Another Jake

Quick follow-up question... I don't have any carbon, and I took out the purigen, but is it ok to have polyfill in the filter while treating with Ich X? The color seems to be clearing fast. Thanks again!

I will start the treatment now. I'll try to be really gentle with things for a while. I've made some changes to the tank recently. A few new plants and a new light and lid. The changes might have upset things. I knew these fish are sensitive. Guess I didn't think they were THAT sensitive. Anyway, thanks!

It looks like Ich. I'm watching your video right now, but there are not very many spots and they are dying already...

CORRECTION! Spots! I don't know how I missed it. I could swear they weren't there hours ago. It's a bad picture, because they're small, but that dot on the tail. I'm now seeing about 5 spots on most of the fish. No idea how this got in the tank. It's been weeks since I added anything other than plants. If it's Ich, I guess that'd explain the sudden deaths.

Tank: 20L, Planted, hang-on-back with sponges and bio-media, air stone, 75F, almost no algae. pH: 7.5 | Ammonia: 0 | Nitrite: 0 | Nitrate: 20 | KH: 5 | GH: 9 For the last few days, I've had about a single death per day... Cardinal Tetras, CPDs, and Ember Tetras... It's random. No visible symptoms like ich or fungus. Just each morning I'm finding one fish at the bottom either obviously struggling to live or dead and being eaten by shrimp. ...The shrimp are doing great. Right now I have one Ember that might be breathing fast. All the other fish seem fine. The CPDs are even doing that little dance that they do with each other. Please let me know what you think I should do. Should I treat the tank and just hope it's something unseen? Is 20 too high for nitrates for these fish? It's not spiking anything. It's all very steady. I feed a mix of flakes, bug bites, frozen daphnia, live baby brine, and occasionally dried tubifex worms. I don't think I'm over feeding, but I could be wrong. Any help is much appreciated. The schools are down to their minimum numbers now and I'm not adding anything until this is sorted out.

Big question about substrate alterations to established tanks... I have the 20 Long seen below. pH 7.7ish | gH & kH 8-9 | Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate 0/0/10 ... (This is not perfect for the fish that are here, but they are actually doing great. pH and hardness are high, but straight from the tap and rock steady over time.) Light is a fluval 3 at 50% maximum... which is an overkill light, but hey, I love the thing. Fish: Ember tetras, Celestials, Albino cardinals, Cherry shrimp, a host of hitchhiker pond snails and a few assassins. I'd very much like to add a ground cover to the blue section. The plants you see in that area currently are all but dead. The substrate was badly planned. It's very rough and not very deep either. I'm not planning for CO2. Is it safe to replace that section's substrate with something like eco complete? Will it affect the water conditions? If I get a pH swing or some such thing, it would not do well for the cardinals and shrimp I imagine. Is there a decent alternative cover you'd suggest that won't need me to augment the substrate too much? High maintenance is fine. Side note: All these plants are from here and OMG those Java ferns... They came like that. Those are new. That's how they come. That's two. TWO! Amazing. Side side note: See any sins here? Anything problematic that you see that I don't would be helpful of course.