What to do after mouth rot and ich treatment?

[slickdc5]

Okay so this whole nightmare started while I was away and my mom accidentally dropped the fish flake container open in the tank. It was a little under half of a 1.6oz container. She got most of what she could out before my fish started feasting. However when I got home the next day I notice mouth rot building around on 2 of turquoise rainbow as well as fin rot on my angel fish. I have yet to replace my quarantine tank at the moment so I went ahead and treated the whole tank 55 gallons. I did a 25 % water change before treatment of Furan 2. However I later notice that night ich white spots building around all of them. I search the internet for treatments for both ich and rot, and read it wasn't a good idea to mix medications so I went with the salt and heat treatment and continued with the Furan 2 treatment. I got rid of all my plants washed out all my drift wood with boil water. On the 3rd day the rot has gone away thank god so I went ahead and added carbon and did a water change. Now its the 4th day and the ich has disappeared but I am continuing the salt and heat treatment for another 5 days as recommended in some articles.

I am going to be replacing the the filter sponges, carbon, polish pads from my fluvial 306 canister, but I am wondering if I should replace the BIOMAX? Is there a chance for any of the bacteria that cause rot or ich live in there?

Tank: 55 Gallon
Fish: 3 angel fish, 1 Blood parrot, 4 rainbow, 1 tiger barb, 1 Bristle nose pleco, 2 cuckoo catfish, emerald cory. All full grown and all grew up together.
Maintenance: 10% water change every week.

BTW just some FYI the salt/heat treatment worked well with my catfish i was a bit worried, but its seems they took it very well. I slowly acclimated them to the salt by putting 1 table spoon into every bucket of new water every hour. I will be slowly getting rid of the salt with my weekly water changes.

 

[LyndaB]

You can leave your biomax. You don't have to replace all those other filter parts unless they're falling apart. Change too much out at once and you end up crashing your cycle.

Also, you should up the water changes to 50% weekly. In my opinion, 10% is not enough considering the stocking of this tank.

 

[slickdc5]

You can leave your biomax. You don't have to replace all those other filter parts unless they're falling apart. Change too much out at once and you end up crashing your cycle.

Also, you should up the water changes to 50% weekly. In my opinion, 10% is not enough considering the stocking of this tank.

thanks for response. Okay so I'll leave the filter parts in aside from the carbon. I also was thinking about increasing the water change too. I guess its probably why my tank was so easily affected by an overfeed.

 

[LyndaB]

Look at it this way, with a 10% water change, there's no way you're getting a decent and thorough gravel vac done. I don't think the spilled food was the real issue, I think it was the final straw. Most likely, the detritus had been building up in the substrate for some time and that mess just pushed it over the edge. Make sense?

 

[slickdc5]

Look at it this way, with a 10% water change, there's no way you're getting a decent and thorough gravel vac done. I don't think the spilled food was the real issue, I think it was the final straw. Most likely, the detritus had been building up in the substrate for some time and that mess just pushed it over the edge. Make sense?

I was so use to doing 10% since I had them when they were all tiny. I never put much thought into doing more since they are mostly all full grown now. Sigh... I do have a Fluval U4 sitting in the garage, but now I feel that its better if I just find another home for a few of my fish.

 

[ejaramillo01]

I was so use to doing 10% since I had them when they were all tiny. I never put much thought into doing more since they are mostly all full grown now. Sigh... I do have a Fluval U4 sitting in the garage, but now I feel that its better if I just find another home for a few of my fish.

How long they have been in the tank?

I agreed with Linda recommendation +1
As they grow up, they generate more waste. More waste means the need to do a more detailed vacuum and an increase in the amount of PWC. Plus it is not normal to have two nasty infections in the tank as a result of one overfeed or accident with the food.