Fish are sick, I think it's my fault. What now?

[kitten8351]

Hi, I'm having troubles with an illness that started in one of my tanks, but has now spread to another (I'm assuming it did). I believe I may have started this whole mess when I was trying to treat for something else. Let me give you my set-ups and then I'll tell you a story.

Tank #1:
10 gallons
Gravel substrate
Penguin Biowheel 100 filter
bubble wall
unheated for summer, stays at 80 degrees F
3 big amazon sword plants
2 Amano Shrimp
?? guppies (was definitely overstocked, but not anymore)

Tank #2:
14-15 gallons
Sand substrate
Penguin Biowheel 100 filter
limewood air diffuser
unheated for summer, stays at 80 degrees F
1 piece of driftwood
3 big Amazon Sword plants
1 Limnophila
2 bunches of Ammania Praetermissa (Red Nesaea)
Several Java ferns
1 bunch of Alternathera Reineckii
3 Amano Shrimp
1 Panda Garra
?? Guppies (overstocked, 90% juveniles and fry)

Please note: I haven't had any issues with water quality due to these tanks being overstocked. I keep a closer eye on parameters because of this and perform more frequent water changes. I also take guppies I don't want/need to a local store as trade-in for store credit about every month or two. So please no chastising for overcrowding. I know, okay? I know.

This all started out about 2 weeks ago when I wanted to treat Tank #1 for their stringy, whitish poop. I did a ton of research, and based on information from various forums and articles, I got Metronidazole and started treatment. I put it in their water and also made it mixed with food. Things were fine up until about a day after the second dose. At that point most everyone started clamping and stopped swimming around. I stopped giving the Metronidazole food at the first sign of clamping. I figured that since they had already gone through the 2 doses now I could stop and it'd be fine. I thought I'd just need to wait out their discomfort, give them the best water, try to keep them happy and they'd recover. But then they started dying, oldest first. That got me thinking, "Oh no, what if I accidentally overdosed their food?!", but the Seachem bottle says Metronidazole is hard to overdose. Either way this problem wasn't going away.

Then the fin rot came. On many fish their pectoral fins were getting milky and starting to disintegrate. Some got tail rot as well, but it wasn't as aggressive as the fin rot. Their fins started looking like stringy puffy clouds, for a while I thought there was some sort of white growth on the fins, but I think I see now that it's their fins that are just whitish. In addition to the fin rot, some fish were showing a greyish/whitish film on spots of their body. It didn't appear to be extra fish slime, but maybe it is and it's just presenting weirdly. I can't tell if it's columnaris or not, but no one has had anything weird going on with their head/mouth if that helps.

As far as trying to combat this, whatever THIS is, I've been dosing Kanaplex (Kanamycin) and will be putting in the third dose tonight. I've done occasional 30min Methylene Blue baths in a bowl outside the tank for remaining fish. I added 1.5 Tbsp salt over a few hours yesterday. I don't know what more to do, the fish don't really look better yet, but not exactly worse either. I've lost probably 70% of the fish in there already. There are only like 5 fish left in there that went through the Metronidazole treatment, and 4 of those look bad. I expect that only 2 or 3 fish that went through the Metronidazole treatment to survive all of this. I did add 3 fish after being done with Metronidazole and before everyone clamped up. They are still find and dandy, no fin rot or any issues.

Now somehow as of 3 days ago, Tank #2 is now all clamped up near the surface. I took out about 5 dead fish the day they clamped up. I noticed my limewood air diffuser had this grey fuzzy crud on it (looked like mold), and thinking it had something to do with this issue, I took it out and replaced with a new one. I did a 25% water change at that time. Next day, fish were swimming lower down, but still clamped. I did a 40% water change last night and added 1.5 Tbsp salt, as now some fish are showing fin and tail rot, and it's moving fast. Several fish have died even without showing symptoms, others are dying because the fin rot is moving so quickly. It's only been 3 days! I have to assume that the fin rot in Tank #1 got into Tank #2, even though I rinse everything between tanks. Tonight I was planning on dosing Kanaplex into Tank #2 when I dose Tank #1 for the third time.

Is this the right course to take? What else can I do? This is my fault and I have to do whatever I can to fix it! Tank parameters below.

Meds at my disposal:
Salt
Methylene Blue
Jungle Fungus Clear
API General Cure (used this in both tanks several months ago for gill flukes)
Kanaplex
Metronidazole

 

[dcutl002]

Questions:
1. Ammonia level?
2. Nitrite level?
3. Nitrate level?

