Feeling discouraged. Pity party. Please cheer me up.

[threnjen]

This is a pity party.

I'm really new at fishkeeping and so far it has been one discouragement after another.

I've only had fish for 4 weeks (did a full fishless cycle beforehand). 90g with 29g sump, the setup is awesome and took us a year to complete because we spent so much time researching, preparing, and making everything *perfect*. We did everything right, I thought.

Since it's had fish, we've had issues. Right now the main tank is being medicated for Columnaris (I had a lot of help diagnosing this), which most of my cories contracted opportunistically after 2 weeks of severe stress being terrorized under cover of night by 10 White Fin Tetras (removed). The cories are my absolute favorites, and now we only have 4 left of the 10 we began with, and who knows if they will live. They seem ok, but then the one that died today seemed ok too. I've spent gobs of money on meds, hospital equipment etc but nothing seems to save my beloved cories.

A bright spot was a little "mystery fry" that I found in our overflow, probably a Boesemani Rainbow. After a week and a half of taking extra special care of him and even giving him most of a tank to himself, he died today. He got around the barrier that divided the tank and kept him from the filter, and the filter was too crazy. That was my bright spot in face of all the bullcrap going on in the main tank. I cried.

I'm so discouraged. I'm tired of doing WC every day on the main tank and 2-3 on the 10 gallon which is uncycled but has all of my mystery snails so the meds won't kill them. I'm tired and I'm frustrated and I just need to know it will get better and someday my tank will be stable and I can enjoy it again.

 

[Rodeo one]

Sorry you ve had such a tough time. It really can be heartbreaking, beleive me we ve all been there.
I ve never dealt with columnaris so can t give any advice there, I did have two Cories die from wearing off their barbels on gravel (have since switched to sand), they got a fungal infection. But, the other six are still the original group.
You sound very conscientious & caring, I can t help but think that things will get better for you.
Hang in there, someday you ll have a beautiful & healthy tank that will give you much joy.

 

[flitabout]

While I have never had any experience with columnaris. I feel your pain. When I started my last tank everything that could go wrong did despite all of my weeks of careful planning. All of my adult liverbearers died for apparently no reason. First my male and then one by one I lost all of the females shortly after they gave birth. Then I lost all of my sword fry. Some how both litters of my platy fry made it. I stopped losing babies after I had to do a total tear down and I dirted the tank (my center brace broke and I had to get a new tank) After that I have been in the clear and it has been pretty smooth sailing. I promise it does get better.

 

[Mebbid]

I feel your pain. My room mate bought some bettas to attempt to breed which brought in a nasty case of columnaris. Lost close to a dozen bettas and it wound up in my 55g community where I lost another 10 fish or so. Thankfully it didn't make its way into our cichlid tank. I was considering giving up and restarting from new but I hung in there. Now I couldn't be happier with my tanks.

 

[Toad]

I had this as well. Wiped out almost an entire thirty gallon, I had the BN and a lone female guppy survive, and I still have the BN almost four years after that. Honestly, just do what you can right now, and face that it's possible you will lose everything, and still keep chugging. After a certain point your tank will turn around, and you will be able to keep fish again, but it really is a hard road sometimes. I've taken year long breaks sometimes when I've had a tank go belly up for some reason.

 

[threnjen]

Thanks so much everyone, I really just need the commiseration and cheering up!! It's so discouraging.

Also even though I mentioned I had help with the columnaris diagnosis, I'm still not 100% sure we had it right. So I'm just doing my best, know what I mean?

Thanks for the replies on my pity party <3

 

[mistersprinkles]

I don't understand why people start with community setups and not Malawi setups. Malawi cichlids, especially Mbuna, are tougher than most goldfish. They're tough as nails. They don't get sick nearly as often or as easily (as observed by myself and my buddy who runs a very large cichlid-only LFS), they're a riot to watch, especially at feeding time, and they're some of the most colorful freshwater fish you can find. You can keep them in anything from a 29Gal (30"x12"x18") up. (In that size tank you'd probably want to keep a small group of Saulosi). They go well with Synodontis catfish, which in my opinion are more entertaining than corys.

 

[Mebbid]

I don't understand why people start with community setups and not Malawi setups. Malawi cichlids, especially Mbuna, are tougher than most goldfish. They're tough as nails. They don't get sick nearly as often or as easily (as observed by myself and my buddy who runs a very large cichlid-only LFS), they're a riot to watch, especially at feeding time, and they're some of the most colorful freshwater fish you can find. You can keep them in anything from a 29Gal (30"x12"x18") up. (In that size tank you'd probably want to keep a small group of Saulosi). They go well with Synodontis catfish, which in my opinion are more entertaining than corys.

I wouldn't suggest a cichlid tank to a newcomer. For the most part they require very specialized stocking and care that most newcomers coming to the hobby don't know about or don't are about. It's easy to mistakenly add a single fish just to wake up one day and everything else in the tank has been murdered by it.

