Cant Stop My Fish Getting Sick

[yanktank]

Please Someone help. I am new to fish keeping and went to Pets at home where they sold me a 64 litre fish Box I set it all up and they said if I added the filter start as directed it would be ready in two weeks. After the two weeks I took my sample of water down there and they said it was fine. they asked me a few questions ie had i got live plants size of tank and if i had any other fish. Then they sold me 3 Sailfin Mollys and 1 Black Molly, 1 White Molly, 1 Dalmation Molly,3 American Flag Fish and 13 Guppies. I happily (Nievely!!!) came home and introduced them to the tank. Everthing when SWIMMINGLY then the S**T hit the proverbile fan! I had Columnaris, Popeye, Finrot they were dropping like flies. So I started reading on some chat rooms and found out I should not have put so many in at once ( Hind sight is wonderful!) I now had a very bad ass case of new tank syndrome. So I followed the advice of the website forums I had read. Doing a 30 - 50% water change everyday and test the water everyday til the Nitrates and Nitrites where 0 then do a 25 - 30% water change once a week which i have religously done I have also treated for finrot and fungus and added some aquarium salt. The water levels are good and it has been 3 weeks but now most of the fish seem to be doing endless white poo its everywhere and the filter is not coping with it all so I hoover it out every day and the fish are very stressed and still dont seem right. Is there something I am not doin right?? Help please before I loose the rest! ​

xxx Cheryl xxx

 

[LauraFrog]

Okay, can you tell us exactly what fish you have in the tank and the current water readings in ammonia/nitrite/nitrate? That would be really helpful.
Is there still a heap of medication in the tank?

Lots of white poo is probably internal parasites, and the fish would have been infested at the shop. If this is the case, they will probably be losing condition, and will get skinnier and skinnier no matter what and how much you feed them. The medication you need is praziquantel, it is often sold as Aqua-worm. It will not affect the filter but it should kill the worms. You could also use levimasole, this is in my experience harder to get and more expensive, so it's usually recommended when camallanus worms in particular are suspected because nothing else will kill them. Normal intestinal parasites will die if you treat with praziquantel, but if you can only get levimasole by all means use that. Trichlorfon and other medications that kill body and gill flukes will not kill internal parasites.

Have you seen any sign of worms protruding from the anus of any of the fish?

 

[yanktank]

Okay, can you tell us exactly what fish you have in the tank and the current water readings in ammonia/nitrite/nitrate? That would be really helpful.
Is there still a heap of medication in the tank?

Lots of white poo is probably internal parasites, and the fish would have been infested at the shop. If this is the case, they will probably be losing condition, and will get skinnier and skinnier no matter what and how much you feed them. The medication you need is praziquantel, it is often sold as Aqua-worm. It will not affect the filter but it should kill the worms. You could also use levimasole, this is in my experience harder to get and more expensive, so it's usually recommended when camallanus worms in particular are suspected because nothing else will kill them. Normal intestinal parasites will die if you treat with praziquantel, but if you can only get levimasole by all means use that. Trichlorfon and other medications that kill body and gill flukes will not kill internal parasites.

Have you seen any sign of worms protruding from the anus of any of the fish?

The fish I have now (whats left) is one white molly, one dalmation molly, one black molly, 5 Salfin Mollys, one Plec, one Platty, 4 Balloon Mollys and one american flagfish. Will adding aquarium salt help? No there is not alot of med in tank last treatment was on friday so with this change today they wont be much to worry about. I will go out today and look for the meds you suggested. Last test on tank was a little high on Nitrate but not in danger zone but doing a 30% change today. Have not seen any worms protruding but not sure as I dont know what they look like.
Many Thanks Cherylxxx

 

[theshadowinc]

Okay! Calm down, relax and start breathing now we are on step 1

New tank cyndrome what is that?? You mean cycling of the tank??

Don't seem to be cycled correctly. Stop asking the shop to test your water for you to me they seem not what they are doing. Trust yourself at this point in time and get your self a good test kit and put down the readings on your tank here in the forum so we can help you.

Go with the test drop kits, not the strips
Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate
Are the main 3 you wanted before you purchased your tank. 64l with all those fish you will lose some, due to overstocking I am pretty sure that was overstocked.

So do your tests and let us know what they are in PPM(Parts Per Million)
Then we will be able to help you! (Cycling a tank can take along time and can also take a very short time) You eaither A) The cycle was not completed, B) Killed the bio filter with the load of all those fish going in.

