Dead fish contaminating water - need help

[abijitr]

I had a happy group of discus - healthy, playful and everything was just fine.

I went on a 4 day vacation, cleaned the tank, stopped feeding them and prepped them like I have usually and successfully done without any issues.

Current Issue: While I was away, one fish has got stuck under the drift wood and died - this is usually an area where they play and I had noticed that as the fish grew the space was getting smaller for them to move around. I didn't disturb it as they used to play well in that area and I think that was a bad decision. Looks like the first fish died on day 1 and then started to decay - I saw flesh all over the tank and terrible stink - which has lead to the death of 4 other fish and 3 were extremely disoriented and not swimming - otherwise looked healthy.

As soon as I noticed it, I cleaned up the tank - did ~100% water change, removed the driftwood. The 3 that were disoriented started swimming and looked okay immediately. I continued to observe for another 90 mins, went to bed and got up to the horror of 2 more deaths. Remaining fish look healthy but a little stressed. I plan on cleaning the filters and pipes.

Other than water changes and clean up - is there anything else I need to do? Any advise is welcome and much appreciated.

[DJW]

I think you're on the right track. Whatever this is, lots of fresh water and a clean tank is the best thing going forward. For the really large water changes, its better if you can age the water first. Some salt can help with the stress, 2 tablespoons per 10 gallons, and a temperature at 82F as there may be some pathogenic bacteria around.