Total Loss of Tank after Maracyn + Ich X treatment

[DallasCowboys16]

Hello everyone, I recently had a pretty unfortunate situation go down with one of my tanks.

I had a fish start exhibiting symptoms of columnaris a few days ago and I decided to medicate the tank in order to make sure the spread was contained. I decided on a combination of maracyn and Ich X in order to knock out the bacterial and fungal infections at the same time.

The tank is a 20 gallon long and was home to my multifasciatus colony. It is filtered by two sponge filters and is heated to 78 degrees. Day 1 of treatment I dosed the maracyn and Ich X as directed on the package (2 packets maracyn, 10 ml Ich X) with no problem. Fish were happy and healthy, no issues. 24 hours later, I redosed the same amount of maracyn and Ich X as per the instructions on the package. I did not do the recommended 30% water change due to the fact that I did not want to dilute the strength of the treatment, and often times I find such instructions with products to be unnecessary. I have medicated quite a few tanks before and have my doubts about such a minimal water change between treatments having any effect (this time maybe I paid the price for not heeding the warning).

Everything seemed to be fine for the few hours before lights out, but I woke up this morning to cloudy, opaque water and a 100% loss of the tank.

I have been keeping fish for 10+ years and have been fortunate enough to have rarely experienced disease in my tanks, so medications are something that are not necessarily my forte but I have treated my fair share of QT tanks when I worked at a store. I never experienced maracyn or Ich X killing off fish like this. The cloudy water is a hallmark of a bacterial bloom or my BB taking a hit from the medication, but both of these medications can generally be used safely in an established tank. I know I must have done something wrong or introduced another variable here, but I cannot figure it out. Is there anything that sounds obviously incorrect about how I went about my treatment for this tank?

Thanks for the help or any guidance that can be given. I am pretty bummed about having wiped out a whole tank like this and would very much like to try and figure out what mistake was made here so I can prevent it in the future.

Edited August 30, 2023 by DallasCowboys16

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Hi @DallasCowboys16, so sorry for your losses.  While I haven’t used Maracyn and Ich X together, I did experience a die off of beneficial bacteria on my filter after using Maracyn, resulting in ammonia readings. To combat this, I did a water change with Prime before redosing.  Do you know what the water parameters were between doses and if ammonia may have been present at that time?

[DallasCowboys16]

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea thank you. I had been maintaining this colony since college so it is a tough pill to swallow that I killed them as a result of operator error, but sometimes things happen.

I unfortunately did not take an ammonia reading between treatments since the tank appeared to be hanging in there without a hitch. Obviously I was wrong about this though. Perhaps I should have done that water change between doses, but surely a 30-50% water change wouldn't have stopped the situation from going nuclear like this overnight? I just have a hard time believing the tank would be so normal after the first dose and then go into full blown meltdown after the second.

This was an extremely mature tank, so I figured it would have no problem coping with the medications. Everything I know about maracyn from experience is that generally, established tanks can handle it. When you had your BB die off, did it happen in the first 24 hours, or take a little bit of time?

 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I want to say like day 3-ish?

Did you run an extra airstone bychance? Meds tend to alter the viscosity (the liquid is thicker) of the water also, making it harder for the inhabitants to breathe.

On 8/30/2023 at 4:36 PM, DallasCowboys16 said:

Perhaps I should have done that water change between doses, but surely a 30-50% water change wouldn't have stopped the situation from going nuclear like this overnight?

Not sure. The manufacturers may have some reasoning behind those instructions based on lab testing, I’m guessing. Kind of like how we’d change out 30% to dilute nitrate?

You should run carbon in the tank next to remove the meds.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[DallasCowboys16]

On 8/30/2023 at 2:38 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Did you run an extra airstone bychance? Meds tend to alter the viscosity (the liquid is thicker) of the water also, making it harder for the inhabitants to breathe.

I thought that the dual sponge filters would be creating enough surface break in order to prevent issues with O2 concentration, but in hindsight it would have been a good idea. I have no idea if it would have saved the fish, but lesson learned the hard way.
 

On 8/30/2023 at 2:38 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Not sure. The manufacturers may have some reasoning behind those instructions based on lab testing, I’m guessing.

You should run carbon in the tank next to remove the meds.

Makes sense. I'm sure there's reasoning behind the directions to perform a small water change, but there are also most likely highly variable conditions that exist in each tank which make predicting the impact of the addition of meds difficult, so the prescribed water change helps them cover their bases. My BB just must not have been able to cope with the meds, particularly both at the same time.

I actually think there is a chance that well established tanks could potentially have a harder time dealing with antibiotics due to the fact that there are simply more organisms that will be killed off by the meds. When these organisms die en-masse, they introduce much more free organic substances into the water than they would with a new/unestablished tank. This could result in the ensuing ammonia spike being more significant.

