Why you should quarantine

So: one panda cory died - symptoms varied but quite possibly due to internal parasites. The other panda cories seem to have flukes, an external parasite - and it took me a long, long time to figure that out. Unfortunately Googling "fish disease" is not terribly helpful. "fish parasite" was even less helpful. But I have figured out a product to purchase - which I'm going to have to use on the whole tank, since my QT tank currently has occupants, and I want to make sure all the fish are treated just in case. In the 75 gallon, I'm dealing with an outbreak of septicemia, which I'm treating with antibiotic-laced food. The likely causes in both cases? Addition of non-quarantined new fish. New lesson: do not buy stock from Centreville Aquarium, it's more trouble than it's worth. I've bought a lot of fish from PetSmart that have been healthier than what I've gotten from CA; every "live" thing I've bought from there has given me nothing but endless trouble. The cichlids are a special case; perhaps I should have done more water changes for them right after I added the new fish (strangely, none of them are showing any symptoms of illness) but I figured using Stability would give my already-established bio filter the boost it needed to handle the new load without trouble.

Note to self: quarantine. Every. Time. I wouldn't be having this trouble if I'd grabbed a couple of Tupperware boxes to use as extra quarantine tanks, I certainly have the extra HOB filters for it! I'm quite upset at myself, because I certainly knew better. At least for the cories, this would have solved my problems. I don't think I could have safely quarantined the 7 new cichlids - I don't have THAT many spare filters lying around, and I'd worry that the stress of being stuck in overcrowded boxes after having been shipped from FL would do irreparable damage.

Thankfully so far the infected fish numbers are quite small; three acei and the cories in the 55. Hopefully with increased water changes and the appropriate medication, I won't have any more losses than just the one panda corydoras. I have invested in another net box to help isolate fish; currently the baby acei is protected in one, and an albino corydoras with swim bladder trouble is in another. I'm hoping to get the sick cory to eat some of the antibiotic food. Unfortunately it wants to float.