My sick cichlids and others!

Question
Hi Ron,

Quick history: 55g tank with 4 tiger barbs, 1 raphael catfish, 1 rainbow shark, 1 peacock cichlid, 2 glass barbs, and 2 mating jewel cichlids who had their first batch of fry about 8 weeks ago. I currently have about 35-40 fry remaining. My tank was doing fabulously until the jewels decided to get together and increase my fish load from 14 fish to 114 fish overnight! When the fry hatched I set up a 26g tank intending to move them over so the community fish could have free, peaceful roam of the 55g. However, after setting up the 26g, I worried about the cycling issue and decided that as long as I kept the 55 really clean, (I was doing wc's and gravel vacs every 2 to 3 days, but guess it wasn't enough) I would just put up a tank divider and make the best of it with everyone in one, already established tank. I'm really regretting that decision now. Up until about 2 weeks ago, my tank looked amazing as well as all of the inhabitants. Then, literally overnight, I woke up one morning (about 10 days ago) to find my male jewel just barely alive.  He was almost black, frayed fins and pop-eyed, floating at the surface. I couldn't believe he was even still alive and was certain that he wouldn't even make it through the day. I got on here looking for advice on how to handle this and was advised to start medicating immediately. Two days ago I finished one 5-day course of Maracyn II as well as 1 treatment of Coppersafe (good for a month).  I have also been putting Melafix into the tank but was advised to stop that so I did. Now, 2 days after completing the MII treatment, my jewel is looking much better, although not totally normal. His pop-eyes are gone, and he is swimming around normally, tending to his fry nicely and eating voraciously. His fins are already growing back with amazing speed. However, it's very obvious that there is still disease in the tank. The male jewel's coloring is still not "normal." He looks like he has almost dark streaks on his forehead and the rest of his body and the female appears the same way. They can go from dark brown like this to a very unhealthy looking pale. Then, I'll check in on them later and they have their normal nice red coloring!  She never got "sick" like him and other than her bizarre coloring, she seems normal. It's so hard to tell with Jewel cichlids because they change coloring frequently depending on many factors.

But now, after treating with meds, my community fish are all sick with whatever is in my tank. I lost 2 barbs yesterday, and the remaining 4 all have fin and tail rot I'm assuming. Also, my peacock cichlid, who has remained unaffected, at least physically, now is looking stressed and lays on the bottom of the tank more than usual, and his tail fin is starting to fray like the others. It seems that whatever is in my tank is running it's cycle through all the inhabitants at different times. Everyone still eats but I can tell they are not happy. I just bought regular Maracyn today and am getting ready to do a 5-day course of that now, since the MII didn't seem to completely do the job.

I check my water parameters religiously, and always have. There has never been any nitrites or ammonia in my tank.  A few days before this happened, there was a nitrate spike up to about 30ppm. This technically isn't really in the danger zone, but I usually keep my nitrates at less than 5ppm so I'm sure my fish weren't used to this.  I checked again 3 times today because I have been warned that these meds can kill my good bacteria and cause another cycle.  Still no signs of ammonia or nitrite.

I have had some experts tell me to do at least one, or even two water changes every day to get this illness out of my tank. While I was treating with the MII I did one water change daily of about 30-40%. I've had some people telling me to do tons of water changes, and others tell me to do none while treating with the meds. I'm wondering if my fish are still sick because I was doing wc's during the meds and made them less effective? Should I try medicating with the Maracyn in conjunction with wc's daily while medicating, or should I stop wc's and just do meds for 5 days? Or should I just only do massive water changes with no meds for awhile and see what happens?  I'm still losing fish (3 total in one week) and just about every fish in my tank right now is showing signs of tail and fin rot and unhealthy behavior, so clearly the problem has not been resolved. I just don't know where to go from here. I've spent over $150 in 10 days trying to fix this and really don't want to lose any more fish, but I can't just keep throwing money in my tank either.  I feel like I have one more shot at this.  Also, I bought a product today called StressZyme that is supposed to heal wounds such as fin and tail rot. Should I use that right now or wait until after meds are done?

In the meantime, once again, I have set up a 30g tank and am getting that ready to cycle so that when it's done, I can move the jewel fry to that and hopefully get my 55g back to normal as soon as possible.

What would you do in this situation?  I'm really at the end of my rope with this?  Also, I'm spending countless hours every day devoted to this and my 3 small children (all under 5) are really tired of seeing me spending all of my time with the fish!!! Please help as soon as you can! Thanks so much for your time and efforts.
Shana


Answer
Hi Shana,
  I'm very sorry for the delay in answering.  I am actually in the rainforest in Costa Rica right now so email is spotty.

  Your story is very complicated so it is hard for me to figure it out.  Here are some answers: if you put in medication, you can't then do a water change because that just takes the medicine out.   

 You would have been much better to move the kids or the other fish out of the large tank at the start.  Compressing the fish like you did probably made it very stressful for all concerned (including yourself). This is one of those "live and learn" things.  

 I am not a fan of medications in general.  They stress the fish and often do more harm than good.  I only use them if I know exactly what I am treating.  Partial water changes are almost always your best answer to a problem in a fish tank.  You cannot do too many partial water changes.  

 Fin rot in cichlids is extraordinarily rare.  Almost all cases of fin rot that I have ever seen are actually the result of attacks by another fish.  This is extremely common with fish like jewel cichlids.

 When fish die, they release all sorts of nasty things into the water so it is essential to do a partial water change after any fish has died. If you don't, you can end up with a "death cascade" which sounds like what has happened.

 I put very little faith in most aquarium test kits.  Some are okay, many are downright deceptive and misleading.  If you insist on testing, use the liquid reagant test kits -- the little strips are in my opinion worse than useless.  Digital testers sometimes work but
they need to be calibrated carefully which few people do.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>