Fish are dying and I'm not sure WHY???

[rigajig]

How can you tell if your fish has Ick or some other parasite? 2 of my fish have died in the last 3 days and I'm not seeing the small white dots on the fish. I did a fresh water dip with my queen angel and I started noticing all these "scale" (about 1-2mm in size) looking things in the bottom of the container. It also appeared like there was some of these "scales" were coming off his eyes. He was eating and acting normal yesterday. Now I think he will be lucky to last another day. Is this ick? Or is it some other parasite and what should I do?
I use a trickle filter with my aquarium and I noticed there were about 100 small larvae or spores with fans coming out of them. What is that and do I need to be concerned about it. There weren't any in the display tank, just in the filter.

 

[beth]

This could be flatworms. Are they translucent in color?
What exactly prompted you to do the FW dip since you said the angel was fine ? Was the dip water buffered adequately and at the correct temp?

 

[rigajig]

Beth
Thank you for responding. No. The queen angel was not doing good at all. He seemed very lethargic and gasping for air.
The "scales" appeared to be more transparent. I went to a local fish store and one of the guys there thought it might be worms also. He recommended garlic or purchasing a six line wrasse or cleaner shrimp and some hearty fish. But seeing how all my fish are dead now, I am not sure what I should do. I have about 70lbs of LR, a snowflake eel, and a chocolate starfish left in the tank.
I have tested the water levels in the tank and they are excellent.
I did not buffer the fresh water when I did the FW dip but it was at an adequate temp.
Your help would be very much appreciated.

 

[clownsrcoo]

i have been having the same problem, my fish have been having the ich symptoms. i did a freshwater dip but so far it hasn't done any good. my fish have been breathing heavily when they are dying. my local fish store said that i don't have enough circulation in my tank so i bought another power filter. she said they are stressed from a lack of oxygen and it has created a domino effect , which is causing them to aquire the ich disease. maybe that's what's going on with your tank too.

 

[beth]

rigajig, do a search for "flatworms" and then go down the list and pull up all the threads that have pics of flatworms to see if we can get an ID on your problem.
clown, FW dips don't cure ich. Take a look at the FAQ Thread and the topic on ICH.