Aaaaaaaand here we go again

Are you removing all the duckweed or are you just thinning it out?

 

I removed most of it but didn't pick all of it out. I don't mind its presence - I need it until I get my phosphates under control; I just don't want it interfering while I'm treating my poor feesh.

I think if I'd run an airstone it would have been fine, so I'm not blaming the duckweed.

 

I am sorry to hear that. I feel bad a bit for not reading all the previous post thoroughly, I should have picked up on the fact that you dont run an air pump in this tank. With temps that high you should actually circulate the water. The warmer water also "carry" less oxygen and requires the use of an air pump. 37 years ago, my history teacher's favourite saying was "Assumption is the mother of all fu*@&#^s. I assumed because I run air in everything with water in it, that its normal for everybody to do so. Sorry again, I feel partly responsible for the deaths.

 

I added a fairly powerful flowpump to circulate the water past the heaters for precisely this reason - there is quite a lot of flow going round and round the tank with a little bit of agitation thrown in too. But I've now seen how rapidly oxygen can get depleted so even doing a checkup wasn't going to help unless I babysat it.

30'C plus a double dose of Paraguard are strong medicine and Murphy was waiting to pounce on any oversights. I'm staying the course with the high temp and meds, but there won't be a repeat of this morning, that's for sure.

I'm kinda pragmatic about it this time round - the barbs are fine and that's the most important to me. The tetras would probably have died anyway if I didn't do something and I'm not going to browbeat myself out of hindsight.

 

I dont want to hijack the thread but that stuff is just awful if not managed correctly. I left a tank with those in, it grew in what seems to be layers on top of each other, it got so thick that the top layer "smothered" the layers below. They would then die and fall to the bottom forming this terrible layer of debris on the substrate that seems to never ever break down. Once established, its seems impossible to get rid off, there is always one or two leaves remaining that will just repopulate the tanks within days. Some new plants got introduced to my tanks recently again with some hornwort I bought. So the fight to get rid of them started all over. There is only one thing it's good for, my Malawis love them as a food source and I feed halve a net full to them once a week.

 

I do like them and find them cute. I had duckweed in my childhood tank and it never really caused a problem (and probably kept my fish alive too!) - the only annoyance now is the constant snow of fine roots in the water column, and that it messes with my mojo while I'm trying to restore my fish' mojo. There will come a time when it will have done the job and/or I'm gatvol of the irritation of it sticking to anything you insert into the water.

I want Ludwigia sedoides!

ETA is it Fish' or Fish's? Or fishes' ?

A mystery wrapped in an enigma.

 

Fishes' if you're taking about the barbs and the tetras, fish' if you're just talking about the barbs or if you're just talking about the tetra

 

Fisheseses'n

 

yeah that layer of roots that fall off the bottom layer makes such a mess and never breaks down, aarggh

 

It's now been almost a week of Paraguard, all of it over the recommended dose - half of it at practically double dosage, and 24 hours of broiling. This thing is bloody obstinate - I keep noticing new dots on the barbs (they're 99.9% pest-free so any new trophonts stand out like a sore, well, trophont). Luckily the trophonts don't last on the barbs for long, for whatever reason.



The CTs look as bad as ever, but otherwise seem in good spirits. I'm getting the feeling that I might have to eventually prep the HT and then it's gonna be salty, formaliny, malachitey, metheleney bizniz.

I kept the tank in darkness the whole day, with an airstone. With the airstone running and the duckweed gone, there were no issues. I'm flipping the photoperiod and tonight the tank will run full lights without airstone (I don't want to run it 24/7 - it gasses out the aldehydes in the PG). The plants will take care of oxygen and I can get some sleep. I have a long busy day tomorrow.

 

Judging from this very grainy picture, I think you're mistake on the condition. This could most likely be Epistylis. This is most likely why it's taking this long to resolve.