 

[kitten8351]

Tank #1: after 2 doses of Kanaplex and 25% water change 2 days ago
ammonia - less than 0.25 ppm
nitrites - 0 ppm
nitrates - 0 ppm (strip test says < 20 ppm, but not 0)
PH - 7.6
GH - 150 (hard)
KH - 80 ppm

Tank #2: last water change 40% last night
ammonia - 0 ppm
nitrites - 0 ppm
nitrates - 0 ppm (strip test says 20 ppm)
PH - 7.8
GH - 150 (hard)
KH - 80 ppm

 

[dcutl002]

OK. My best guess from what you describe is columnaris and/or fin rot. The most common causes of this are water quality, cold water temperature, overcrowding, old food or simply feeding too much. Moving or handling the fish too much will stress them out also. Water changes are good, but ensure that you vacuum the debris from the gravel. Antibiotics should work. The drugs I would recommend are Chloramphenicol, Oxytetracycline, and Tetracycline. Since you have livebearers, salt should help too.

 

[kitten8351]

Okay, thanks, so should I keep going with Kanaplex since I have it right now? I've read it's good for columnaris and/or fin rot...

 

[dcutl002]

I would.

 

[tali931]

I just went through the same thing with my guppies in two tanks. The fish were getting either pin looking tails or fin rot and withinn few days they would die. I learned the hard way that as soon as the pointy tail appeared I had to remove the fish to stop it from spreading. No meds seen to fix this so I took the opposite approach and stopped dosing with meds and did daily water changes with brackish water and the fish got better. The key is to remove the sick fish as in my experience they died anyways but at least I stopped it from spreading. I was also going to ask how often do you feed them?

 

[kitten8351]

So basically you removed all the fish that didn't appear normal (clamping or worse) and did the brackish water changes to the tank. Did you do the changes to the removed fish as well? How much salt do you add for that? Aquarium or marine salt? And after you removed the affected fish, no more got ill? --sorry so many questions!--

I feed them flakes twice a day, but all the food is gone within 30 seconds. Once a week or so I give them an algae wafer.

 

[tali931]

The removed fish are in a 2.5 gallon filtered and heated tank with salt.. About a tablespoon of salt but I doubt any of them will make it. Ater I removed the fish for the next two days the random fry looked sick so I removed them aswel and it stopped spreading. My larger tank which has the adults is 36 gallons and I put only one table spoon of salt per day for the days. Lots of water changes. My smaller tank is ten gallon and that's where I keep the fry. I didn't put salt in this tank because I'm not sure if my rcs would like but after removing sick fish for few days whatever it was seemed to stop. I lost most of my fry to this about ten survived which sucks. I think it's kinda of natures way to keep the population down as nothing new was introduced to my tank and my water was perfect

 

[kitten8351]

Oh I see, well thank you for the advice. I'll need to finish the antibiotics course and set up a tub. I have a lot of fish to move....

 

[Britty]

If its columnaris make sure you lower the tank water temp to 22 - 23'C (71 - 73'F). This slows down the advance of the disease considerably, allowing time for meds to work more effectively. Warm and overly oxygenated water actually makes the disease more active and virulent. Addition of salt will help

 

[kitten8351]

My heaters are off right now, it's just so hot in Texas now that they stay around 82 all day. I will try keeping lights off, opening the hood, and blocking off any sunlight that might come in through windows. Otherwise, do you have any ideas on how can I lower temps? Add an ice pack?

 

[Britty]

Ice pack is OK if you have good flow or water movement so that the water immediately around the ice pack doesn't get close to freezing. You want the water being mixed at all times. But have to keep changing the pack and the treatment could take a week or more. Don't just dive the tank temp in one hit though as this will shock the fish. Go down slowly over a whole 24 hours. Keep an eye on the temp as if left unwatched constant ice packs will lower the water temp too far.

Its a lot easier if the room has air con as this is the most stable way. Turn off all the heat sources like you have and use the air con.

 

[kitten8351]

So by opening the lid, keeping off the lights, and blocking sunlight, the temperature of tank#1 was lowered by 4 degrees to 79'F. Tank#2 is lower as well, but only to 80'F.

The affected fish that have survived so far in Tank#1 don't seem to be clamping anymore and keeping still. They are swimming around and acting normal, but still have bad fin rot and a bit of the grey/whitishness on their bodies. Hopefully their normalized behavior means they are on the road to recovery.

Fish are still clamped in Tank#2. Can't tell yet if fin rot is slowing/stopping just yet. No significant change here.

I will still pull out affected fish when I can.

 

[kitten8351]

These are the best pics I can get of what I'm dealing with. Ignore the whitish protrusion from her anus, it's prolapsed intestine. It's been like that since she was a baby and she has been happy as a clam. But take note of the white area on her side and at the base of her tail. Also the fin rot and milkiness of her fins.