blueit7

Thank you Caper. Everybody makes mistakes but the most important thing is to learn from them to prevent the same thing happening again.

My plants came from a pet shop. Don't want to name names, but the lady who works there is wonderful and really knows her stuff when it comes to fish. Not like some other shops I have been to! The plants were in a plant tank, not in with fish so I would have thought that would reduce the chance of speading disease. In my case, my tank crash was caused by me and wasn't anything to do with bugs from elsewhere and thanks to the great information I have received from the lovely knowledgeable people here I can now ensure it never ever happens again. Thanks for the tip regarding the soaking of the plants jn. As an aside, that would also remove any unwanted snails wouldn't it? Good luck with your fish newfish. Hope somebbody on here can help you as they helped me.

Thanks Ron. Yes I am adding warm water, same temperature as the tank. I've got it down to a fine art :lol: I know exactly how much cold water and how much hot to add to my bucket to make it the same. I have always used water ager but after the discussions today I'm not sure I need to. My water cannot have cholrine in it as it is rain water collect from our roof. We live in the country and don't have the luxury of a bore or town supply. My water tocuhes the roof, goes down the gutter and into the water tank. From there it goes down a pipe to the pump which has a filter to remove any muck and out the tap it comes. What causes the water to contain heavy metals? I am continuing to use water ager until I found out for sure that I don't need to. Good news though, got home tonight and only the two fish I expected to die had. Everyone else appears to be fine including my Kuli loach who looked ill yesterday. I've done another water change and tested the water. It's not as hideously bad as one would expect. Hopefully the worst is over.

I have been adding nutrient for my plants. I have been using Flourish as recommend on the bottle and they are thanking me for it. You can see all the new growth on the top and the roots are going nuts. I was only doing the 25% water changes daily while I was getting ammonina readings. Is this ok? I have a dedicated bucket and it sounds like my water is going to be fine from the tap without the need to add ager. The filter only gets rinsed in tank water when I can see it's all goopy. I'll do it tonight though as all the white stuff from the fish that was floating around will be stuck all through it. Yuck!

Thank you again and thank you for telling me where I have gone wrong in such a nice way. The wonder tonic is going in the bin. You do have to wonder about something claiming to be a one stop shop for everything. I have since learnt not to listen to the pet shop people! The crash was caused by me changing my fish around changing the filter media at the same time. I did think a few days later that was a dumb thing to do but thought as along as I keep my eye on the water parameters and do daily changes I should be right. I had no idea I could cause such catastrophic consequences. I'm always a bit confused when it comes to water treatments. Some people say to use water ager and some don't. I would have thought using rain water I don't need to de-clorinate or would there be things that come off the roof the fish may not like? Certainly nothing that harms us. Some people say cycle is the best thing since sliced bread and others say its a waste of money. My mission is to re-establish the biological filter back to where is was before I wrecked it. Expensive and tiring is fine by me. I need to make it up to my remaining fish somehow. May help ease some of the guilt.

Thank you very much for your advice. I was changing 25% of the water daily but obviously not enough. Previous to me stuffing up the cycle I was doing a water change and gravel vac once a week. I have got cycle so will do the water changes and rinse the filter as soon as I get home. I shouldn't bother with the medication any more should I? the damage has been done. Live and learn, though it is my poor poor fishies that have had to suffer. I want to cry

My poor poor fishies. On Monday evening I noticed what I thought was white spot on on some of the fins. Have had this before ages ago so wasn't to concerned and treated the tank with wonder tonic which promotes itself to be a cure all. Worked well on the white spot previously. Tuesday morning more fish had more white on them but again looked more spotty than anything. Was covering a lot of their bodies though and I did think to myself that it was moving very fast. From 3 - 4 fish with a couple of sopts to 10 or more with a lot of white. Tuesday afternoon got home and had 14 dead fish! These poor poor fish were covered in the white stuff which flaked off as I netted them out of the tank. I have since lost another 3 with probably 2 more to go today. My water parameters weren't the best as I had a bit of a swap around with who was in what tank about 2 1/2 weeks ago. Then I stupidly thought it would be a good idea to also change the sponge in my filter at the same time instead of waiting until things settled again. I was doing daily water changes to minimise the affect of the ammonia spike. I have no new fish, but did get 2 plants 2 weeks ago. These plants were from the pet shop and were in a plant tank without fish. Also got a plant from the same tank for my Axolotl and he is fine. The disease seems to be knocking them off by type. Killed so far: Sword tails Cat fish Golden Barbs Buenos Aries Tetras Black widow tetra (only 1 though) Still alive and showing no signs of disease: Plecostumus - behaviour seems normal Female betta - behaviour seems normal Head and tail light tetras - not happy Black widow tetras - not happy Sliver sharks - behaviour seems normal Still alive but showing signs: Kuli loach - not well at all Sword tail - not expected to survive today Tank: Well established Just over 100 litres Enhiem internal filter Live plants and fake Temp 25 - 26 degrees Action taken: After removing dead fish the tank was full of yucky white stuff that had come off the dead fish so I did large water change and gravel vac. Treated tank with Furan 2 also. Did not replace wonder tonic. Have increased airation. What have I done to my poor fishes! I can't find anything that describes acurately what this might be. There are a couple of things that are close but nothing that fits exact signs or that proclaims to kill this quick. Previous to this have had no problems and fish had all seemed happy as harry. PH has always been low but that is how it comes out of the tap and I have read it is better to have a stable PH that is low rather than constantly trying to 'fix' it and have it fluctuating all the time. Water is rain water collected from the roof, the same water we use for ourseleves. Treated with water ager before adding to the tank. The white stuff on them looks like cotton wool. It is not on their mouths, but on their bodies and fins. Some of them had coludy eyes but not protruding or swollen. First signs were white spots, not discolouration or non shiny patches. Some had red streaks on bellys. All other fish in my other tanks are fine. Some fish have come out tank with disaese when I did my move around and are perfectly fine. Sorry this has turned into a novel. I want to provide as much information as possible. Any advice or suggestions would be hugely appreciated. I do not want to ever put any of my fish through this again.