it (and all looks a bit less bloated today) but I couldn't seem to get the pleco interested.

I'm completely at a loss, as is my mom who has had a tank running for 5 years with minimal losses and treatment generally saved the majority when ich was her problem.

I'm not sure if this is related to ich itself, my treatment, or the water being off to about .25ppm for a day before restored back to good quality.
Any insite would be greatly appreciated !!

I should also add when picking out the fish myself and the sales guy went over (for about an hour) my best options for fish. When I picked one type out I had saw one that looked unique to the others and said I wanted that specific one. He said OP that's ones actually sick, so you can't have it. But he did allow me to pick a different one from the same tank. Not sure if this is where my problems started from, and can't remember what he said the fish had.

 

[Potluck]

The tank is not established in a week that's why your having deaths, reason the fish are at the surface is because of the water parameters ammonia, nitrite they are suffocating/getting burned from the ammonia/ nitrite, do you have an api master liquid test kit? If not it's a must have, another must have is prime water conditioner and a good filter (s), you shouldn't of put fish into the tank until it went through the nitrogen cycle(there's threads on this site of how it works and how to do it properly) , you need to do partial water charges a couple times a week until it's established , since you're new I will tell you what that means, go to the lfs get prime water conditioner, api stress zyme + or another good brand of liquid bacteria, and an api master liquid test kit, if you have the funds for them the liquid bacteria you'll need a big bottle $15.00-$20.00, api freshwater liquid test kit $25-$40, prime $15.00 big bottle you won't use alot it lasts a long time , a pwc (partial water change) you'll need a gravel vac, im sure your mom had one that came with it if not you'll need one of those as well, don't get a python unless you physically can't lift the bucket,

so here's what you do get a new bucket from lowes/dollar store, sterilize it/clean it DO NOT USE CHEMICALS, siphon out about 30% (DO NOT SIPHON THE GRAVEL ATM) 15 approx gallons of the water in the bucket dump it down the drain /toilet wherever, I'm assuming the tank has a heater and a thermometer which depending on the fish the tank should be 74-79 degrees, when you're filling the bucket temperature match the water from the faucet to the water in the tank with the tank thermometer this is very very important, here's where prime comes in, you're going to add 1ml of prime to each bucket you're putting back into the tank + the liquid bacteria, you're going to double dose the bacteria at about 50ml if you get the api stress zyme + just add 25 ml to 2 buckets and it will be fine, if you get a different brand just dose how they recommend, slowly add it back into the tank use a plate or (I use a strainer to deflect the water) you'll need to do this a few times a week test your water with the test kit before the water change and 30 min after

 

[mmcintosh_xo]

I tested my water and it's showing 0ppm before the deaths and then after, I've been doing water changes as well.
I did one each treatment of ich, plus a large one after I noticed the water was foggy and tested .25. The next day it was back to 0
I also added water conditioner with each water change. Temp has remained the same (yes I do have water heater and gravel vaccuum, using both)
And a thermometer to make sure water is staying at good temp.

 

[Potluck]

Are you using strips or liquid test kit

 

[mmcintosh_xo]

Liquid test kits
The one where you add water to vile, add 8 drops of bottle one and 8 drops of bottle 2, shake and wait five minutes

 

[mmcintosh_xo]

Also after adding fish test showed .25 but with some water changes and water conditioner it came down within a day. that was about 2 weeks ago

 

[Potluck]

Okay good good, so you're testing ammonia and nitrite what about nitrate, the one where you have to shake your arm off on bottle #2 before adding the drops, you should have 0 ammonia 0 nitrite, 5-? Nitrate

 

[Potluck]

What's the ph

 

[Potluck]

There's 4 tests to do

 

[mmcintosh_xo]

This is my test. I only have one that says ammonia NH3 and NH4
I thought that was all I needed
The orange one seems to have come out off his funk and I still swimming normally
The pleco hasn't done the water floating thing at all today either. Moving to different sides of the tanks and even swimming a bit like he did before when changing spots
Fingers are crossed things are balancing back out, i can't get anywhere to pick up any other test kits today as I've got a 4months old and roads from our last winter storm are still bad
Do you think it st all possible the deaths were all related yet unrelated
The initial ones from ich, the five small neon from the water embalance fallowing the ich treatment and the white one from swimmers bladder. Her symptoms did seem to match and when I got looking at the rest they all looked a bit bloated and less so today after a pea feeding yesterday

 

[mmcintosh_xo]

Sorry tried to post picture of both fish in question, my test kit and my test I just did.... apparently my skills on this site are lacking as I found it quite challenging lol

 

[mmcintosh_xo]

My pleco died this evening, feeling defeated
Hoping the rest survive whatever plague my fish tank has ?

