Can anyone help me. I have this disease in my pond that’s wiping out my entire pond.

[Darrin Sweeting]

Can anyone help me. I have this disease that is wiping out my pond. I have Molly’s,Platys,guppy’s,and swords,but the Molly’s seems to be the worst. They have a problem swimming with their tails. It seems as if after a day or so they have no use from their spine to their tail then they die. They swim kinda wobbly. It’s not swimmers bladder I’ve had that before this just seems different it’s like an internal disease

 

[Colin_T]

HI and welcome to the forum

Check your water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and GH.
Make sure the GH is above 200ppm and the pH above 7.0.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks.

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Post pictures of the fish?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

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Add salt.
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate will affect some plants. The lower dose rate will not affect plants.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

 

[FishGuest5123]

Is it really a pond or is that what you call an aquarium?

 

[Darrin Sweeting]

HI and welcome to the forum

Check your water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and GH.
Make sure the GH is above 200ppm and the pH above 7.0.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks.

------------------------
Post pictures of the fish?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

------------------------
Add salt.
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate will affect some plants. The lower dose rate will not affect plants.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

 

[Darrin Sweeting]

Hi Colin thanks for getting back to me. Rite now I have 200 gal of water in my pond with 5 cups of salt In it. It’s bin in there 2 days. The fish still doesn’t seem to be getting better. When should I do another water change and how much of a water change should I do. Should I add the dam amount of salt again or put a little more. Should I dilute the salt or just put it directly in the pond.

 

[Darrin Sweeting]

Is it really a pond or is that what you call an aquarium?

 

[Darrin Sweeting]

Yea it is a pond

 

[Colin_T]

If you haven't done a water change on the pond in the last week, then do one now. Change at least half the water and add some more salt so the levels remain constant.
Try to dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank.

Check the GH and post pictures when you can.

 

[FishGuest5123]

Yea it is a pond

Do you know what your water parameters are? Water condition? How long have the fish been in the pond? How big is the pond?

 

[Darrin Sweeting]

I did a water change 2 days ago. Was wondering when to do the next water change and how much salt to add when I do this water change

 

[FishGuest5123]

How long have the fish been in the pond and size of the pond?

 

[Darrin Sweeting]

Do you know what your water parameters are? Water condition? How long have the fish been in the pond? How big is the pond?

 

[Darrin Sweeting]

I don’t know my water parameters,but I did a 60% water change then added 5 cups of salt to the pond and it’s bin in there for 2 days now. My pond is a 300 gal pond. I had fish already in the pond then I added about 100 more fish to the pond about 3 weeks later after I had them in quarantine. The ones that are dying is the ones I put In there what I had in quarantine

 

[Darrin Sweeting]

If you haven't done a water change on the pond in the last week, then do one now. Change at least half the water and add some more salt so the levels remain constant.
Try to dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank.

Check the GH and post pictures when you can.

 

[Colin_T]

can you provide us with some pictures?
take some of the fish and put them in a tank and photograph them.