Fish Not Right

[SDWalters]

Hi I am in need of some advice....

I have a 90 US gal tank with the following

1 x Severum 1.5inch
1 x Blue acara 3 inch
1 x Firemouth 3 inch
1 x Reed fish 9 inch
2 x Bristlenoses 4 inch
6 x Tiger Barb 2 1.5inch

I use 1 x Fluval 305, 1 x Fluval 405, 1 x internal filter for 90 litre tank (dont remember model/brand) & 1 x bubble wall type thing.

I do weekly water changes using a gravel vac and my tank is planted.

I Yesterday used a test kit to check ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, PH and KH

Everything was in good condition, minimal ammoinum and nitrite, PH was 7.5ish and KH was well within the scale on the test instructions. And my temperature is 24C.

The only thing that was slightly high (scale said nitrate should be 50 but was 60).


Even so alot of my fish (The acara, the Firemouth, the severum & the Tiger barbs) all seem to be breathing v quickly and occasionally rubbing against rocks/plants.

Also it now seems my blue acara has a bloated belly and ive just noticed one fish has white spot.

This has been going on for ages though so i dont think the Ich/ick/ white spot is to blame and the bloated belly sounds like another disease (cant remember name).


Could the white spot and bloated belly disease be down to stress ( I have recently had an overhaul of the tank decor and caught rather fast fish who took a while to catch and again probably stressed the rest of the fish)

Even so what would cause the gasping and scrating on rocks?

Any suggestions???

 

[minxfishy]

Are the white spots like speckles of salt? Even without the spots, flicking and rubbing can still be ich, sometimes it effects the fishes gills without the signs of spots.

Moving alot of decor around can sometimes produce pockets of gas/ammonia into the water, but if your water stats are not showing any signs of ammonia, or nitrIte, then it may well be down to lack of oxygen. How are the filter outlets positioned? Are they creating enough ripples/breaking the surface of the water to allow oxygen in?

The acara may be constipated, hence the swollen belly, what is your normal feeding regime? Do they get some form of vegetable matter in their diet? Does he just look fat or are his scales sticking out too? If its just fat and is constipated, try feeding some cooked shelled peas, this will help 'flush' the blockage out. If its dropsy (scales sticking out) then it is often a sign of bad water quality and is often irreversable.

If the fish have ich, you will need to raise the temperature (slowly) to around 30c and then use a good quality Ich medication (as per dosage on bottle), however, increasing the temperature and adding meds, will reduce oxygen levels more and so you will need to increase oxygen into the water by moving the filter outlets to create more surface agitation.

 

[SDWalters]

Yeah it is definately White spot on some of teh fish, so i am off to the lfs on way home from work to treat that.

I feed them twice a day, once in the morning with a mix of tetra complete crisps & cichlid gold pellets (baby size as they are juve's)

Then again at night i do the same, i use bloodworks and muscles once to twice a week and also use algae wafers.

I dont put in any vegetable matter, so maybe that is the problem! No gills are sticking out so perhaps the poor guy is constipated!

With regards to oxygen, i dont have the test kit but , i have the pumps at vary levels:

Fluval 305 is quite deep

Fluval 405 is nearer the surface and create ripples ( not any splashing ripples if that makes sense?) the internal is placed at the survace so it creates bubbles and then in the centre of the tank i have (going to have to describe as not sure what is called) like a lawnmower motor type thing that whizzes round with a air intake tube out of the water which churns out lots of bubbles ( also has a changing colour light!)