# How to make sure tank is free of infection?



## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

Hello,

Will try to make the long story as short as possible.

I have a planted tank with endlers, shrimps, snails and bloodfin tetras. Got a pair of guppies and noticed the female swimmig weird (going up and down all the time) on the second day, on the 3d one she got the fins clamp in the morning and was dead when I got home at the evening. As the male started behaving the same way I returned it to the store. Did a 15% water change. 2 days later I got one of the endlers with clamped fins. Water parameters were fine, I added some aquarium salt and did a 20-25% water change. Another 2 days later I got a female with a bit of a cottony-like thing on her tail, not really like fungus, more like a bacterial stuff. Got her and 2 more that were having clamped fins out in a hospital tank and did another water change. Started feeding them with anti-bacterial food and put Primafix (was recommended to me in case it is fungus). During next few days I lost all of these  The main tank was OK, no more sick fish and I was hopeful that it's gone. 3 days ago I did some gardening, cleaning and water change and at the evening I got a female with a bit of a cottony-like thing on her eye, got her out and had another one looking exactly the same next morning. Both of them died the next day in the hospital tank. 
Sorry for the loooong story, but wanted to give as many details as possible, so you can help me. The shrimps and bloodfin tetras look fine and I still have some survivals from the endlers. What can I do to make sure the tank is clean now? Didn't want to use more medications because of plants and shrimps and was hoping it was an acident. But these last two killed my hopes 
Any comments would be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!


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## user_error (Aug 15, 2010)

sorry to hear this i hope someone can help


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

Thanks, user_error, me too.
And don't worry the plants are from a (hopefully) all healthy betta tank.


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## tony1928 (Apr 22, 2010)

Sorry to hear this. My only comment on this would be that Pima/Melafix are good products but not likely strong enough as a cure to already infected fish. From what I hear they are a good preventative additive and perhaps may be the only option for people that have livestock that are extremely sensitive to "real" medications. I think whatever medicinal compounds they contain are too mild to treat fish once symptoms are present. Good luck with your tank.


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

Thank you. I read same kind of comments too, but this was what LPS people recommended, I guess because I told them I have shrimps and plants and wanted to play safe. On the other hand the medicted food I got says it is not safe for saltwater invertbreeders, so not sure that was good for my shrimps.

My biggest concern now is will tank get "clear" by itself and how soon?
If I don't have a sick fish in say 2 weeks, am I good to go and get some new ones?
Do I need to treat the whole tank to make sure it is safe now?
I guess if all endlers end up dying I will never know if the tank is still infected. But if the remaining few are fine, then what?
I never had that kind of situation before and I am not sure what to do.


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## BigFatLyre (Apr 22, 2010)

To actually answer your question: How can I be sure........the one way is to break the tank completely down, and start over, which we do a lot on this forum!

The other is UV; I'm becoming a big, big believer that it's great for a lot of things: water clarity, prevention, and while the initial investment is quite large, it's the one item that does it's tour through a number of my tanks on an ongoing basis. 

I currently use a small AA Aquarium UV (60.) and can increase the flow by not putting the sponge filter back in.


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

Thanks for the answer. Yeah, I was thinking of break the tank and start over, but still, I have to clean everything and then, what about the rest of the fish? How to get them clean if they carry something?

UV sounds good, it is safe for everybody else including the shrimps? I read about that before, but don't remember any details. And I know these guys are expensive 
Maybe I can borrow yours  if that is a one-two time treatments.

I'll do some reading this evening. Thanks!


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## Kitsune (Jul 17, 2010)

UV is fine for all species involved since it just sterilizes the water as it passes through the unit (i.e. everything microbial that goes through it dies). It does not leave any residuals behind.


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

That sounds exactly what I need! I feel like I want to "boil" the whole tank to make it clean.

I guess that's gonna kill the good bacteria too, right? There is no way UV "knows" which are the good guys.

Now I have to ask kindly if somebody can borrow theirs  How many treatments are needed?


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## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

I think that UV is good for algae and perhaps ich but I don't think that it would help you if your tank has a virulent infection like a virus or even a fast-spreading bacterial infection like columnaris. (Others may say differently, though.) UV doesn't kill the nitrifying bacteria in a tank, which is why I don't think that it would kill the necrotizing bacteria (so to speak).

Sometimes, the best thing to do is to take the tank apart and start again, bleaching it and starting with fresh media. It's a lot of work, but sometimes necessary. However, since you have surviving fish and shrimp, that's not very practical. You can't boil your fish!

However, I also think that if you can effectively stop the progression of a disease with salt or good antibiotics and your remaining fish recover, then the tank environment will recover. This would mean that you could save your plants, too.

In your case, it sounds as though you don't have very many inhabitants left in your tank. Even if an antibiotic wiped out your 'good' bacteria, your fish will probably be able to survive happily with water changes until the cycle reestablished itself. And these days, many antibiotics don't harm the filter. So, if I were you I wouldn't worry about harming the cycle and instead just worry about the fish and shrimp. Given how dire the infection is, I think that extreme measures are warranted (that is, it's worth risking potent medications).

