3rd fish in a week...

[cjldad]

I've had 2 fish die last week.. I have a 3rd doing the same today.. Gasping for air it looks like.. I have other fish that are acting perfectly fine... Last week was a platy and a ballon molly.. This week another ballon molly.. Ugh.. Water change was done last week.. Nothing out of the norm on water param..
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10
Ph 7.4
I have been treating with salt for ich.
Tank temp is 82...
I'm beginning to think some of the weaker livebearers can't deal with the extended period of higher temp.. I'm sure that decreases the o2 level in the water.. Filter is breaking the surface no problem.. Even shooting bubbles down in the tank...
Thoughts?? Add an air stone?
Thanks for your help!

 

[DragonFish71]

One thing about salt is that it doesn't evaporate. It will build up, even with water changes. It will dilute some, but it still builds up. Which is why brackish and SW tanks have to monitored more than FW.

I always recommend airstones, especially when keeping a warmer tank.

 

[cjldad]

Any downside of just tossing in a stone to the other fish? Rapid change in o2 levels going to hurt anything?

 

[Bigfoot1030]

I would try to lower the temp a bit. Also add the air stone.

 

[dkpate]

I don't think fish can have too much oxygen. In one of my tanks I have an air stone, a bubble disk, another little bubble thingy and 2 filters running full power. In another tank, I have 2 air stones and a filter, full power. The only thing I would worry about with the air, is the fish not having any "resting" place. I have almost all of my bubbles along the edges so the fish have a place to chill out if that makes sense.

I would not lower the temp until you are sure the ich is gone. The reason you raise the temp is because the ich can't reproduce in the higher temps (usually 86 degrees though), so they fall off the fish faster and then cannot "explode" from their cysts in the gravel to reattach to the fish. The salt is to help with the stress of the fish, and to also keep their slime coat thicker so the ich has a harder time attaching to the fish again.

 

[cjldad]

I thought it was the other way around.. Higher temp to speed up the life cycle of the ich.. And the salt was to keep it from reproducing..

Either way, I have added the air stone at the back corner of the tank.. Looks like the fish are a little agrivated with it at first.. Some are running through it, others chasing one another more than usual... Also, do you check the salinity of freshwater the same way as saltwater?

 

[dkpate]

I forgot to put the part about the ich life cycle speeding up with heat. Yes you are right, but they also can't reproduce in higher temps (86+). The salt is to keep the fish less stressed and give them some "armor" against more ich that survive.
I am not sure about testing for salinity, I just changed out some of my water every day while treating, then cleaned the tank and substrate afterwards.

 

[DragonFish71]

I don't think hydrometers go lower than 1.000, or at least none of the ones I was looking at for our brackish tank.

 

[Blueiz]

Salt at a leverl of 1-3 teaspoos per gallon will kill the ich, a good median for this is to dose 2 teaspoons per gallon depending on your stock. Heat will kill ich as well at temps of 86 and above. The warmer the tank, the faster the reproduction cycle goes. Ich can be killed ONLY in its free swimming stage.



A great article on ich. This expalins the life cycle of ich. A quote from it..

Understanding Ich:

If you fully understand how ich lives, then it is easy to understand how to kill it. Ich is a parasite, which requires a host to live. Fish are the host.
Ich has three life stages. The first stage is the trophont stage, this is the feeding and growth stage of ich. It embeds on your fish, and essentially breaks down the cells around it and absorbs them. The fish?s natural immune defenses will protect the trophont by encasing it with thickened skin and slime coat. It will grow until it reaches roughly the size and appearance of a grain of salt. At which time it sheds it?s cilia, drops off of the fish, finds a home in the substrate and develops an outer ?shell? this shell is virtually impenetrable, and therefore ich is still protected through the second stage of life.
The second stage is the Tomont stage in which it lays in the substrate and begins multiplying. It will divide as much as 2000 times inside it?s protective shell, but does not feed during this stage. After it has divided the hundreds of new ich parasites essentially ?hatch ? and sprout cilia. The free swimmers are called theronts. They swim around trying to find a host (fish). If they find one they attach and begin the trophont stage all over again. During this free swimming stage, ich is vulnerable to medication and other treatments. Furthermore it will die quickly if it does not find a host.
Time frames for each stage are extremely dependant on temperature. Higher temperatures speed up the life cycle dramatically. It may take ich several weeks to go through all three stages in a cool pond, while at 80*f + it will go through all stages in a matter of a few days to a week.

 

[cjldad]

I hit the tank with the higher temps and higher salt level as soon as I saw it appear on the fin of one of the molly's.. It's been a little over 3 weeks since I began the treatment and I've seen nothing else show up since.. I took the temp up to 86 slowly, and have been bringing it down slowly since.. Hope to get it back to 78 over the next couple days.. Just hope I can get this molly back.. Afraid it is too far gone though...

 

[Blueiz]

Glad to hear it's cleared up for you, good luck with the molly.. The added areation should help.

How are you removing the salt? Personally, I just gradually remove it with regular water changes by not adding any back instead of trying to remove it all at one time. This also allows the fish to acclimate back to the water with no salt in it over a period of time.

 

[i3k]

Just remember that ICH attacks the gills as well so that may explain why some of your fish are gasping for air.

 

[dkpate]

+1 for i3k. That's true too!

 

[cabezon]

I don't think hydrometers go lower than 1.000, or at least none of the ones I was looking at for our brackish tank.

1.000 would be pure water.

 

[cjldad]

Wouldn't I be seeing more ich issues though? I had one cyst show up on a molly, I began treatment and saw nothing more on any fish.. I figured I would have to see something more than just that one cyst.. Thoughts?

 

[Blueiz]

If you caught it early, then you most likely started treatment before it got the chance to infect more.

I purchased some platies for the 55 g that I just redid. While observing them last week I saw one spot on the tail fin of one of them, I immediately started treatment for ich. I only saw one other spot on the dorsal fin of a different fish. The spots have since went away and no other fish got any on them.

As already said, the ich could be in the gills where you cant see it. I think that you have already cured the ich and the fish may just be having the residual affect from being stressed first by the ich, and second by the treatment method. Get your tank temp back to normal, do some small water changes spread a few days apart and see if they improve.

There is a chance that you have something else going on, the fish's immune system has been weakened allowing other diseases to have an advantage in making your fish sick.

 

[cjldad]

How would I go about testing for other problems?

 

[dkpate]

I had the same problem kinda. One got ich and the other got what I now believe to be some sort of fungus in the same tank. As soon as I am done treating for the ich, I am going to start treatment on the fungus. I had already tried treatment with Melafix with no changes. It is getting really frustrating, I feel your pain! LOL

 

[cjldad]

Well, the molly passed last night.. This is in my 3 year old sons tank, he told it he loved it and named off all of the other people and animals he will see in heaven.. Then, like out of the blue, a baby molly swam by.. We got out the net and put it in it's breeder tank.. So far so good.. Only have baby brine shrimp for it right now, going to look at the store tonight for some fry powder.. My son is pumped that we finally have a baby fish...

 

[mfdrookie516]

you can also just crush up some regular flakes, thats all i ever feed my fry. i make it in to a powder