 

[threnjen]

I just don't care for cichlids. I look at pictures of people's cichlid tanks all the time and while I can appreciate their beauty and accomplishment, I'm not interested.
I love cories. They are my favorite fish.
Everyone likes different things.

 

[mistersprinkles]

I just don't care for cichlids. I look at pictures of people's cichlid tanks all the time and while I can appreciate their beauty and accomplishment, I'm not interested.
I love cories. They are my favorite fish.
Everyone likes different things.

To each his own. I like to at least alert people to the possibility of Malawi since it's my favorite body of water from which my favorite fish originate. Corys are cool too. I used to have a huge school of bronze corys about 7 or 8 years ago. The alpha was a gigantic fat bugger. He was a pig.

 

[Ozy]

Wow, scary!!! How can we make sure we dont get fish with this disease? I bought some glass catfish the other day for my low light tank. Some of them were bent at the spine???

 

[flitabout]

After doing some reading about it I have to wonder if that is what was wrong with mine. Funny part is that none of my cardinals were affected by it.

 

[Rivers2k]

I don't understand why people start with community setups and not Malawi setups. Malawi cichlids, especially Mbuna, are tougher than most goldfish. They're tough as nails. They don't get sick nearly as often or as easily (as observed by myself and my buddy who runs a very large cichlid-only LFS), they're a riot to watch, especially at feeding time, and they're some of the most colorful freshwater fish you can find. You can keep them in anything from a 29Gal (30"x12"x18") up. (In that size tank you'd probably want to keep a small group of Saulosi). They go well with Synodontis catfish, which in my opinion are more entertaining than corys.

Because some people hate Mbunas like me for one. I would take a community tank of an mbuna tank any day.

 

[threnjen]

How to not get columnaris? No clue. It is supposedly a by-product of poor water quality, which mine certainly isn't. My water has never gotten over 5ppm Nitrates.
However the cories and my other fish (although none other than cories have died) show pretty consistent symptoms. Everyone behaves normally.
Also it's just one specific type of cory that has died. I also have a set of dwarf cories and they are all fine. But 6 of 10 Punctatus have bit the dust.

I've read that columnaris bacteria lives in basically every aquarium. Therefore it will be an opportunistic infection that will strike when the fish is weak or stressed. I would guess that one way to not get this infection is through researching compatibility very thoroughly. And perhaps avoiding any semi-aggressive tankmate EVEN IF there are no indications they will bother a certain fish. I never read anything anywhere that suggested that White Fin Tetras (similar to Rosy Tetra, White Skirt Tetra etc) would bother cories. I did my due diligence and researched this fish a ton. I read plenty about how they are fin nippers and will bother flowy-finned guys. But cories?? Really?? But they stressed those cories to the max and a stressed fish can get sick so easily. Stressed cories became deathly ill cories and now everyone is in trouble.

It's all very upsetting. Really angry to lose another cory yesterday because I had not lost anyone in days and it seemed they were getting better.

Today my 4 remaining cories are hanging out together very closely. They are more stressed now that there are only 4 of them, which is not going to help them get better. But it's not like I'm going to add more fish to a sick tank.

 

[Ozy]

Yeah research is sooo important. I read somewhere that fish will actively try to scare off other fish that are sick, not sure how true that is. Could that be why the corries got bullied? they may have already been sick b4 you bought them. Sorry you lost another one.

 

[threnjen]

OK seriously are you kidding me?
I noticed today that I'm starting to get the dreaded blue green algae.
How can a bacterial algae be growing in my tank WHILE I am treating it with an antibiotic that affects both gram negative and gram positive bacteria?
HOWWWWW?

 

[threnjen]

Ironically I probably have it because I have been doing a WC every day as per meds directions, so nitrates are basically nonexistent.

I did direct application of hydrogen peroxide 3% on the spots.

 

[The Trooper]

I like cichlids but i want to be able to have a variety of different species without worrying about someone going serial and killing everything.

 

[Fresh2o]

OK seriously are you kidding me?
I noticed today that I'm starting to get the dreaded blue green algae.
How can a bacterial algae be growing in my tank WHILE I am treating it with an antibiotic that affects both gram negative and gram positive bacteria?
HOWWWWW?

Not sure how they are surviving with the meds. I believe they are gram negative. I had it in my planted tank for months before I realized what it was. A five day course of erythromycin took care of it. Good luck with this.

 

[mistersprinkles]

I like cichlids but i want to be able to have a variety of different species without worrying about someone going serial and killing everything.

That's a myth. Some species are homicidal maniacs, but if you avoid those species, you can have a very peaceful, beautiful tank.

I had Ps Acei msuli and Yellow Labs for years and they never bothered eachother. Very mellow attractive tank. I was inspired by the aquarium in the plastic surgeons' office in Season 1 of Nip/Tuck on FX network.