Hello all! I'm new here,so please have patience with me. For the past 5 years, I've had 4 silver dollars (I know, should be more, but at their current size, I'm afraid to add smaller ones), a pleco, and an emerald cory. I lost my Cory around Easter of this year, (I assumed age?), then in July I added 4 bala sharks, and 6 cories. They all seem happy, until this past Friday.
While out Christmas shopping, my hubby called to tell me to hurry home to show me something. Thinking maybe he cleaned the house, or did laundry, or perhaps dishes, I made my way back home, thinking I'll have an evening with no chores. However, that was clearly not the case when I opened the door. He showed me the fish tank, and to my horror, there were a lot of strange fish in it. I started freaking out, asking where they came from, and why did he just dump them in my tank (we have extra tanks for quarantine). Clearly not the reaction he wanted, he proceeded to tell me that his mother's friend decided to break down her tank, and that we were the lucky recipients. Now don't get me wrong, I like fish, but since they were just dumped in, I wasn't able to visually inspect them for diseases, or be able to verify if they were even compatible with my set up. The fact that someone broke down their tank and unloaded a bunch of fish made me worry that they had tank problems.
After calming down and checking out the new residents, I found that I have 6 black mollies, 4 silver mollies, 4 dalmatian mollies (a least 3 of these are males), 8 platys, and 4 of what I think is Australian rainbows. Most were hanging at the surface of the tank, from stress, no doubt. I noticed, too, that my water looked a little murky, which I found out was caused by my husband dumping the fish and god knows what else in the tank upon their arrival. I just couldn't believe his mother drove nearly 15 miles to our house with an open bucket.
Anyways, I couldn't really see any blemishes or spots of any kind, so I figured it would cause more stress on them to move to another tank. The next morning (yesterday), 2 of the black mollies were dead, and the rest of the black and a couple dalmatians still lingered at the top. My original fish visually appeared fine. Then this morning came. All 4 of my silver dollars have what appear to be cloudy round spots on their fins and body. Not specks or solid white dots, and not cottony looking. Looks a bit like mold. I don't see any on the other fish, yet a few mollies are still lethargic. My dollars are rubbing themselves against decor, which caused me to suspect ich, and one of them is being very aggressive toward the other 3, as in ramming into them.
While I did a 20% water change, I sent my husband to the store to get a variety of medicines, and an extra airstone to supplement oxygen levels, but here's where I'm stuck. Considering if it's ich, I feel it would be best to treat whole tank, since they go from fish to water to gravel. However, my cories and pleco are scaleless, and could die. I thought of increasing the water temp, too, but not sure if this is good for all fish. I could remove the scaleless to a hospital tank and treat the original, but wouldn't there be trace chemicals left behind? Should I remove my biowheels if I go this route? And what if the removed untreated fish have it too and aren't showing symptoms?
Sorry for the long post, but I've been worrying all day what to do,and the longer I wait, the worse it can get. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Oh, and the treatments he picked up is this:
Jungle ick clear fizz tabs (use 1/2 strength for scaleless)
Jungle lifeguard all in one (don't use on scaleless)
Kordon ich attack (organic, somewhat skeptical if it'll work)
The internet searches I've done are all conflicting, and I would really hate to lose my dollars after having them so long. Maybe someone out there has had success with curing this combo of fish? And, unfortunately, I don't have a kit to check ammonia and nitrogen levels. Stupid, I know.
While out Christmas shopping, my hubby called to tell me to hurry home to show me something. Thinking maybe he cleaned the house, or did laundry, or perhaps dishes, I made my way back home, thinking I'll have an evening with no chores. However, that was clearly not the case when I opened the door. He showed me the fish tank, and to my horror, there were a lot of strange fish in it. I started freaking out, asking where they came from, and why did he just dump them in my tank (we have extra tanks for quarantine). Clearly not the reaction he wanted, he proceeded to tell me that his mother's friend decided to break down her tank, and that we were the lucky recipients. Now don't get me wrong, I like fish, but since they were just dumped in, I wasn't able to visually inspect them for diseases, or be able to verify if they were even compatible with my set up. The fact that someone broke down their tank and unloaded a bunch of fish made me worry that they had tank problems.
After calming down and checking out the new residents, I found that I have 6 black mollies, 4 silver mollies, 4 dalmatian mollies (a least 3 of these are males), 8 platys, and 4 of what I think is Australian rainbows. Most were hanging at the surface of the tank, from stress, no doubt. I noticed, too, that my water looked a little murky, which I found out was caused by my husband dumping the fish and god knows what else in the tank upon their arrival. I just couldn't believe his mother drove nearly 15 miles to our house with an open bucket.
Anyways, I couldn't really see any blemishes or spots of any kind, so I figured it would cause more stress on them to move to another tank. The next morning (yesterday), 2 of the black mollies were dead, and the rest of the black and a couple dalmatians still lingered at the top. My original fish visually appeared fine. Then this morning came. All 4 of my silver dollars have what appear to be cloudy round spots on their fins and body. Not specks or solid white dots, and not cottony looking. Looks a bit like mold. I don't see any on the other fish, yet a few mollies are still lethargic. My dollars are rubbing themselves against decor, which caused me to suspect ich, and one of them is being very aggressive toward the other 3, as in ramming into them.
While I did a 20% water change, I sent my husband to the store to get a variety of medicines, and an extra airstone to supplement oxygen levels, but here's where I'm stuck. Considering if it's ich, I feel it would be best to treat whole tank, since they go from fish to water to gravel. However, my cories and pleco are scaleless, and could die. I thought of increasing the water temp, too, but not sure if this is good for all fish. I could remove the scaleless to a hospital tank and treat the original, but wouldn't there be trace chemicals left behind? Should I remove my biowheels if I go this route? And what if the removed untreated fish have it too and aren't showing symptoms?
Sorry for the long post, but I've been worrying all day what to do,and the longer I wait, the worse it can get. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Oh, and the treatments he picked up is this:
Jungle ick clear fizz tabs (use 1/2 strength for scaleless)
Jungle lifeguard all in one (don't use on scaleless)
Kordon ich attack (organic, somewhat skeptical if it'll work)
The internet searches I've done are all conflicting, and I would really hate to lose my dollars after having them so long. Maybe someone out there has had success with curing this combo of fish? And, unfortunately, I don't have a kit to check ammonia and nitrogen levels. Stupid, I know.