 

[Athena]

Cheryl

You have way too many fish for that size tank. Your LFS should not have sold you so many fish knowing you only had a 64 litre tank - but obviously they only have one thing in mind and that is PROFITS. So sorry you have had to experience this as it's an upsetting thing, I know.

Is there any chance you could return some of the fish to them? The Plec is a bad choice for such a small tank - they are super poopers and will outgrow that tank, anyway. They can grow quite huge!

I would try to rehome the plec and some of those mollies (sailfins will grow to about 3inches each!).

If you leave your current stock levels as they are you will constantly be suffering with problems in your tank.

In the meantime, until you decide what to do, you will need to be doing daily water changes to keep the toxin levels down. Even if you manage to keep those levels safe, the amount of stress the fish will be suffering due to overcrowding can cause illness anyway, as stress lowers their immune system (same as with us humans) and then disease sets in.

Regards - Athena

 

[yanktank]

Thanks for that Athena come to realise that I shouldnt listen to these shops . I am Looking to move content to a 140 litre tank would this be better? and any suggestions on how to make the transition less stressfull on the fish? Should I transfer water or just decor and filter? though will be adding a bigger external filter as i dont think the internal one ive got is man enough for the tank its in let alone a bigger one! Oh and my Test results were GH - 180ppm / KH - 180ppm / PH - 8.0 / NO2 - 0 / NO3 - 20 / Amonia - 0 Doing water change later today to bring NO3 down.

 

[Athena]

Thanks for that Athena come to realise that I shouldnt listen to these shops . I am Looking to move content to a 140 litre tank would this be better? and any suggestions on how to make the transition less stressfull on the fish? Should I transfer water or just decor and filter? though will be adding a bigger external filter as i dont think the internal one ive got is man enough for the tank its in let alone a bigger one! Oh and my Test results were GH - 180ppm / KH - 180ppm / PH - 8.0 / NO2 - 0 / NO3 - 20 / Amonia - 0 Doing water change later today to bring NO3 down.

Hi Cheryl

Yes, that would be way better for those fish.

Now the only problem I foresee is this thing with the filter. If it was a case of simply putting your current filter into the new tank, filling it with dechlorinated water, adding the fish - all would be good, as it would be the same as doing a 100% water change... BUT...because you are going over to a much larger tank needing a much more powerful filter, you will need a new filter, as you rightly said.

The way I would deal with this would be to transfer as much of your current filter media (sponge) over to the new filter as possible to avoid having to do a complete recycle of the new tank. If there is some way you can fit the old sponge into your new filter (you may need to do a bit of cutting to make things fit) then hopefully the current bacteria colony can continue to grow and flourish in the new tank and you will have at least some good bacteria there to start the new tank off with.

No need to add old tank water to the new tank as there is no beneficial bacteria in the water. Might as well start off with nice clean water! Yes, you can move any tank ornaments/plants/gravel etc over, as a small amount of good bacteria will be on these too. But the main body of bacteria will be in your filter.

Don't be tempted to add any more new fish to the new tank for quite some time, though. Let the new filter properly establish with your current stocking level of fish, as it might not even be fully cycled yet. Continue to do regular water checks on it to make sure all stats are normal - and once everything is stable for a month or more (to give the filter time to build up a good supply of bacteria) then you could introduce a few more fish if you wanted.

Best thing to do is wait until you reach that stage, then see how many fish you have left (you may lose a few more before all this takes place) and then post back on here asking for advice on how many more fish would be appropriate (depends on the type of fish you want).

Remember that when you are transferring over the filter media (sponge) to new filter, don't wash it out too vigorously - if there is a thick build up of debris just give it a little sloosh in some old tank water before putting it into the new filter. Other than that, don't bother cleaning it, just put it in as it is. Too much cleaning of it can destroy the good bacteria.

Your current problems arose because a) your tank was not cycled (contrary to what your LFS told you) and b) you overstocked dramatically and all at once.

A tank is only fully cycled once the filter has had a chance to build up a good size bacteria colony that can handle converting the amount of fish waste in your tank on a daily basis. (If there are no fish present in a tank then a tank can't cycle as there is no ammonia being produced - unless you physically add ammonia to the tank water, which is what we refer to as "fishless cycling"). The fish produce ammonia (or you add it from a bottle), the first group of good bacteria convert this to nitrites, then a second type of bacteria convert the nitrite into safer nitrates. We then do weekly water changes to remove some of the nitrates to prevent the levels going too high.

