CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

So I have had problems with ich in my tank a few times, and just a few days ago I took out all the gravel and cleaned it. That seemed to lessen it somewhat, but the next day it was back even more severely. I had been treating them with something called QuICK Cure. Yesterday, my mom came home with a heater for my tank, and I installed it, setting the temp to 75. My fish are now sluggish and very inactive. My black mollies and guppies just linger around the top, a smaller guppy sitting right next to the heater. My cory cats, pleco and chinese algae eater just kind of sit around the bottom, but the corys periodically move about. I don't know what to dooooo! I love my fish tank and I don't want them to die, but I have no idea what is wrong with them.


And to add insult to injury, the ich is cleared up it seems.

As of right now I am going to try moving the heater and lowering the temp a few degrees. *shrugs* Maybe that'll do some good.

well first off cleaning the gravel wasn't such a good idea because it has bennificial bacteria that your tank needs, vacuming it during water changes is a must but taking it out and cleaning it is a no no.

to me it sounds like your fish are under a lot of stress, from the ich outbreak and your attempts to reamidy it all probably caused stress. poor water quality might aslo be an issue, what size tank do you have and what type of filtration are you using, what are your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels at? how long has your tank been set up and did you allow it to cycle before adding fish?

my suggestion for you right now is to try to keep the water quality up with water changes but other than that try not to do anything that will stress the fish. also you might want to try adding aquarium salt to try and keep disease away, here is a link about aquarium salt
http://www.worldcichlids.com/faqs/salt.html

oh one more thing, when doing water changes make sure to treat the water with some sort of tap water conditioner to remove chlorine before using it to refill the tank, and don't do more than a 50% water change as that will cause to much stress on your fish. you probably already knew this stuff but because i recomended water changes i want to make sure you're doing them right.

Actually, concerning water changes I have a question. My house is on well water, and it's softened and filtered before it even makes it to the faucet. I'm pretty sure it is filtered through a salt filter, but it doesn't nessecarily add salt to the water. Is this bad for my fish? They seemed to be doing just fine with it until the past few days and now everybody just seems upset.

I have a 10gal with an under the gravel filter, and an air stone. I just turned the heater off because that seems to be what is stressing them out. The ich doesn't seem to be on either of my black mollies any more (which were the only ones affected by it). I've got a small amount of aquarium salt left, but it really pisses my pleco off when I put it in my tank, so I'm a little wary of it.

Thanks for the help!

Just as an update I bought 4 more plants and a neon cave for my tank, so they definately have plenty of places to hide out. I just glanced over (my tank is right next to my computer) and two of my cory cats were playing. They seem to be happier now that I've added the plants and the new cave. Also, I bought a new, larger air stone because the one I have isn't putting out much air. This one should run almost the length of my tank, and I'm soaking it in water now to warm it up. I'll let you guys know how that works out.

Thanks, as always, for all the help!

you really should have another type of filtration besides the undergravel filter, for a ten gallon filters aren't that expensive and will greatly help out with water quality

A couple of other thoughts: Your mollies especially might like a little higher temp - say around 80 degrees. They also like some salt in the water (they can and do live in estuarine and even marine environments). Catfish in general aren't as happy with salt, so you'll need to find a balance there. Aquatic plants are also not terribly tolerant of much salt.

Oh all of my plants are fake, but that will change once I get a bigger tank (i.e. move out of my parents house). I added a little under two tablespoons of dissolved aquarium salt today, and somehow someway the same black mollie that has been continuously getting ich got it again. The medicine I bought that claimed it could cure it in two days does nothing at this point. I'm going back to the pet store to get a different brand. Any suggestions?

Other than the one mollie, all of my other fish seem quite happy and healthy again. I think it might have been because I changed so much in my tank they all became stressed.

The temp of my tank is currently 76F.

In other news...... my tank has settled itself out and the problematic black mollie is now healthy.