Mystery Illness

[fishy7]

Hey everyone! I'm having problems with one of my tanks. (Not a discus tank) It was stocked at 3 adult angelfish, 10 balloon belly red eye tetras, 4 julli corys, and 2 blue rams. Over the past two weeks I've lost 8 of the tetras (one by one), a ram, and an angelfish. The last two tetras are in pretty bad shape, one can't swim correctly (face down on the gravel), and the other looks like it has some sort of internal bleeding. The renaming two angels have what appear to be red ulcers and small white head bumps (not ich) that cover the body. The angel that died this morning, was gasping for air last night, but other than that swam and ate normally, also it showed no sores. One of the julli corys swims erratically. All of the fish have been and still are eating normally. The tank has been running for 1 year 6 months.

The water is changed at 50% weekly, the tank is heavily planted with caboma, vals, and amazon swords. Its a 46 gallon tank with a marineland c-220 canister. The tank temp is constant between 79-80F.

Water Parameters are
0-Ammonia
0-Nitrite
10ppm-Nitrate
pH- 7.6-7.8

I also dose with flourish excel, comprehensive, and iron.

Not sure if this is related, but recently I've had a huge BBA outbreak and while changing canister filter media I've noticed a sulfur like smell.

Any help would be much appreciated!

[dirtyplants]

Stop with the ferts, first. Do water changes, sounds like your filter has been over loaded, how ofter do you clean your filter?
So many anagrams BBA? You are fertilizing so you have plants, usually filter media smells like plants, 10ppm nitrate is on the high scale for me. Iron can accumulate what is your substrate? Any indication of iron deficiency with the leaves of the plant? Sores will appear with water issues and ferts that accumulate will cause symptoms much like you are describing. Not enough info to determine disease or water, other then the smell of your filter.

[fishy7]

Stop with the ferts, first. Do water changes, sounds like your filter has been over loaded, how ofter do you clean your filter?
So many anagrams BBA? You are fertilizing so you have plants, usually filter media smells like plants, 10ppm nitrate is on the high scale for me. Iron can accumulate what is your substrate? Any indication of iron deficiency with the leaves of the plant? Sores will appear with water issues and ferts that accumulate will cause symptoms much like you are describing. Not enough info to determine disease or water, other then the smell of your filter.

Thanks for th response, BBA (black beard algae), filter media gets changed about once a month. The substrate is small gravel, there aren't any signs of iron defcincey either. I've stopped dosing ferts and have been doing water changes, things seem to be getting worse.

[dirtyplants]

Try changing water 50% everyday, clean your filter, your bacteria in the filter I think has gone bad. Sulfur is not a good smell to have in your filter or tank. Try this and see if you get any improvement. Black beard algae is a water quality issue. Check your water again. Water from tap? aged? any changes? anything added?

[wild4discus]

The sulfur smell is possibly due to anaerobic pockets. How deep and what kind of substate do you have? Do you vacuum the substrate regularly? If your substrate is fine, like sand for example, and deep 3 inches, anaerobic bacteria could grow out control and produce hydrogen sulfide which is very toxic to fish and is very smelly. Fine, deep substrates need to be disturbed regularly to avoid this situation. If this is your case, move fish into separate holding tank, thoroughly clean substate, and do 100% WC.

[fishy7]

The substrate is vacuumed frequently, I did the full water change and cleaned the filter using tank water. Also I have been doing 40-50% daily changes. The fish seem to be getting worse. I stopped adding fertilizers as well.

[dirtyplants]

White bumps may be parasites, kinda hard to guess with nothing to go on.
Iron seems to be added a lot lately from my reading on this forum. Iron is not absorbed much through the leaves of plants, that is why many add red clay to the substrate. Iron is absorbed mostly through the roots of plants. Iron accumulates if not being used in the water column. So when do you add iron to your tank? Look for signs of iron deficiency beginning in the leaves. Iron is a heavy metal, heavy metals are toxic to fish and heavy metals accumulate.
Your filter smelling of sulfur indicates that the media bacteria is dead. You will have to add some bacteria to the filter to kick start it again.
Again what is your water quality, now? Where are you getting your water from? Is it aged? BBA, what is the color? Black? Blue? Hair algae?
You are cleaning your filter with tank water, if your water is infected with parasites you are just reinfecting your filter and media. The reason for massive water changes especially during an outbreak of some sorts is to eliminate as many free swimming parasites in the water column as possible.
You need to give more info to get educated guesses.