I already gave the casualties a burial, cleaned the whole tank out to the tune of a 100% water change, and have a bag of carbon hanging in there now. Probably going to let the tank run fallow for a while until I decide what is next.

Man, sometimes after being in the hobby for a long time you think you know everything and are impervious to mistakes like this, but then reality comes and punches you in the face.

Edited August 30, 2023 by DallasCowboys16

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/30/2023 at 4:54 PM, DallasCowboys16 said:

there are simply more organisms that will be killed off by the meds. When these organisms die en-masse, they introduce much more free organic substances into the water

Very true. Also substrate takes up tank volume. I have a calculator down in my signature line which I use if I'm medicating a delicate species. Most recently I used it to calculate meds for my shrimps, which had parasites.

On 8/30/2023 at 4:54 PM, DallasCowboys16 said:

I already gave the casualties a burial, cleaned the whole tank out to the tune of a 100% water change, and have a bag of carbon hanging in there now. Probably going to let the tank run fallow for a while until I decide what is next.

Man, sometimes after being in the hobby for a long time you think you know everything and are impervious to mistakes like this, but then reality comes and punches you in the face.

I'm so sorry this happened.  Don't beat yourself up too badly. You were making decisions based on your knowledge and experiences in the fish store and you were trying to treat them for illness because you cared about them.   

Edited August 30, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/30/2023 at 1:02 PM, DallasCowboys16 said:

The tank is a 20 gallon long and was home to my multifasciatus colony. It is filtered by two sponge filters and is heated to 78 degrees. Day 1 of treatment I dosed the maracyn and Ich X as directed on the package (2 packets maracyn, 10 ml Ich X) with no problem. Fish were happy and healthy, no issues. 24 hours later, I redosed the same amount of maracyn and Ich X as per the instructions on the package. I did not do the recommended 30% water change due to the fact that I did not want to dilute the strength of the treatment, and often times I find such instructions with products to be unnecessary. I have medicated quite a few tanks before and have my doubts about such a minimal water change between treatments having any effect (this time maybe I paid the price for not heeding the warning).

Everything seemed to be fine for the few hours before lights out, but I woke up this morning to cloudy, opaque water and a 100% loss of the tank.

I am very sorry for your loss.  It's a tragedy and hopefully we can narrow down what is going on. I see that you're running dual sponge filters.  I have tanks myself that use this method as well and I have have success with them as well as failures.  What was the hardscape like in the tank?  Is it possible to use something like a lava rock as a decor item?  Something like adding a bag of ceramic media to the top of the sponge filter (just sitting on top in a mesh bag) may be a great way to add stability to the system.

Long term, stability, regardless of meds is the key and seeing the water change color, I think aeration has to be at play here.  For whatever reason the bacteria fell off and the fish were stressed as a result of this.  I have used the combo of ich-X, salt, and maracyn many times as well as simply ich-X and salt and not had any sort of negative issues.  Whenever you add meds, add air, just as a general rule it's a good idea to increase aeration and circulation.

Beyond that, I think we just have to assume there was limited bacteria in there and they might not have been a very strong bacterial colony, which meant when you suffered losses, it was catastrophic. 

[DallasCowboys16]

On 8/30/2023 at 5:56 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I am very sorry for your loss.  It's a tragedy and hopefully we can narrow down what is going on. I see that you're running dual sponge filters.  I have tanks myself that use this method as well and I have have success with them as well as failures.  What was the hardscape like in the tank?  Is it possible to use something like a lava rock as a decor item?  Something like adding a bag of ceramic media to the top of the sponge filter (just sitting on top in a mesh bag) may be a great way to add stability to the system.

Long term, stability, regardless of meds is the key and seeing the water change color, I think aeration has to be at play here.  For whatever reason the bacteria fell off and the fish were stressed as a result of this.  I have used the combo of ich-X, salt, and maracyn many times as well as simply ich-X and salt and not had any sort of negative issues.  Whenever you add meds, add air, just as a general rule it's a good idea to increase aeration and circulation.

Beyond that, I think we just have to assume there was limited bacteria in there and they might not have been a very strong bacterial colony, which meant when you suffered losses, it was catastrophic. 

Thank you. The hardscape was about 10lbs of lava rock and some driftwood. In addition to that I had a significant amount of java fern and anubias growing in the tank. I do not believe that lack of suitable substrate for bacteria was the main culprit here, but I do agree with your assessment about the lack of aeration. I am starting to think that after the second dosage, the meds caused viscosity of the water became high enough that my air stones were no longer creating enough disturbance to properly aerate the water, and this combined with some form of bacteria die off did the tank in.

