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White spot and temperature for corys

Great stuff - OK, you are maximising your chances by doing all these things.

If you dont mind, could you send us a complete tank shot from the front? Would be good to get a visual of things as they stand.
 
@Bradders yes of course- I’ve moved my aquael filter over and put the crappy swell one in the shrimp tank as I was concerned they had no surface movement. I’ve got two air stones at full blast and the aquael filter has a great bubble output so 3 lots of aeration in the problem tank (55litre in case I hadn’t said). I’ve ordered a fluval u2 filter which will hopefully be here tomorrow and I’ll run the aquael one alongside it until it’s matured enough. I’ve only got a few shrimp (although hundreds of shrimplets) so their bioload should hopefully be ok with the crappy swell one. Please see pics from the front and the side.
 

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Excellent! We have visuals! 😀 OK, so you are maximising your chances there, so great news. Stay strong and ride it out.

OK, so you have a new filter coming. I just had a look at the U2, and here are my thoughts on the media.
  • 2 Foam Pads - good, although I am unsure what PPI they are.
  • 2 Poly/Carbon Cartridges - OK, although these will need replacing at some point (due to the carbon depletion) + you can't use them with current medication as carbon reduces effectiveness.
  • BIOMAX Biological Rings - Not so good, as BIOMAX does not provide great bang for buck in terms of effective surface area. If you can open that cartridge (and you can be bothered), I would remove the BIOMAX and replace it with HELX-13.
Once you get it, I would give some mature media gunk into the Fluval sponges/media to help kick-start. Make sure it remains wet (with de-chlorinated or old tank water) and then stick it in and let it mature for 2-3 weeks.

Do you have to do all the above? Well, no - it will be OK out of the box bar the carbon cartridges due to medication. But I am fanatical about filters in a low planted aquairum. I am just that sad. O so sad.
 
@Bradders thank you so much for this! Haha you aren’t sad, just precise I’d say, and very helpful!

Thanks for spotting the carbon - I’d removed the other filter because it had carbon in it so HOPEFULLY I’d have double checked before adding it to my tank but at this point I’m just like AAAAGH! I’ll definitely get it running and gunked up as you advise. I wish I’d just not been a tight blahblahblahblah and got the fluval one (or similar) to start with or had got the full kit from Dennerel. Lesson learned.

I have read that the malachite green in the NT labs treatment is used to treat epistlis so I’m keeping everything crossed my poorly looking fish make it. Thanks so much for all of your advice today, I’ve been home on my own and stressed and it’s really been great to have you guidance.
 
No problems at all. Keep us posted on progress. We have everything crossed for you.
 
@Goldie Prawn - I am slightly nervous about asking, but I thought I had better check in to see how things were progressing.
 
@Bradders oh bless you thank you for asking. I’ve lost 12 green neons - I’ve got 6 left. They’ve still got some white patches on them but are schooling with the others and I just gave them a tiny bit of food and treated again with the malachite green yesterday. Really hoping they make 😞 but I’m also keeping everything crossed it doesn’t spread to the others who aren’t showing any signs of epistylis. Thanks so much for asking and for all of your help. Hopefully we’ve saved these last 6….
 
@Bradders - I thought I’d lead in to the weekend with some good news - my 6 remaining green neons now have significantly less white patches on them 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 maybe just a dot here or there but I’ve treated them again today with the malachite green. One is still looking pretty uncomfortable as somehow he has no tail fins now but he seems to be getting better each day I hope… the others are swimming normally although I think they miss their bigger group. I’ve put my new fluval filter in but removed the carbon, and will follow your advice re the other bits. Cycled crappy filter is back in as well, as it wasn’t even really working on my shrimp tank. I just wanted to say thank you again so much for your advice. Although I had quite a few losses, I know it would have been a lot worse without your help. I’d probably have continued to treat for white spot with high temps which would have been the worst for epistylis. I hope you have a great weekend and thanks again for saving my fish!
 
@Goldie Prawn - I so am glad that that things continue to stabilise! What a great way to start the weekend, indeed! (Thanks to @The Miniaturist who also spotted the epistylis).

Once things get even more stable, come back here, and I am sure we can continue to help improve stability.
 
I'm so pleased your fish seem to have turned the corner. 🤗
It's horrible & stressful watching things go downhill, so much for this being a relaxing hobby!
I'm sure @Bradders will be able to guide you on filter media to keep things running smoothly.
My tanks all have small internal filters but I replaced all the fancy cartridges & phosphate removing pads with pieces of plain foam cut to shape & that seems to work for me.
 
@Bradders @The Miniaturist I’m sorry to say but I spoke too soon 😭 I came down this morning to 5 dead diamond head tetras out of the 6 I had. They had been absolutely fine and hadn’t had epistylis (that I could see). I’ve checked the parameters- all fine. Temp is 23 degrees. I haven’t done a water change because of the white spot and fungus treatment but now I’m wondering if I should. I have no idea what has happened. As you say @The Miniaturist not quite the relaxing hobby I had hoped it would be. Sorry for my continuing woes!
 
That is very unfortunate news. So these are different fish from the ones recovering that had visible epistles?

Also, what did you do yesterday? Just so I understand all the activity you did (and approx time) to get a feel?
 
My thought process here is that we have a bacterial disease within the fish with a secondary disease like epistylis. Bacterial diseases are fast killers in fish (compared to Ich or ammonia poisoning etc) so its a primary and secondary thing. The symptom of fast fish deaths (including some with no visible indication) makes me feel this is bacterial at its core. (Unless something else was done yesterday, which added to the problem).

Unfortunately, bacterial diseases are more challenging to treat than they are to prevent. Antibiotics have the highest success rate, but even they are ~50% effective. To add to this problem, we don't have an abundance of mature filtration to ease the load on the fish's immune system, which is making this even harder to stop. Even moving the 'healthy' fish to a different aquarium is a challenge as, as potentially evidenced overnight, we may not be able to see what fish is harbouring the bacterial disease.

I really wish I had a magic bullet here, but we are definitely within a nasty challenge.
 
@Bradders yes that’s right - the green neons were the ones that had epistylis and the diamond head tetras were fine. Then this morning, 5 diamond head tetras dead and only one left, looking lost without his group 😔 still got the 6 green neons. I think I wouldn’t have been so surprised if it was a green neon, but five diamond heads all at once?! So yesterday afternoon I treated again with the NT labs white spot and fungus treatment, set up the new filter and put the original filter back in too. No water changes or cleaning (the tank isn’t dirty anyway as I did a clean last Friday week) I have the two air stones, and some light flow from both filters. Ammonia is 0. Nitrites 0. Nitrates 5. PH is 7.6 - I’d say its average is usually around 7. So that is a very slight increase. I’m at a loss here!
 
@Bradders I agree with you that it’s likely a bacterial issue. I wish I had bought a good filter at the start instead of that awful swell one. I am between a rock and a hard place because my months old filter in my shrimp tank was really helping (I think) but I don’t want to risk my shrimp having a dirty tank - I had three shrimp die last week after moving the rubbish filter in to their tank. Could there be something within the filter that is bad? I can’t think what and my second filter obviously doesn’t have the good stuff in it yet 🙁 I’ve added some tetra safe start bacteria to the water - hopefully that will help this battle but as you say, without decent filter media/bacteria it may be a losing battle. So frustrating. Thanks again for taking the time to help me.
 
Goldie Prawn said:
. Ammonia is 0. Nitrites 0. Nitrates 5. PH is 7.6
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They are all fine, and even slight deviations from these will not cause the rapid deaths we have seen.

Goldie Prawn said:
So yesterday afternoon I treated again with the NT labs white spot and fungus treatment
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What I suspect is that this is treating the secondary infections we have witnessed. Not the bacterial side of things that I suspect could also be the primary.

Goldie Prawn said:
So that is a very slight increase. I’m at a loss here!
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It is very sad and frustrating. I feel for you. I think you are doing all the right things, but we are behind the curve and having to treat rather than prevent.
 
Bradders said:
They are all fine, and even slight deviations from these will not cause the rapid deaths we have seen.


What I suspect is that this is treating the secondary infections we have witnessed. Not the bacterial side of things that I suspect could also be the primary.


It is very sad and frustrating. I feel for you. I think you are doing all the right things, but we are behind the curve and having to treat rather than prevent.
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Yes absolutely. I think I’m just going to have to keep an eye on it and follow through with the rest of the fungal treatment as that has been effective. I could try and move my ottos to my shrimp tank but as you say, it’s hard to know which fish are affected and also my shrimp tank is only 20litre and I have 12 ottos. I also don’t want to stress them. If it’s bacterial, which from what you are saying it sounds like it is, then I guess I just have to try and ride it out and hope for the best. A water change at this point probably won’t make any difference will it? NT labs advise again it when treating. I might look on marketplace for someone selling a unicorn - I mean a fish tank with a mature filter….
 
Goldie Prawn said:
So frustrating. Thanks again for taking the time to help me.
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Well, sadly, we were unable to help before more deaths. So don't thank me! I am gutted.

Goldie Prawn said:
A water change at this point probably won’t make any difference will it? NT labs advise again it when treating.
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Funny you should mention that. The other manual way what some people (I have not done this first hand) have done is very frequent 95% water changes (daily) to reduce the bacterial load. Bacteria multiply very fast, so doing a 25% is not going to cut it. However, this does come with the risk of making sure new water that goes in is safe, and it can play havoc with any medication which you have to work out dosage based on the frequent water changes. (i.e. replenish to the right levels what were taken out) and stress. Of course, it does not mean that already (and perhaps not knowingly) infected fish will survive. However, it can "mechanically" reduce the bacterial loading to give the fish more of its immune system to fight disease. Of course, this is intensive and hard labour - and I cannot attest to its effectiveness.
 
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