White slime coming off my fish

[LunarValkyrie]

Well, we can close this thread...both Oscars are dead. I knew something was wrong. I will probly just tear the tank down....I am disgusted. I had those two for 3 years. And now its starting to happen in my 30 and my grow out tank I keep running. I guess I will lose them all. Thanks anyway.

 

[pops]

well that is surprising, I am sorry, have no ideal what could wack an Oscar that fast but chlorine burn. how did their gills look?

 

[MrsE88]

Did you test your tap water? Can you call your water company and find out what all they are doing to the water?
There has to be a connection if you are suddenly having an issue with all the tanks right after a system upgrade.
Or did you use any equipment in the other tanks that you used in the oscar tank? Algae scrapper, syphon, hose?

Sorry about your fish

 

[Tomt37]

Slime disease possibly? Or irritant causing them to create more slime .. try potassium permanganate to rule out slime disease or could be fungal Infection... nitrite and nitrates ok? Or you could try kusuri wormer plus to kill slime disease parasites

 

[LunarValkyrie]

The water company just says they have "used extra additives to make the water safe"...so I would guess they are using chlorines and some type of ammonia to kill stuff in the water. When I checked my tap its off the scale with ammonia. Didn't use to be that way.

I have now lost everything in my 30g including my baby Sajica from Jeff Rapps. I am completely disgusted. They were doing so good. All my severum babies as well. Only one betta in the growout tank and so far he has survived but his tank is a 20Long and the ammonia is high, but not like the others. And his is coming down with the Prime and a water change (I bought water in a few gallon jugs) and an added sponge filter in there.

I am going to try to do a small barrel with a filter containing carbon, ammonia rocks and floss on it and let it sit and age. Then I will try to use it in any tank from now on. I completely drained my oscar tank and took out the sand. I changed all the media in the filters and restarted it. I left the bacteria stuff in it. The hubby about stroked when he found out about the 30g. Shipping on the Sajica and two years of trying to get those severums to spawn hit hard. But I miss my fish. I can't just give up. The adult severums may have to wait a bit for a water change. Their 75 always seems crystal clear, so I will wait to see if I can figure out how to do a water change without a spike.

Any/all suggestion of how to cope with this is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[LunarValkyrie]

question?
If I were to attach one of those water Purifiers to my sink...not a softener, just a purifier. Would that perhaps help clean out the ammonia and stuff for my tanks?? We had been thinking of doing that anyway since they seem to have issues with our water. I don't know what else to do. How can I do water changes??

 

[MrsE88]

This is a bit of a puzzling situation to me. It also makes me glad to have a well even though that can have its own issues as too.

Wouldnt double dosing with prime be enough to keep it from being toxic to the fish till the biological filtration converts it?
I don't think any purifiers remove ammonia. If they do it will be a very expensive route to go with big/multiple tanks.

Maybe add more biological filtration to the tanks to help handle the high ammonia faster too.

Just some random thoughts.

 

[pops]

he was not using prime but stress coat, question, how deep is the sand?

 

[RD.]

Sorry for your loss.

I have a sudden issue happening after we were told they were upgrading the water systems in my area.

When I checked my tap its off the scale with ammonia. Didn't use to be that way.

Quite possible that your city just upgraded from chlorine, to chloramine - if I am not mistaken, Stress Coat is sodium thiosulfate based, which means that once the chlorine/ammonia bond was broke, it would have resulted in a spike of free ammonia in your tanks. If the spike was high enough, it would explain the symptoms that you described.

 

[LunarValkyrie]

ok, I spoke to another person at the water company. They are using both chlorines and chloramine as well as some new type of ammonia to kill organisms and deplete minerals. They got a bad score on their inspection....not a fail, but not as good as it had been.

So....back to my question. Would a spicket purifier do me any good? Or how can I get around this to do water changes now?? I put a bowl full of water out and put my seachem ammonia card that was in one tank and it went purple quick. So there is a huge amount of ammonia in it now. Or should I just boil water and put it in a barrel and then when I have enough, do a water change after it cools??

I have changed to Prime, but now one tank is cloudy(no fish). I removed the sand in my oscar tank (no fish) and did a 50% WC. So now it's bare bottom. It is a little cloudy, but my ammonia card and the test says its safe, after 24 hours. Would the cloudiness be due to me losing my bacteria and its starting a cycle all over??

What is a good fish to try in there to see if anything can live in it? (Not that I want to kill anything, but I will need fish poop for bacteria) Thanks for all the responses. In my 20years + of fish keeping, I have never had problems like this.

And just a quick note....I am in search of AM. Sajica's (T-bar cichlid) again. Jeff is out. They are my favorite fish and so hard to find.