Forktail Rainbowfish - Patchy Head

[Jeynesey]

Help please

Some of my forktail rainbowfish have dark patches on their heads the day after I introduced some spotted blue eyes (their first tankmates).

Parameters are
ph 7.8
GH 7
KH 3.2
(the second two tests were a while ago, say 10 days).

I have 0 nitrites, around 30 nitrates and it looks like a trace of ammonia. I am not sure but it looks like my tapwater may have a trace of ammonia, having tested that too. I use API master test kit.

I recently cycled what is my first ever tank and added 6 forktail rainbowfish. That was Tuesday. All seemed fine and as I didn't want the bacteria I'd cultivated to die off, I added some more fish on Friday night. 7 (smaller than the forktails) spotted blue eyes. I wanted 6 but they gave me 7, which I didn't really want but I think he didn't want to squash any taking one out the bag again.

On introduction they mixed fairly well. There are too many males to females unfortunately. I have 2 male forktails and 4 females. It looks like I have either 3 or 4 male blue eyes and 3 or 4 females. It's hard to tell. The males are sex pests whenever the lighting changes but seem OK most of the time. I was worried about them mixing for a while - the blue eyes were showing at the larger forktails a lot and the forktails didn't seem to know how to take it. That was last night. Today the forktails have apparently asserted their dominance and the blue eyes aren't showing anywhere near as much.

Anyway, today I was taking some pictures of the new fish and noticed that a few of the forktails appear to have patchy foreheads. I'm gutted and obviously want to figure it out and sort the problem if I can. I am wondering if it's stress. They were nervous fish already and did tend to shoal in the bottom of the tank already a lot of the time. Today they have mixed OK for a lot of the day but if I do anything with the tank they just go hide in the bottom corner again. Anyway, I hope you'll be able to see what's up from the pics.

I tested the water in the bag when I added the blue eyes and it came in over 7.4ph so theirs isn't much different to mine.

- All the fish coloured up really well and really quickly. I was actually really pleased how healthy they were all looking until this incident.
- They were all eating fine all day. They ate the food I put in and have grazed on the wood and the moss in the tank.
- I don't know what their poo looks like unfortunately so I can't comment on that.
- I'm not sure if I have under or over fed them. They seemed to be eating fine and I've given them a couple of different makes of fish flakes and some crushed mini pellets. A lot fell to the floor because they tended to be scared when the lid was open so missed a lot of it. They did then pick the food off the floor though.
- There were a load of small worms in the tank which I was told were planaria, so they have polished all those off. I don't actually think they were planaria as they were a different shape (did not have a fat head and had a thinner end of the tail), so it's possible they were parasitic.
- The blue eyes all look very healthy as I mentioned. They were practically white in the shop last night and they're already nearly bright orange.

Anyway, I have composed a few pictures into one pic. You can see the grey patchyness. The worst appears to be the large female. I don't want to put ideas into people's heads and would prefer unbiassed feedback but she does get pestered a fair bit. Not incessantly by any means and to be honest she seems fine with it but just wanted to give all the information.

There are a couple of other bits of info I could give but I don't want to overload so hopefully this is enough. Thanks very much in advance for your help!
Mike

 

[WILDER]

How many gallons is the tank please?

The marks on the head region are grey in colour not black?
Do the grey patches also look like they have excess slime?
Do the grey patches have any red, or pink areas?
Any signs of flicking and rubbing on objects in the tank?
Check body, and fins for excess slime?
Also check fish for tiny white spots on body, fins.

 

[Jeynesey]

I thought I should post a pic of the tank if that helps.

I have fairly bright lights on (as you can see) for around 10 hours a day. I then have 3 spotlight led nightlights that give a decent variation in light / shade for a while. I then unplug two of those and just leave one on all night (because when I turned the lights off they freaked and I didn't want them to get scared).

I have a DIY CO2 injection thing but I have only had that on for about 2 hours total and that was on either Wednesday or Thursday. I thought I'd mention it anyway in-case maybe it turned to alcohol on the diffuser.

I also neglected to mention that I had problems during cycling because I used ammonia with surfactants in. I stripped everything down and cleaned it plenty... Got all new innards for my external filter etc. I kept a fair few of the plants from that time but they were washed several times, all the worst bits were clipped or the whole plants disgarded. *edit* I then kept them in a big plastic vat, with water changes, fertilized, air stones, lights etc until the tank was properly cycled the second time around *end edit* The plants now seem fine but again, wanted to mention it just in case.

So sorry for jibbering. Hopefully that's enough info! Just thought too much was better than too little.

 

[WILDER]

Lovely tank.
Never used CO2 so never bothered learning about it. So can't answer any of the questions relating to CO2.

Patches that present themselves on the head region are usually columnaris, but need to answer the above questions before we can come to that conclusion.

Forgot to ask earlier do the grey patches look like cotton wool?

 

[Jeynesey]

How many gallons is the tank please?

The marks on the head region are grey in colour not black?
Do the grey patches also look like they have excess slime?
Do the grey patches have any red, or pink areas?
Any signs of flicking and rubbing on objects in the tank?
Check body, and fins for excess slime?
Also check fish for tiny white spots on body, fins.

They are grey.
No rubbing.
They seem to be swimming around normally.
I didn't notice any slime and having just been to have another look, that's a no.
Redness I don't think so. I didn't notice anything but I have turned off the main lights now unfortunately as I wanted to calm them down. It's hard to tell with night lights.
Fins seem fine.
Couldn't see any white spots earlier as I did look for that.

It's possible that they are just colouring up some more but I don't think so - it definitely looked like patchyness rather than more colouring.

I did put some ammonia remover in earlier. "We Love Fish" was the brand. I am not sure why I used that as I have Seachem prime which is much better - I just had some and wanted to use it up.

My tank is 125l.

They don't look like cotton wool, they're just flat. If anything I'd have said they looked too dry but that's probably just because of the colour.

And thanks for the tank compliment.

 

[WILDER]

Just make sure the grey patches on head don't look like grey cotton wool patches.

For now I would just keep preforming some daily water changes.
If any changes to the grey patches don't hesitate to post back on your thread.

Good Luck.

 

[Jeynesey]

They definitely don't look like cotton wool - they're totally flat. What % water change would you recommend? I'm more than happy to do so - the only catch 22 is that the water changes stress out the fish as they don't like me looming over them

 

[WILDER]

Test your tap water in ammonia and leave it over night.
Just small water changes of 20%. Then test your water the next day.

 

[Jeynesey]

OK thanks. I actually did a 20% water change today. Just had a horrible thought that maybe Mrs Mike cleaned the tap with bleach and some of that might have got in. She was cleaning today. N.B. I have a combi boiler so run the water to the right temp out the tap. I was told this was OK cos it was a combi.

I just went and watched them for 15 mins. The large female that has it the worst is ever so slightly more fidgety. The others are settling down for the night and she keeps breaking formation and swimming around before tucking back into formation in the slight current at the bottom.

BTW, regarding "rubbing against things", some of them go up and down the glass but I didn't mention this because I've seen fish doing that all the time in the shop. This female doesn't do that particularly anyway.

 

[Jeynesey]

Just wanted to pop in and say that it's possible (though I'm not sure yet), that this was a false alarm. Today at least some of the patches are silvery, so I believe it may be further colouring up of the fish. I am monitoring the situation. I still did a 25% water change today. When I came down this morning they were all swimming at the surface. Once I turned the bubbles up they settled down after about 40 mins, so I think that was a lack of oxygen, possibly.

 

[WILDER]

That's good to hear.
Thank you for the update.