[OC Discus]

Nasty stuff can accumulate in filter housings. Good idea to completely flush out the canister and hoses- maybe even replace the hoses if they are old or soak them in bleach solution then dechlorinate.


The substrate is vacuumed frequently, I did the full water change and cleaned the filter using tank water. Also I have been doing 40-50% daily changes. The fish seem to be getting worse. I stopped adding fertilizers as well.

[fishy7]

White bumps may be parasites, kinda hard to guess with nothing to go on.
Iron seems to be added a lot lately from my reading on this forum. Iron is not absorbed much through the leaves of plants, that is why many add red clay to the substrate. Iron is absorbed mostly through the roots of plants. Iron accumulates if not being used in the water column. So when do you add iron to your tank? Look for signs of iron deficiency beginning in the leaves. Iron is a heavy metal, heavy metals are toxic to fish and heavy metals accumulate.
Your filter smelling of sulfur indicates that the media bacteria is dead. You will have to add some bacteria to the filter to kick start it again.
Again what is your water quality, now? Where are you getting your water from? Is it aged? BBA, what is the color? Black? Blue? Hair algae?
You are cleaning your filter with tank water, if your water is infected with parasites you are just reinfecting your filter and media. The reason for massive water changes especially during an outbreak of some sorts is to eliminate as many free swimming parasites in the water column as possible.
You need to give more info to get educated guesses.

Im thinking its along the lines of parasites as well. Iron was added at 5ml for a 40-50% water change once a week. The water quality is a bit better than before after all the WC. 0 ammonia 0 nitrite and 5ppm nitrate. Water is from the tap and is not aged. It runs through a water softener (as does all the water in the house). The tank has been running for quite sometime now so I'm not sure thats the issue. the BBA is black in color. Lost some more fish over the past few days as well. Water changes don't seem to be helping much.

[dirtyplants]

Check the bodies of the dead fish carefully, keep with the water changes, look for fungus, ich, sores, bloat, rot.
You don't need to add iron every week, the plants will not take much in. If you really feel you need iron then add it to the substrate itself in the form of pellets. Poke your finger or use something into the soil at different spots, go all the way to the bottom. If you get large pockets of bubbles coming out, then you have gas pockets under your substrate. I 'de make sure there is no compression of substrate, that would mean gravel or sand. Well established plants will air-rate the substrate with root growth but the areas of wood, rock or where there are no plants you will have to worry about compression.
Your water quality sounds good about now. So clean your filter using treated water, until you have a handle on what type of infection, parasite or virus, clean the substrate section by section at a time. You don't want to loose your bacteria in one cleaning, so do one section with each water change. Clean the sides of your tank. Black algae is related to water quality issues usually. Do you have enough light in your tank? Do you use co2? What type of substrate are you using? Gravel? sand? gravel and soil? ... ....
Water is the most basic but always an issue for both sick or healthy fish. The next step would be to clean your tank and filter, and add some bacteria into the filter media and the tank itself. If the bacteria in your tank died as well as your filter then did you add something to the tank which may have killed your filter media? If you killed off too much bacteria then they need to build up again, and may get mini cycle symptoms, so watch for spikes. The next step would be to determine if parasites are the problem or virus. That will depend on the visual of the bodies.

[Cullymoto]

Sounds like your having a few problems.
When you say "looks like internal bleeding" I think -heptemic septicaemia- a bacterial infection.
The sulphur smell is a decay of organic material. Most likely it is in fact h2s. Very nasty stuff. From what others have asked you, and the answers you've provided I can't tell you where it is coming from.
The white spots do sound like a parasite.
Also sounds like there's swim bladder issues going also.
Basically there is a greater issue that has compromised the immune systems of your fish, allowing these other problems to take root.
We can all give our two cents on this med for that problem, but it won't help. Not until you address the bigger issue.

[fishy7]

Down to three fish as of now. No treatments under the sun have helped. Metro, prazi, water changes. Whatever this is, I hope no one else has to deal with it.