White fluff of death

I've had my tank for about 7 months, and I seem to be having a ridiculous time keeping fish alive. There seems to be this white fluffy stuff going around, that isn't cured by maracyn, and I'm not sure what it is or what to do about it. I have had one female beta since I got the tank that has survived everything so far (ick too), and she has a dark brown rough spot at the base of her lower fin (could this be the problem? and what is it?) The white fluff seems to attach itself to the sides of my fish and they don't act funny until they have a substantial amount of it, and then they die very fast.

right now I have a female and male beta, a guppy, a golden molly some tetras, an otto cat, 2 ghost shrimp and a butload of snails and real plants+ rocks ect. Nothing that should be to tricky to keep (the rocks are looking like really handsome pets right now), however fluffy here decided it was going to ruin my day. SO if anyone has any suggestions or help for me, it would be greatly appreciated, Thanks! Triggs

 

Welcome to 3Reef!!! I wish it were under better circumstances.

I really don't know freshwater so I'm not helpful other than to give you a bump.

 

What size tank is it and how often are you doing water changes and how much of a wter change? What are you adding to your tank when you do water changes or any other time? What kind of water are you using for water changes? Have you checked your parameters? What kinds of fish have you lost?

 

I had a FW tank for over 6 years and I found that the trick to a healthy tank was actually breaking it down every once in a while, putting all the fish into a bowl and treating them for ick, rinsing out all of the rock and plants and decorations, and then putting the tank abck together and using about 20% of the old water that was ick treated. Also, you are going to want to take your overhang filters off and run them with relatively hot water. Take them out of the tank for this of course.Do the same with any powerheads as well.
Every 6 months or so I would do all this and my tank never hit anything bad. I would start with removing the fish and doing a major water change while treating them for ich and other diseases/infections in a bowl. Run all of your filters and powerheads in hot water, and rinse off a lot of your decorations.
Also, make sure that you have a deep rock bed that can trap a lot of your waste instead of keeping it in suspense floating around in the water.

Hope that helped. If it fails, make a reef tank haha.

 

Also, make sure you include to tell us what type of fish were in there before. If you say goldfish once, I will consider this entire thing normal haha.

 

Details

What size tank is it
-I have a 20ish gal tank

how often are you doing water changes
-every month, 25%, by vacuuming the bottom

What are you adding to your tank when you do water changes
its called Big Al's Water conditioner, it supposed to condition city water and have some aloe for the fish

I have against peoples better advice added a few grains of brakenwater salt. but not more than like 5 grains, and maybe twice since I got the tank

What kind of water are you using for water changes?
tap water, but its the right temperature when I add it, and conditioned with that Big als stuff

Have you checked your parameters?
I know my ph and temperature are fine, I don't have any test kits for anything else though.

What kinds of fish have you lost?
I have never had goldfish thank you
I lost 4 Beta's an oto cat, a guppy, a bunch of tetras, and today I lost one that I think was mislabeled at the petstore, but it had a body like a really long angelfish with grey spots and was about 3 inches long. It had really big round eyes and its bottom fin had yellow on it, with two really long "feeler fins" that it used to find its way around. Not sure what it was though, other than a freshwater, tropical fish. Thats what made me join, I really liked that fish. I know I'm likley doing something wrong...but...

thanks for the reply, I will give a try to that clean everything technique, and anything else is still much appreciated, thanks guys

 

Its a fungal problem and an antibiotic will not help Mardel makes a product for that Cotton mouth is what I call it it looks like little puffs of Cotton on them .. Also adding a small amount of non iodized table or aquarium salt like 1 tsp per 5 gals will help ward off these fungal issues .. Do a search of F/W aquarium fungal diseases

 

I would suggest getting something for the cottonmouth problem and then doing a major water change. Clean out your filters and check to see how much junk has collected in the cartidges.

 

Could the mystery fish be a gourami???? The one that you liked.....

 

Yeah!! it looked just like this : http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y244/Fremlin/Fish/gourami_01.jpg
thanks!