Sad day in the fish room

Narwhal72 · Post by **Narwhal72** » 26 Jul 2016, 14:48

Well it's been a disheartening week in my fish room.

I brought back some nice cichlids from the ACA convention and put them into a holding tank in my central system. It had been a long time since I bought fish from anywhere other than a local breeder and I was careless. My UV sterilizer lamp had burned out and I wasn't paying attention and soon my whole central system was infected with ick.

Last night I removed the carcasses of my 3 Gold Nugget plecos that I had been growing out for the last 4 years. Lost a group of 4 year old Satanoperca daemon also. My L226 colony and the large Royal plecos in the system look terrible but haven't succumbed yet. Ick is on just about everything.

Did two treatments with ick medication over the weekend and got the UV back up and running last night. Put on a smaller portable UV on one tank also. Tank temperature is up to 83 degrees and still climbing (will stall it at 86 degrees). Hopefully the losses will slow down.

Only good news is that once it is all said and done, I will relieve some of the overcrowding in my non-system tanks.

Andy

YouTube · Post by **bekateen** » 26 Jul 2016, 14:57

That's awful, Andy. Sorry for your loss.

Regards, Eric

TwoTankAmin · Post by **TwoTankAmin** » 26 Jul 2016, 15:55

Sorry to hear about your losses. I have been having some issues recently as well, so I know exactly how you are feeling.

MChambers · Post by **MChambers** » 26 Jul 2016, 20:08

That's horrible. Hang in there.

nabulus · Post by **nabulus** » 26 Jul 2016, 21:16

Good luck with the treatment.

Narwhal72 · Post by **Narwhal72** » 27 Jul 2016, 01:44

Thanks for the encouragement everyone.

pleconut · Post by **pleconut** » 27 Jul 2016, 07:51

Sorry to hear this news. Check instructions on ick treatment container. Some at least of those available in uk, state not to use with UV filtration. Though some can be used in conjunction with UV.

Narwhal72 · Post by **Narwhal72** » 27 Jul 2016, 14:54

I ran the ick medication with the UV off. After 3 days of treatment I did some large water changes and put the UV back on.

I generally try to avoid using medications and often just manipulate temperature to treat parasites. But in my central system it takes a long time to heat up.

Andy

Linus_Cello · Post by **Linus_Cello** » 27 Jul 2016, 15:24

My condolences.

A past speaker (Joe Gargas) at our fish club uses a vortex diatom filter, and according to him it takes care of the ich cysts.
http://www.diatomfilter.com/

Aquaticus · Post by **Aquaticus** » 27 Jul 2016, 16:00

Sorry to hear about that, Andy.

Narwhal72 · Post by **Narwhal72** » 27 Jul 2016, 18:20

Joe Gargas was speaking here recently.

I have used Vortex diatoms in the past and still run a Tetra Diatomagic for regular polishing. IME they are never effective at disease treatment. Prevention maybe. But in a 10 tank central system appropriately sized and functioning UV's work best.

toby · Post by **toby** » 27 Jul 2016, 20:28

Sorry to hear about the loss. Easy to say and I've been there but try and not beat yourself up over it - accidents happen even to the most experienced people in all hobbies - we get caught up in every day life and let something slip we wouldn't otherwise.

Jobro · Post by **Jobro** » 02 Aug 2016, 12:16

Sorry about the loss. I'm having a case of ICK in my growout tank right now as well. First I used a medication I didn't use before and when it did not show effect after 3 days, I switched to Esha Exit and now after 2 days of treatment it's almost all gone. This medication seems to work really well and it's actually really cheap. Does not harm snails or shrimps. I never lost a pleco to ick and I'm positive it's thanks to this medicine. It's like 3,99€ on amazon and usually has an expiration date of something like 2 years. It's really handy to have one at home. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to sell this stuff, but I read too many sad ICK incidents lately and I feel there could be less casualties with this medicine.