I've had an ich outbreak 1 week before I needed to travel to SA and I was absolutely gutted because this meant I would not have time to heal the fish while I'm gone (I was an idiot and bought on impulse and did not quarantine due to my time constraints) I've used para guard and temperature at 28 to 30 and fish were healthy by day 3, done a water change and by day 5 they were all perfectly fine. Everytime I checked on my fish from my camera they all seemed there so this is a good sign. The list of fish in this tank are as follows:

• 1 female guppy
• 10 cherry barbs
• 6 harlequin rasbora
• 10 neon tetra
• 9 black neon tetra
• 2 apistos (they were dead on day one of the ich outbreak, possibly my fault because I upped the temp too rapidly)
• 5 kuhli loaches (I'll never know this true number ever)
• 3 Otto's
• 3 SAE
• 8 or so ember tetra
• 6 rummy nose tetras
• A full breeding colony of assassin snails

Only bodies I found were the apistos and none until I left for SA 7 days after the first spots were discovered.

Yes I know my tank is highly stocked but it's also very densely planted and mature (ada soil is about 4 years old at this point and media in the filter is well established.

I am heading back home tomorrow so on Thursday morning I can try to do a headcount and see if anyone's missing but from my camera monitoring most fish are accounted for

 

I'm 10000000% certain it's ich. Please take a look at the pics on page 1.

 

treating epistylis with:

• Feed an antibiotic like Kanaplex or Maracyn 2 in the food and ONLY in the food.
• Dropping the aquarium temperature to 70 degrees
• Add a ton of aeration to the aquarium
• Feed the antibiotic laced food very lightly till the infestation clears
• If there is any possibility that it is ich or a mixed ich/epistylis infection add a formaldehyde/ malachite green medication like Ich-X to the water

so interesting ich you raise the temp and treat the water, epistylis, treat the food and drop the temp, who ever said fishkeeping is easy..

i have always wondered why the fish in the store never show symptoms until you get them home..

 

I've done endless reading up and my eyes are shriveled prunes from gazing at interminable streams of comparison pics. It's definitely not epistylis. The dots are tiny and uniform and "ceiling white" and mostly present on the fins. There's no grey fluffiness or much sticky-outiness.

I've read a number of research articles that state that salt and elevated temperatures do not treat infestations on fish, but does help reduce transmission particularly in fry and fingerlings. Fish also develop a resistance to it so that's a big confounding variable with some people getting results with salt/temps and others (moi) not. Epystylis does not kill directly, it's the comorbid bacterial infection that is exacerbated by high temperatures. I'm not seeing any ulceration at all and from what I've read the CTs should have been dead by now if it was Epistylis.

The only consistently effective treatment appears to be formalin, MG and MB - and copper sulphate which I'll try to avoid. There is a lot of conflicting information out there but I am absolutely, positively, hunnerd percents certain it's Ich. The blurry photos only confuse and I'm not going to fiddle with the treatment regime out of FUD until it becomes clear it does not work then I'll try HT. The fish do look somewhat better this morning, so I'll carry on with the 30'C for another day or two. I'm going to invest in a UV sterilizer for the HT too because I'm tired of dealing with this shit and stressed fish and don't want a repeat.

 

I am excited to hear that, I truly hope this is soon to be nothing but a vague memory for you.

TBO I cant remember when last i had a proper outbreak, and touch wood don't hope it will be happening soon again, but reading this remained in the back of my head and walking into my fishroom early in the morning I saw what looked like "Glitters" on a few of my Platinum Angles (2 Different tanks). I froze and at first thought, wow that looks really beautiful, wait, what is that? Ick????????. So I stormed the tanks and got really close up and saw its the scales. Apparently called Pearl Scale Platinum Angles. Truly impressive and a few will definitely rehome to my Display tanks.

The camera does not do it justice, but at the correct angle it looked like a severe case of white spot. So weird how the things we read and see can affect the way we think.

 

Those are very disciplined, well-drilled Ich spots.

 

Wish I had a way of recording what i saw when i walked in, at that moment i did not see how perfect the lines were, I just saw all this shiny spots and thought to myself 'Aaaaaaand here we go again!!!"

 

I'm telling you, I will from now on ALWAYS quarantine fish and the QT is going to look like a meth lab with an overall Biosecurity Level 4 vibe.

 

Just reading this I realized I took my uv from the cichlid tank and added it to my planted tank shortly after the second dose and this could have also aided in my healing. In any case I will, in a couple hours from now know for sure how many fish have actually survived. I'm gonna check page 1 again and will come back to you on that thought

 

Yup this

Yup this looks exactly how mine started off.