Possible fungus on cichlids

[wierd1]

I have a 225l tank with a medium sized oscar in it (and he is doing rather well) and 3 (was 4 yesterday) cichlids that are all alot smaller than him(her :?: ). The cichlids were originally bought as feeder fish but it turned out they were too big (the oscar tried to eat the 5th one but spat it out half munched on, decided to leave the rest alone). So they grew up and two of them have now grown to about 10cm and two (now one) are about 5cm long. They look like mbunas and they started turning pink about a month ago but otherwise i don't know what type they are.

I changed the water recently and the cichlids started to develop small white spots that looked like fungus or similar and now has spread to the gills and larger patches. They also started to ignore any food. I added some fungonex (for finrot and other) yesterday. The smallest one has died today.

The water i used in the change is the same (rain water) but i dont know the pH. My oscar is swimming around happily ignoring them, waiting for more guppies, and doesn't appear to be affected.

I'm not sure what the problem is, but if i add some salt (about 4 teaspoons at a guess, some suggestions here?) to raise the pH (or at least, i think that is what it does - it seems i didn't pay much attention in chemistry), will it affect the oscar much (who seems to be happy with rainwater)? I don't really mind losing the cichlids, as they were a kind of unplanned keeping, but now that they have grown up a bit, they were starting to get interesting.

[William]

Sounds like you have diagnosed the problem (I assume its not ick) and it sounds likely that it is some kind of fungus. You have taken the correct steps to rectify the problem. It might just be that you started the medication to late to save the oscar that died.

Is fungonex active against other funguses as well?

[wierd1]

No, it wasn't an oscar that died, just an unknown breed of cichlid that i believe are from one of the african lakes (the oscar is fine, and will enjoy the black widows that are waiting to be eaten - isn't fun to sadistically feed small fish to big fish?). They are the ones having the trouble. I came home today to find that 3 are still alive, but it looks like the scales are falling off one of the larger fish (just in patches) and its skin is looking a bit bloody. Not looking to healthy and as far as i can tell, still hasn't eaten for a while.

[William]

Ok. so it's an african cichlid that has the problem. Whats is the pH and water hardness?

[wierd1]

I don't know. I presume it is fairly soft and about 6.5
I just use rainwater to fill the tank, so it should be just right for my oscar, and up until now the cichlids haven't been affected. One of the bigger ones died last night. The two remaining are moving more than they have been but the bigger of the two still has a couple of spots that look like fungus.

[William]

might be that the meds is taking effect.

The water is however really not suitable for african lake cichlids and might be the reason for the disease. it is very suitable for your oscars.

[wierd1]

Oh well. They were left in there on the basis that they would have to try and survive if they could (wasn't going to upset the oscar just for them). I will just have to wait and see.