Narwhal72 · Post by **Narwhal72** » 02 Aug 2016, 14:38

Well I think it has worked itself out of the system. Fish are back to normal and I don't see any spots.

Total losses were the following:
3 Gold Nuggets
5 x L226
4 x L180 (whole colony)
4 x L411 (whole colony)
1 x Longfin Blue eye albino BN. A really beautiful specimen
3 x Retroculus xinguensis
3 x Guianacara dacrya
6 x Satanoperca daemon
1 x Rainbow cichlid

Loricariids took the brunt of the infection. Lost most of the ones in the system. Only survivors were two large Royals and a group of L020. Corydoras were unaffected and amazingly enough so were the tetras in the system. There was one Tatia musaica that I saw one night with a lot of spots but I haven't seen any body so far.

Will keep the system on quarantine for another month before shuffling fish around.

Andy

plecoboy · Post by **plecoboy** » 04 Aug 2016, 03:59

That sucks. Sorry for the losses. I had a similar experience and lost all but 1 of my breeding lower Rio xingus and a pair of L260s.

Narwhal72 · Post by **Narwhal72** » 04 Aug 2016, 15:15

Still finding more losses. Found some dead Trachelichthys exilis in one of the smaller tanks on the system. Moved the portable UV over to that tank.

Post by **Barbie** » 05 Aug 2016, 05:56

I recently had a really resistant strain of ich at the shop. It did not look like normal ich under the scope and it was not sensitive to the proform C treatments that usually are very effective. We ended up curing it with a 5 dose treatment, every other day of a product called MinnFinn. It was a little hard on a few species, but it did completely eradicate the bug from the system. It might be at least worth checking into.

I currently have a litter of puppies and their mama dog has been quite ill, so I'm sorry I'm just now seeing this thread

.

Barbie

Narwhal72 · Post by **Narwhal72** » 05 Aug 2016, 14:46

Thanks for the info Barbie. I will look for that medication. Hoping to bring some fish back from Catcon and it will be good to have on hand.

Seems like the woodcats were the last to go. Lost all of them. Other fish and corys look fine now and are all eating good.

Keeping the system on quarantine for another month and adding another system UV for the future.

Andy

mountainman36 · Post by **mountainman36** » 07 Aug 2016, 21:30

we use minnfinn in my pond business - be careful of it with catfish. im not sure how it would do with them. its potent stuff, but works amazingly well.

Post by **Barbie** » 08 Aug 2016, 02:18

Read the instructions is definitely going to be top on the list of recommendations as it doesn't work the same for all species, but I did use it on 40 or 50 species of catfish, before I recommended trying it ;).

Barbie

Annamtau · Post by **Annamtau** » 08 Aug 2016, 06:12

So sorry for your losses!! Truly heartbreaking.

I am scared to death right now as I am encountering my first experience with ich in my tank. Noticed some small white spots on a couple of ram cichlids in my community tank that has a 6/7 in snowball plec, a young LF albino, another 2 yo male albino, tetras & an elephant nose.

I had at home a product called ich-x, never used.. but on hand if ever the need arose; so seeing as it did, I dosed ~ 75% the recommended dose and the elephant nose was dead in 12 hrs. I noticed it acting funny instantly & did a 50% h2o chg immediately, but it wasn't enough. Now I'm scared to continue treatment-- LFS recommended 50% dose split into morning & evening & 20-30% h2o changes/ day.
Any advice ?? I don't want to lose anymore fish to the wrong treatment!! Also upped aquarium temp to 81, added some extra salt.. Any help would be great!
And again-- Narwhal72, I'm sorry!!!

Jobro · Post by **Jobro** » 08 Aug 2016, 08:16

As posted before, I had really good experience with Esha Exit. Dose it just as the package says. Did never harm any of my fishes. Sadly I don't know about the availability outside of Europe

Barbie used something else that should be available in the US, just read through the thread and you should find it.

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