Since your fish definitely have an infection and it looks like a fungus, I'd suggest a multi-purpose treatment that would target both true fungus and columnaris, which is a bacteria that resembles a fungus and spreads quickly. I think Jungle makes a product called Lifeguard that treats a range of illnesses at once. I tried it once with my microrasboras and it didn't seem to affect my plants or filter. A snail survived. I don't know about shrimp, though. Maybe erythromycin would work. But I"m not a fish disease expert.

I'm really sorry that you're facing this nightmarish situation. Probably, there are other people here who have better suggestions than I have. I think that whatever you do, your tank will come through in time. Various approaches will work. You probably feel very blue and overwhelmed right now, but one day soon you will have a happy group of fish again.

Good luck.


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

Morainy, thanks a lot for taking so much of your time to answer and give so much information. And I appreciate the support a lot! As you guess I very down and blue as you know how much I loved these endlers and how much efforts and love I put into starting that tank. And to lose it all like this is not easy  And I have never experienced that kind of infection that is killing my fish one after the other like that. Very depressing indeed!

As you said because of the survivals I don't really want to break the tank and start over. I will do it if there is no other way to fight this. But again, with the fish, shrimp and plants I can easily just have the bacteria start spreading again.

Can somebody recommend a treatment that will kill bacteria and won't harm shrimp and plants? I did a lot of reading, but everything contradicts, so I would like to get advice from people that tried something and it worked.
Thanks a lot!


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

i found this while looking on how to treat my new tank:

Now that we understand the life cycle of freshwater ich, many of our treatment recommendations make more sense. Because the life cycle is temperature-dependent and the ich can only be killed in the tomite stage, we will want to raise the tank temperature to 78-80°F over 48 hours to speed the cycle of tomite formation and release. Theoretically, if the cycle takes four days to complete at this temperature, then the treatment should be complete in 4 days. On the other hand, if the temperature is much colder, for example at 60°F, the treatment would need to last for several weeks or longer.

Since we understand that we cannot kill ich while it is on the fish, we know that moving a fish to a quarantine tank to treat will not solve the problem in the main tank. The time to use a quarantine tank is before a new fish is introduced into a display tank. If a fish in a tank has ich, you must assume that the entire tank is now contaminated with ich and must be treated.

Another way to get ich out of a tank is to remove all of the fish. Since we know that the tomites can only survive for 48 hours without attaching to a fish, if we remove all of the fish and then raise the temperature to 80°, the existing ich in the tank should be dead after 2 days. To be safe, wait 4 days before returning the fish to the tank. But remember, you will need to treat the tank that the fish are moved to, otherwise, fish entering that tank could become infected.

Remember, we are treating the tank, not the fish, so all effective treatments are designed to kill the trophite form of the disease while it is in the tank. The mature ich organisms that cause the problems on the fish do not die from treatment, but fall off in a couple of days during their normal life cycle and then their offspring die from the treatment in the water.

Some of the best treatments historically have been formalin or malachite green, or a combination of the two. Copper, methylene blue, and baths of potassium permanganate, quinine hydrochloride, and sodium chloride have also been used but do not appear to offer an advantage over the more readily available formalin and malachite green products.

When using formalin, make sure to use recently purchased formalin. Formalin that is stored for long periods of time can convert to paraformaldehyde, which can be toxic to fish. An indicator that this has occurred is the formation of a white precipitate in the bottle. Malachite green may also stain some decorations and silicone to a green color and may be toxic to piranhas, neons, sunfish, and some scaleless fish, if given at the recommended dose. For these fish or other sensitive species, they should be treated at half strength and monitored carefully for signs of distress.

While we rarely recommend treating an entire tank for a disease, ich is an exception. Make sure to follow individual label directions, and remove the carbon from your filter and shut off any UV sterilizers or protein skimmers during treatment because they will inactivate or remove any medications that are added.


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

Thanks a lot, neven! I think I read something like that before.
I am not sure it is ich though. Only one of all fish I lost had 3 white dots on one of the fins. Most had different kind of cottony-like things - 2 on the tail and 2 - above their eye (just one eye). The rest was rapid - clamped fins for a day or two and then dead 
No idea what is that  Can ich lead to such "cotton" in a stressed/weak fish?


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

either way, if your tank is guppy's and endlers, i recommend the highest temp your tetra's can handle.

Personally what i've done was set the tank to 28 C (guppies only), and i started to dose metricide every 12 hours instead of 24h. my reasoning for this is formaldehyde, is an active ingredient in one form of ich treatment so im hoping the glutaraldehyde will get me the same results. Formalin says 5 mL every other day per 10 gallons of water and the concentration of it is 3% formaldehyde, metricide is 2.6%.