I am really just quite shocked at how dramatically and rapidly this unfolded after the second dosage, when the first had no negative impact on the tank. I have medicated tons of tanks using ich X and maracyn before without experiencing something like this, so I really am quite shocked. I guess one way or another, conditions were just right for catastrophic failure here.

 

On 8/30/2023 at 3:27 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I'm so sorry this happened.  Don't beat yourself up too badly. You were making decisions based on your knowledge and experiences in the fish store and you were trying to treat them for illness because you cared about them.   

Appreciate it. Sometimes stuff just doesn't go down quite how you expect it to. This is the first time in all of my years of fish keeping that I have killed off a tank, so while it definitely sucks, I will learn from this experience to exercise a little bit more caution when it comes to introducing meds, as some tanks can react very aversely, regardless of how many times you have used a med with no problem on others.

Edited August 31, 2023 by DallasCowboys16

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/31/2023 at 1:47 AM, DallasCowboys16 said:

Appreciate it. Sometimes stuff just doesn't go down quite how you expect it to. This is the first time in all of my years of fish keeping that I have killed off a tank, so while it definitely sucks, I will learn from this experience to exercise a little bit more caution when it comes to introducing meds, as some tanks can react very aversely, regardless of how many times you have used a med with no problem on others.

Yeah. It’s such an easy thing to put some meds in. Harder to know what the meds are actually doing once they are in there. Like when our doctor prescribes something new for us and then we experience side effects. Your tank (not just the fish, but the bacteria, viscosity, parameters, all of that) experienced the side effects.

I got into the habit of moving fish (only the affected ones) out to a quarantine when I medicate. I use a clear tote. This is how I set it up.

I haven’t always done that though. With ich I wouldn’t because of the life cycle it has, ich parasites have a free swimming stage. I’ve been successful with columnaris quarantines though on more than one occasion; one of those stories is in my signature line.
 

I leave the quarantine dry but when I have to set it up lickety split, I just drain 5g of tank water into it, then top off with 5g of dechlorinated water. I also have an extra sponge filter going in my main tank that I can just move out to quarantine whenever. Then I give the bacteria a little boost with Fritz Zyme 7 and drop in the heater and extra air.

The silver lining of this whole thing is that you found the CARE forum. Welcome, by the way!  Since you’re here, click around a bit!  Some people have some fun projects going on with breeding, outdoor tubs, aquascaping; one guy was even taking an old retro gumball machine and converting it into a nano tank. There is a journals section, so when you do decide to start up again you may want to start a journal so that people can follow along with what the latest is in your fishroom too. I imagine you’re still trying to process things, but, you know. When you’re ready. 

Edited August 31, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/30/2023 at 10:47 PM, DallasCowboys16 said:

Thank you. The hardscape was about 10lbs of lava rock and some driftwood.

That's a relief to hear in some sense. I think that absolutely helped with the overall stability.

 

On 8/30/2023 at 10:47 PM, DallasCowboys16 said:

I am really just quite shocked at how dramatically and rapidly this unfolded after the second dosage, when the first had no negative impact on the tank. I have medicated tons of tanks using ich X and maracyn before without experiencing something like this, so I really am quite shocked. I guess one way or another, conditions were just right for catastrophic failure here.

It's a very tragic, very tough situation. Again, I am sorry for the struggle and the confusion through all of this.  I think a lot of us can relate and empathize. I'm right there with you, it's a confusing situation because it seemingly worked just fine previously in other tanks.

There's a video on Jimmy's channel that talks about something similar that Cory went through with his puffer. Sometimes there are things completely out of our control no matter the best of intensions.

[DallasCowboys16]

On 8/31/2023 at 4:02 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

The silver lining of this whole thing is that you found the CARE forum. Welcome, by the way!  Since you’re here, click around a bit!  Some people have some fun projects going on with breeding, outdoor tubs, aquascaping; one guy was even taking an old retro gumball machine and converting it into a nano tank. There is a journals section, so when you do decide to start up again you may want to start a journal so that people can follow along with what the latest is in your fishroom too. I imagine you’re still trying to process things, but, you know. When you’re ready.

Thank you! I was a big time fish forum user back in the day, but over the last decade most of them seem to have declined pretty precipitously. I really do not like reddit or Facebook groups and prefer old school dedicated forums like this one. CARE seems to have a healthy user base though and seems like a fun community! I'll see you around the other threads! I'll definitely be turning this tank into something new. Just haven't quite decided what that will be yet.

 

On 8/31/2023 at 4:19 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

I'm right there with you, it's a confusing situation because it seemingly worked just fine previously in other tanks.

I'd say that is what drove me the most crazy about the situation. I have done pretty much the same thing plenty of times (In store QT tanks rather than home aquariums though) without any such issues. Either way, what's done is done and I'll learn from it.