And if we can maintain a status quo in our tanks then we end up with happy, healthy fish (well, most of the time LOL).

Hope that's helped but if you need any more info, just ask - regards, Athena

 

[yanktank]

What if I put the old filter in the tank and run it next to the new one for a month so i had two filters running would that work the same as putting media in new filter? Oh buy the way Lost my white molly yesterday

 

[alysonpeaches]

What if I put the old filter in the tank and run it next to the new one for a month so i had two filters running would that work the same as putting media in new filter? Oh buy the way Lost my white molly yesterday

That has worked for me in the past. Im not an expert though! I often run a new filter in an existing tank for a few weeks before setting it up in a new tank. Transferring some of the media is good though, because it starts the colony off in the new filter.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes fine th run the two filters in tandem, run them together for at least 1 month, if it doesn't take too much room in the tank then it's no bad thing to run two filters all the time. I often have tandem filters running, gives you some back up if one of them breaks.

what test kit are you using, those readings look like they've come from test strips, these are horribly inaccurate and really shouldn't be trusted. if this is the case then because of the health problems you are having i think it's reasonably safe to assume the tank isn't actually cycled yet and you probably do have some ammonia or nitrite in the tank still. It's safest to assume that you do until you can get reliable test readings with a liquid test kit so do 50% water changes every day until you get proper readings.

you should also note that unfortunately cycling with fish is likely to cause permanent health problems for fish that go through it even if they survive, so although of course we will do all we can to try and help you and your fish through it we need to be realistic that the damage may have already been done.

 

[Athena]

I've never done it that way, personally - using two filters in tandem (old and new). I would be interested to know what happens when you finally take the old filter out, leaving just the newer one, whether you would end up getting an ammonia spike due to there then being less of a filter media colony in the tank converting the toxic waste.

Sorry to hear about the white molly... I think it was inevitable there would be more fish deaths though, under the circumstances. Not your fault - and at least you are wising up to it all now and trying to remedy the situation.

All the best - Athena

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I've never done it that way, personally - using two filters in tandem (old and new). I would be interested to know what happens when you finally take the old filter out, leaving just the newer one, whether you would end up getting an ammonia spike due to there then being less of a filter media colony in the tank converting the toxic waste.

assuming of course the tank is sensibly stocked and the new filter is capable size wise of handling the waste from the whole tank then it's fine, the bacteria colonises across both filters roughly evenly so you'll get a 50/50 split or if (as if often the case) the new filter is bigger than the old one you'd get a proportional split like 70/30. A mature bacteria colony can double in 24 hours so even if there was a spike after the first filter was removed it would be over within a day or so, you'd probably never even notice it.

 

[Athena]

I've never done it that way, personally - using two filters in tandem (old and new). I would be interested to know what happens when you finally take the old filter out, leaving just the newer one, whether you would end up getting an ammonia spike due to there then being less of a filter media colony in the tank converting the toxic waste.

assuming of course the tank is sensibly stocked and the new filter is capable size wise of handling the waste from the whole tank then it's fine, the bacteria colonises across both filters roughly evenly so you'll get a 50/50 split or if (as if often the case) the new filter is bigger than the old one you'd get a proportional split like 70/30. A mature bacteria colony can double in 24 hours so even if there was a spike after the first filter was removed it would be over within a day or so, you'd probably never even notice it.

Thanks for clarifying that, Miss Wiggle. I had it in my mind that the bacteria would only grow enough to support the current ammonia levels (i.e. if there isn't enough ammonia being produced by the fish load, then it won't be enough for the bacteria colony to feed on and grow to full potential in the new filter, will it?) and therefore if there was already one filter that was cycled in the tank (or almost cycled) then the new filter, being larger, may only reach, say, a 50% colony based on the current fish stocking level. (Hope I'm not confusing you, although I confuse myself at times LOL). Wish I was more scientifically minded

Sorry for going slightly off topic here - it's helpful to learn about these things though (and it is still relevant to the OP's queries I think).

Athena

 

[Miss Wiggle]

no i know what you mean, it does feel a little like you're just taking away the main source of bacteria but they do colonise across both filters and whatever you do take away they catch up quickly. it does work in real life, i promise, but you need to run teh filters together at leats 2 weeks, a month is much better. the risk comes in if you take away the old filter too soon.