Not sure if it'll work but i got no cash to spare for some aquarium meds


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

What bothers me is that bacteria infection that i suspect and Morainy also mentioned is supposed to be treated with low temperature as it can't handle that, but spread fast in high. They also give sudden raise of temp as one of the reasons for that bacteria and when I think about that it all happened exactly during the temp spike in mid-Aug.
Metricide is something I read will help eigther way. What I can't find is if that is safe for shrimps?


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

very high dosages of metricide are harmful to shrimp, my bba thread covers the threshold. I've dosed 4 times recommend levels with shrimp in my 29G tank, so i know the limits, but thats for my tank and shrimp only. But im not sure if this works, its something im trying out 

as for medications safety for fish, this one explains it:

http://www.fishchannel.com/media/freshwater-aquariums/aquarium-care/transferring-fish.aspx.pdf

most medications are the same thing under different brands. Some blend a few types together.


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

Sounds good! Thanks a lot, neven! I will do some more reading and give it one more day for more responses and then will go with it.


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

I read the desctiption of Lifeguard and they don't recommend it for Invertebrates. Is that only a precaution to be safe?
Other then this sounds like a magical medication.


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## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

I just looked in my aquarium pharmacy and found a new box of Jungle Lifeguard. It says that it attacks a broad range of fish diseases, including fungus, ick, fin rot, etc. It also says that it is not suitable for scaleless fish or invertebrates.

I don't know whether you want to give it a try or how it would affect your shrimp. At this point, the best thing might be to just keep doing the water changes and a bit of salt and hope that some fish pull through. But if you'd like to try the Jungle Lifeguard I will give you my box. 

I have used this product but not with shrimp. I don't know if there are better products. So, I'm not promoting it but if you'd like to try it, you are welcome to. Having sick fish is very stressful!


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

Thank you so much, you are so kind! I am not sure what to do  I feel very lost and really stressed now. I see symptoms everywhere, even another tank this morning  I guess I am getting paranoid at this time 
I was hoping to get more advices from people that also have shrimps. But I guess that kind of outbreak are not that common.
One thing I know is once it's over, I will never EVER put a LFS fish in my tank before quarantine! And I guess getting fish from a store won't happen anytime soon


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## chillin (Apr 21, 2010)

you can try salt bath treament when transfering the fish to a quarantine tank,this treatment, is less stressful and seems to jumpstart the immune system,seachem makes some meds; follow directions;lots of water changes and remedicate.. hope this helps..chillin


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

Thanks! Salt baths were what I did when this all started. And I kept the hospial tank with higher salt too, but that didn't help.
Looks like it is parasite thing, but nobody can be sure. The symptoms are just so similar.
How often and how big water changes? I currently do 20% every 3 days.
And I add 1 table spoon salt per 5 g. I think that did affected some of my plants already, but I hope they will grow again after all that nightmare ends.


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

A little bit of update.
I have no new sick fish since Monday. But 2 of the endlers do try to scratch at plants every now and then. Not too often, but it happens.
The guy that treats the fish in the store I got the sick guppy said they treat them with sufla and it is safe for shrimps. I saw that the medicated food contains sulfa too, so maybe that saves the remaining fish. It did not help in the hospital tank, but maybe it was too late for them.
There is a chance this thing is parasite too.

So, I see these approaches:
1. What I am doing right now - 20% water change every 3-4 days adding 1 tablespoon of salt per 5 g. No idea if that helps, but I am about to loose the moneyworth plant already, it lost lots of leaves, but is not melting yet.

2. Treat the tank with sulfa or some other anti-bacterial medicine like Quick Sure (is supposed to be safe for shrimps) or ParaGuard (nobody can really say if it is safe for shrimps)

3. Get the shrimps out (that's gonna be a pain, but I can get the bigger ones at least) and treat the tank, but again treat with anti-bacterial or anti-parasite medication.

Any advice or comment will be very much appreciated!
Thanks a lot!


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## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

Hey, Infrareddream. I have some Quick Cure if you'd like to try it. I don't think it's usual for endlers to scratch at plants (but they like to poke around for food).

It sounds like your tank situation is stabilizing.


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

Thanks Morainy, maybe Quick Cure is what I should do to make sure it is all clear. I think (want to believe) they scratch less these last 2 days then they did, but can't be really sure.
I wonder if Quick Cure will help to clean parasite AND bacteria as nobody can't really say what is bugging them.

I hope HOPE you're right and it is stabilizing. I know that I am almost starting to enjoy that tank again. Just still afraid. I don't want to see any clamped fins ever again!


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## eliteanny (Sep 7, 2010)

*Wall Fountains*

you can try salt bath treament when transfering the fish to a quarantine tank,this treatment, is less stressful and seems to jumpstart the immune.

SOURCE:ethanpaulfountains.com


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## InfraredDream (Jun 24, 2010)

Yes, this is what I started it, but it did not help.

It's been a week since the last sick fish, I so much HOPE this is all behind us.
But I still wonder what is it the way to make sure the tank is clean?
The remaining fish had anti-bacteria food for almost 2 weeks. Maybe that helped them, but can the bacteria still be in the water?


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