Diagnose This Fishs Problems

[JMcQueen]

After he started crashing on the bottom, I've moved him to a small quarantine tank. One of those 6L ones kids keep fair ground fish in. I know its not ideal but I dont have anything else and since he's not swimming or eating anyway it at least allows me to keep a closer eye on him (plus hes only about 1.5" in length) and its only temporary. Theres no substrate and no plants in case any of that was affecting him.

I also used a mixture of 75/25% bottled water to tap as my tap water has high nitrates. Typically the tap is 30ppm which doesnt give a great deal of headroom once the nitrogen cycle starts to add to this figure. It could be that this fish is more sensitive to the nitrates than the other one. As the tank (if you can call it that) isnt filtered or cycled its going to require water changes nearly constantly but I can 12hourly test for ammonia and nitrite.

I've also added some tetra goldmed to see if that helps. It says its suitable for ick and fin rot so we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[mark4785]

After he started crashing on the bottom, I've moved him to a small quarantine tank. One of those 6L ones kids keep fair ground fish in. I know its not ideal but I dont have anything else and since he's not swimming or eating anyway it at least allows me to keep a closer eye on him (plus hes only about 1.5" in length) and its only temporary. Theres no substrate and no plants in case any of that was affecting him.

I also used a mixture of 75/25% bottled water to tap as my tap water has high nitrates. Typically the tap is 30ppm which doesnt give a great deal of headroom once the nitrogen cycle starts to add to this figure. It could be that this fish is more sensitive to the nitrates than the other one. As the tank (if you can call it that) isnt filtered or cycled its going to require water changes nearly constantly but I can 12hourly test for ammonia and nitrite.

I've also added some tetra goldmed to see if that helps. It says its suitable for ick and fin rot so we'll just have to wait and see.

You should be careful when using bottled water as it will often be soft water which isn't ideal for the nitrogen cycle. As a result of the soft water and it's temperature you won't be able to process your ammonia into nitrites so I highly recommend installing some zeolite natural filtration media underneath the outlet of a basic/cheap filtration pump to absorb the ammonia and prevent an excess build up of it. The water that passes through the zeolite will contain some ammonia which will be converted into harmless sodium once it is filtered through the zeolite.

You will probably get nitrite spikes so with this in mind, limit the food you put in should it get it's appetite back and, as you said, do the 12 hour water changes.

 

[FishyWishie]

You should be careful when using bottled water as it will often be soft water which isn't ideal for the nitrogen cycle. As a result of the soft water and it's temperature you won't be able to process your ammonia into nitrites.

not sure what you mean by this. I'm from Scotland so my water is about as soft as it comes my cycle has been fine and my water has no issues at all procesing ammonia into nirites.

 

[mark4785]

You should be careful when using bottled water as it will often be soft water which isn't ideal for the nitrogen cycle. As a result of the soft water and it's temperature you won't be able to process your ammonia into nitrites.

not sure what you mean by this. I'm from Scotland so my water is about as soft as it comes my cycle has been fine and my water has no issues at all procesing ammonia into nirites.

I didn't rule out a nitrite spike did I? Hard water contains various minerals that are of benefit to beneficial bacteria, and without these you are more likely to have a nitrogen cycle stall as soft water doesn't contain any of these minerals.

For this reason soft water isn't ideal but you can still have a less effective nitrogen cycle working along side of it, not something you'd want in a quarantine aquarium.