 

[Potluck]

No you need them all NH3 is ammonia, NH4 is ammonium, you need nitrite no2 and ph as well as nitrate no3, to see if your tank is established which I'm absolutely certain it isn't you need to test all 4, ph not so much but a stable ph is important.
When your tank is established meaning it has went through the nitrogen cycle you will have 0 ammonia NH3, 0 nitrite NO2, and 5-30+ nitrate NO3 what this means is the media in your filter (if you have a filter with cylinder ceramic media or a modified filter that has it added) has grown enough beneficial bacterial to eat the ammonia and nitrite, also nitrite is actually more deadly than ammonia in some cases depending on your ph. They sell individual kits but it's cheaper to buy the whole master kit as one rather that the tests separately. You can get the api master liquid test kit on Amazon, they last forever, and when a solution runs out they sell refill kits.

 

[Potluck]

Sorry for your losses did you get prime and liquid bacteria and do a pwc treating the water with prime and the tank with liquid bacteria to help it establish faster?

 

[nirbhao]

Okay. So you have little to no ammonia. I'm curious about your nitrites reading.

Clamped fins aren't generally a nitrogen issue.

I think it's really likely that you bought sick fish. In general, if I see a dead or sick fish in a store, I don't buy there that day. I have walked away from fish I REALLY want because I don't want their illnesses. Fish illnesses are extremely contagious, and it can be difficult to diagnose and therefore treat correctly.

 

[mmcintosh_xo]

I'm going to pick up test as soon as possible
Their was atleast one tank they weren't selling from due to sickness and like I said when I pointed to a particular fish they said I couldn't have that one because it was sick but let me pick a different from that tank.
I live about an 1hr and a half from the nearest pet store and had made a special trip solely for fish so just picked around which ones they said I could have.
My filter system is the one that has the three different insert
One for ammonia, one for carbon and one to collect any debrees.
The ammonia test I did should be yellow, if it's green at all it means it's too high
I was wondering becusse the yellow is dark that's listed on the sheet but my yellow is coning back with no green what so ever, but seems lighter yellow then the colour pictured on the chart
Could that mean my levels are actually too low?
I do have a couple different types of water conditioner. One claims to condition tap water etc where the other claims to make the tank instantly established and able to add fish to, even a new tank.

I'm at a complete loss, I know ich has to be present to appear so it came with me from the store. The one that died first was the same type of fish I had pointed to but was told he was sick and I needed to pick a different from the same tank. He right away didn't seem as active as all the other day fish.
He also had no white spots on him when I found him, but none of them did after death. I figured ich must leave a dead fish when the supply from the live animal runs out from death.

 

[Potluck]

No it doesn't mean its to low cause you want none but with the nitrogen cycle, the first thing to show in the cycle is ammonia, once you have beneficial bacteria that eats ammonia and ammonia then turns into nitrite, after you build up more beneficial bacteria that turns into nitrate and your ammonia and nitrite will stay at 0 if you maintain the tank by doing partial water changes once a week and don't over stock and have the proper filtration and media for beneficial bacteria to grow on, BTW you never put ammonia in a filter, the filter should have 2 things as carbon isn't really nessessary a sponge to trap debris and media that's in a mesh bag that beneficial bacteria grows on.

Ich would look like your fish are sprinkled in sugar

 

[mmcintosh_xo]

The three types of inserts for my pump goes as followed (it's 2am here so I was just trying to remember before)
The bottom piece is a foam that traps particals
The second is activated carbon
And the third is an ammonia remover

 

[mmcintosh_xo]

During the initial partial water changes I was using "aqua plus tap water coditioner"
When I did a larger water change I instead added "cycle: biological aquarium supplement" which is suppose to immediately establish safe biological aquarium environment and powerful responsive ammonia and nitrite elimination
It also claims it allows immediate introduction of fish

 

[mmcintosh_xo]

The fish that were showing signs of ich had different amounts of white spots all over them. One had ALOT some small spots and some bigger spots. He died earlier on in this battle of trying to save them all