New tank a bit of a mess all round!!!

Question
Size of tank is 125l setup for 1 week water tested and all fine.I read one of your articles and found it brilliant it answered my question on my cloudy water. I have started my first tank with 4 Guppis 7 neons and 3 clown loaches as advised by the store worker (bad advise I think)!! and 3 neons and one guppi have died. I now realise I should only have about 2 guppis for around 8 weeks. The water is cloudy and some have white spot! should I take all the fish exept the guppis out and treat all for white spot. What a mess please please help!!!

Answer
Hi Karl;

Thanks for the compliment! I'm glad the article helped you.

The fish store will not want the fish back if they are sick so you should treat the white spot and make 25% water changes every day to get the toxins down to a level the fish can handle without disrupting the break-in too much. Even a 50% water change the first day would not hurt. Just be sure and make a 25% change every day for the next few days until the white spot is gone. Once the fish are well you can take back some of the fish to the fish store. (More about how to deal with the store later)

For treating white spot (also known as ich) just get a medicine available at the local fish store. Read the label for the correct dosage. Your clown loaches and neons are very sensitive so many ich rememdies must be used at half the normal dosage. It is okay to make water changes while treating for ich. It doesn't "build-up" in there, but decays within 24 hours so you aren't removing any viable medicine when you change the water. That's why we have to add it daily. Add it right after the water change every day. The exception to this is copper. Look at the label of medicine to be sure that is not the active ingredient. Otherwise, it will not be potent enough if you make water changes. For your fish right now, not doing water changes will kill them quicker than the ich alone.

Also get some aquarium salt. The dosage is 1/4 teaspoon per liter. Only add more to treat replaced water for a water change. For instance if you replace 30 liters of water, add back 7.5 teaspoons of aquarium salt. This keeps the salt level constant. If your local fish store does not have aquarium salt sold for use in freshwater aquariums you can use uniodized rock salt. It must have no other ingredients besides salt if it is to be safe for your fish. Also raise the temperature to 28c which is about 82f. Keep it up there for the entire ich treatment period. Once the treatment is over, stop adding salt during water changes and let the temperature slowly drop back to normal.

The cloudiness will subside eventually but you will just have to ride it out until it is all over. Hard to be patient, but well worth it in the end. Hang in there! It will be over in a month or so.

When the fish are well again and it is time to take some back to the fish store they may refuse to do it. If they knew you were setting up a new tank and will not take them back, leave them on the counter and quietly walk out anyway. They gave you very bad advice and they should have known better. They do not deserve your business if they will not acknowledge their error. Find another store. Or, if you are limited on fish stores in your area and have to go there anyway, just don't believe what they tell you. Do your research on the fish and come to see me again if you need to. You can also visit the freshwater fish forum on About.com for more info from other experienced hobbyists and experts. (About.com owns AllExperts.com.)

http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/questionsanswers/a/naavigateforum.htm

Hope your fish get better soon......

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins