How to make sure tank is free of infection?

[InfraredDream]

Hello,

Will try to make the long story as short as possible.

I have a planted tank with endlers, shrimps, snails and bloodfin tetras. Got a pair of guppies and noticed the female swimmig weird (going up and down all the time) on the second day, on the 3d one she got the fins clamp in the morning and was dead when I got home at the evening. As the male started behaving the same way I returned it to the store. Did a 15% water change. 2 days later I got one of the endlers with clamped fins. Water parameters were fine, I added some aquarium salt and did a 20-25% water change. Another 2 days later I got a female with a bit of a cottony-like thing on her tail, not really like fungus, more like a bacterial stuff. Got her and 2 more that were having clamped fins out in a hospital tank and did another water change. Started feeding them with anti-bacterial food and put Primafix (was recommended to me in case it is fungus). During next few days I lost all of these The main tank was OK, no more sick fish and I was hopeful that it's gone. 3 days ago I did some gardening, cleaning and water change and at the evening I got a female with a bit of a cottony-like thing on her eye, got her out and had another one looking exactly the same next morning. Both of them died the next day in the hospital tank.
Sorry for the loooong story, but wanted to give as many details as possible, so you can help me. The shrimps and bloodfin tetras look fine and I still have some survivals from the endlers. What can I do to make sure the tank is clean now? Didn't want to use more medications because of plants and shrimps and was hoping it was an acident. But these last two killed my hopes
Any comments would be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[user_error]

sorry to hear this i hope someone can help

[InfraredDream]

Thanks, user_error, me too.
And don't worry the plants are from a (hopefully) all healthy betta tank.

[tony1928]

Sorry to hear this. My only comment on this would be that Pima/Melafix are good products but not likely strong enough as a cure to already infected fish. From what I hear they are a good preventative additive and perhaps may be the only option for people that have livestock that are extremely sensitive to "real" medications. I think whatever medicinal compounds they contain are too mild to treat fish once symptoms are present. Good luck with your tank.

[InfraredDream]

Thank you. I read same kind of comments too, but this was what LPS people recommended, I guess because I told them I have shrimps and plants and wanted to play safe. On the other hand the medicted food I got says it is not safe for saltwater invertbreeders, so not sure that was good for my shrimps.

My biggest concern now is will tank get "clear" by itself and how soon?
If I don't have a sick fish in say 2 weeks, am I good to go and get some new ones?
Do I need to treat the whole tank to make sure it is safe now?
I guess if all endlers end up dying I will never know if the tank is still infected. But if the remaining few are fine, then what?
I never had that kind of situation before and I am not sure what to do.

[BigFatLyre]

To actually answer your question: How can I be sure........the one way is to break the tank completely down, and start over, which we do a lot on this forum!

The other is UV; I'm becoming a big, big believer that it's great for a lot of things: water clarity, prevention, and while the initial investment is quite large, it's the one item that does it's tour through a number of my tanks on an ongoing basis.

I currently use a small AA Aquarium UV (60.) and can increase the flow by not putting the sponge filter back in.

[InfraredDream]

Thanks for the answer. Yeah, I was thinking of break the tank and start over, but still, I have to clean everything and then, what about the rest of the fish? How to get them clean if they carry something?

UV sounds good, it is safe for everybody else including the shrimps? I read about that before, but don't remember any details. And I know these guys are expensive
Maybe I can borrow yours if that is a one-two time treatments.

I'll do some reading this evening. Thanks!

[Kitsune]

UV is fine for all species involved since it just sterilizes the water as it passes through the unit (i.e. everything microbial that goes through it dies). It does not leave any residuals behind.

[InfraredDream]

That sounds exactly what I need! I feel like I want to "boil" the whole tank to make it clean.

I guess that's gonna kill the good bacteria too, right? There is no way UV "knows" which are the good guys.

Now I have to ask kindly if somebody can borrow theirs How many treatments are needed?

[Morainy]

I think that UV is good for algae and perhaps ich but I don't think that it would help you if your tank has a virulent infection like a virus or even a fast-spreading bacterial infection like columnaris. (Others may say differently, though.) UV doesn't kill the nitrifying bacteria in a tank, which is why I don't think that it would kill the necrotizing bacteria (so to speak).

Sometimes, the best thing to do is to take the tank apart and start again, bleaching it and starting with fresh media. It's a lot of work, but sometimes necessary. However, since you have surviving fish and shrimp, that's not very practical. You can't boil your fish!

However, I also think that if you can effectively stop the progression of a disease with salt or good antibiotics and your remaining fish recover, then the tank environment will recover. This would mean that you could save your plants, too.

In your case, it sounds as though you don't have very many inhabitants left in your tank. Even if an antibiotic wiped out your 'good' bacteria, your fish will probably be able to survive happily with water changes until the cycle reestablished itself. And these days, many antibiotics don't harm the filter. So, if I were you I wouldn't worry about harming the cycle and instead just worry about the fish and shrimp. Given how dire the infection is, I think that extreme measures are warranted (that is, it's worth risking potent medications).

Since your fish definitely have an infection and it looks like a fungus, I'd suggest a multi-purpose treatment that would target both true fungus and columnaris, which is a bacteria that resembles a fungus and spreads quickly. I think Jungle makes a product called Lifeguard that treats a range of illnesses at once. I tried it once with my microrasboras and it didn't seem to affect my plants or filter. A snail survived. I don't know about shrimp, though. Maybe erythromycin would work. But I"m not a fish disease expert.

I'm really sorry that you're facing this nightmarish situation. Probably, there are other people here who have better suggestions than I have. I think that whatever you do, your tank will come through in time. Various approaches will work. You probably feel very blue and overwhelmed right now, but one day soon you will have a happy group of fish again.

Good luck.