White, peelng scales from Cycling?

Question
Thanks for getting back to me as quick you did, since my letter to you, my Serpaee and Red tail shark have passed, the only one to make it out of that tank was a Pleco, and they could live in any water condition, but he's all right now within a healthy tank.
As for you saying that everytime you switch a water conditoners, your water becomes cloudy, well mine is doing that now, first thing tomorrow I'm going to get what I usually use and that is AQUAPLUS, everytime I use this product, my water is always cystal clear, anyway thank you ver much for your advice...

one more thing, how does a tank go haywire, could it be me not moving the Driftwood, I have 3 big pieces about 12" each, I DO vacuum around it everytime, but today when I did my water change of 75% I moved everything, will the benficial bacteria come back and how long this time? another 2-3 weeks?

hope to hear from you soon, TSL/NYC
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Followup To

Question -
Hi Karen,
I'm sending you another question, when I awoke this morning to do my water change and check on my 10 gal. (which by the way I'm cycling) I noticed that my T-Barb, and both of my Serpae Tetra's scales were looking like dandruff and starting to peel, remember that letter I wrote to you about "fish melting"? well, it looks like the beginning of a meltdown if they should perish, is this from the high concentration  of Ammonia, I'm even going to start to do morning and evening Water Changes, today, oh, yeah, the eyeballs each had a white spot covering them, on both eyes that is..
What's going on all of a sudden?
>All I could think of doing different is that I changed water conditioners from "Aqua Plus" to Kordon's NovAqua, which also make Amquel(which is what you use, no?) could this be it, the different chemicals making my tank go haywire?
basically the chemicals are the same, right?
It's starting to look bad, I just walk over to my 33long and checked out all my little guys, my Blk. Neons are starting to get the fluffy stuffof the tip of their fins, I know it's not ICK though, I know what that looks like..
      Any advice to Help would be greatly appreciated!!! I'll not get nervous, because I'll start putting them out of their miseries before it happens, but I won't do anything until I hear from you, alright?


         Thank_you...TSL/NYC

Answer -
Hi there,
I'm so sorry to hear about your fish. Yes it certainly sounds like your T-barb and Serpae tetras are being badly affected by ammonia. If there scales look like they have very fine powder sprinkled on them that has a white or yellowish color unfortunately this could be what is called "Velvet" it's not a good disease at all I can tell you. A white spot over the eye is also a sign of water pollution.

Unfortunately Aquaplus doesn't remove ammonia (read more about that in my first letter) And to my knowledge unfortunately neither does Novaqua. I do in fact currently use Amquelplus for my water changes. And this will certainly take care of ammonia problems.
*I've never really heard of the chemicals you mentioned causing the water quality to mess up. But I know it could be possible. Usually it's best to just stick with one water conditioner and don't switch too much.
Sometimes when I switch water conditioners, I have found that this makes my aquariums temporarily cloudy.

I'm sorry to hear about your Black neons too. Sounds like they could have fungus. That's really sad to hear.

Here's what I would do-
*Ammonia levels must be eliminated right away. Water changes and insuring to use a ammonia neutralizing product is the way to go.
* If you are for certain your fish are sick. You may try treating with Maracide for the velvet and Maracyn for the fungus. You may be best off researching about those diseases to confirm if your fish are truly ill.
*Only treat if you are for certain of course
*If you need any help, feel free to write.

I wouldn't put any of the fish out of their miseries most fish diseases can be treated and the fishes lives, spared.

I hope this helps a little!
Best wishes,
Karen~

Answer
Hi Tommy,
My greatest sympathies towards hearing about your Serpaes and your Red-tail shark...

I'm not entirely sure. But I would imagine that maybe an aquarium could go haywire from switching to a water conditioner that perhaps the bacteria is not accostumed to and perhaps this causes the clouding of the water due to some imbalance.

Your problem shouldn't have come from not moving or moving the driftwood. But it's likely some other cause, like maybe ammonia being released from the chloramines in in your tap water. Just like it happened with my Oscar. And it could certaily be that it was an overload of too much ammonia in the fresh replacement water that overwhelmed the beneficial bacteria and it probably wasn't a die off. But then again it is still very hard to know.

It shouldn't take too terribly long for the bacteria to establish and deal with this problem. The problem should be resolved pretty soon. So keep up hope!

Best wishes and feel free to write with anymore concerns!
Karen~

ps: How is the weather in NYC? ;-)