Fungal Infection?

[Essjay]

That's a problem. Guppies need GH of at least 200 ppm. Targetting only KH and pH does not help and hard water fish suffer in soft water..

Once you get nitrate down below 20 ppm, and ammonia and nitrite down to zero, you need to sort out your GH. You could try using a calcareous substrate such as crushed coral, or even better crushed aragonite or aragonite sand. Or use Rift Lake salts to increase GH. Both of these will also increase KH and pH, so stop using the buffer.

You also need to rehome some of the guppies. Hopefully, the water changes and increasing the GH will sort out the the health problem, then you can see if the LFS will take them as you hoped to do.

 

[Silencedogood]

That's a problem. Guppies need GH of at least 200 ppm. Targetting only KH and pH does not help guppies in soft water; and hard water fish suffer in soft water..

Once you get nitrate down below 20 ppm, and ammonia and nitrite down to zero, you need to sort out your GH. You could try using a calcareous substrate such as crushed coral, or even better crushed aragonite or aragonite sand. Or use Rift Lake salts to increase GH. Both of these will also increase KH and pH, so stop using the buffer.

You also need to rehome some of the guppies. Hopefully, the water changes and increasing the GH will sort out the the health problem, then you can see if the LFS will take them as you hoped to do.

I was actually raising these guppies for a LFS that would pay me for a tankful. Do you know if their color will come back?

BTW, the buffer worked for my water; the gh a couple of weeks ago was 140-200 ppm (that's as high as my kit will test). I might try crushed coral; where would I get that?

 

[Essjay]

A fish shop might sell it, or aragonite sand. A shop that stocks Rift lake cichlids is more likely to have it I would have though.


Their colour may well come back. They are pretty stressed at the moment - soft water, high nitrate, ammonia and nitrite in the water, overcrowded - which will affect them. Once these are sorted, together with the health issues resulting from the stress, they should improve.

 

[Silencedogood]

Okay thanks for all your help. I'll keep you posted.

 

[Silencedogood]

I did a 85% water change and retested the water after 2 hours.
ph- 7.2
nitrites- 0ppm
nitrates- 20ppm
ammonia- 0ppm

I did add the alkaline buffer because I didn’t want the water to be too acidic. Should I do any more water changes or just retest the water tomorrow?

The guppies look better after I had done the first two doses of Ick Remedy. Only a couple of them have any more noticeable fungus. I am currently not adding any more treatment and I also didn’t add any more salt after the water change as I wasn’t sure if that would help at this point.

 

[Silencedogood]

They are doing pretty much the same; there is definitely still fungus and they still have clamped fins. What should I be doing at this point?

 

[Silencedogood]

I'm also concerned that my cycle might crash; I changed the filter cartridge 3 days ago which is 1 day apart from the massive water change. Is it likely that I'll loose my cycle?

 

[FishGuest5123]

Why did you change the cartridge?

 

[Silencedogood]

Why did you change the cartridge?

Because when I was treating with the Ick Remedy, the carbon had to come out. The cartridge was covered in snails so I swapped it for a new one. I also hadn't changed it for a while so I figured it wouldn't hurt. I didn't expect doing an 85% water change, though.

 

[FishGuest5123]

You shouldn’t ever change a filter cartridge until it is literally falling apart. I have some that have been in my tanks well but over a year. Just cut the bottom and shake out the charcoal. Rinse the snails off with tank water.

 

[Silencedogood]

My nitrates went up to 40 ppm and my ammonia is 0.25 ppm again. What am I supposed to be doing now as far as treatment and water changes go?

@Colin_T @Byron

 

[Essjay]

If nitrate is increasing quickly it means that the tank is overstocked and/or you are feeding too much. We already know that the tank is very overstocked, you may be over feeding as well.

The ammonia reading may be because of your tap water or because you changed the filter the cartridge and don't have quite enough bacteria to remove all the ammonia.


Water changes are your best friend right now. You need to keep nitrate down to the same as the level in your tap water and ammonia at zero.

 

[Silencedogood]

It's just because my tank is overstocked? I just want to make sure my cycle isn't crashing. I'll do daily water changes and see if I can get rid of some of the guppies, maybe about half of them.

Should I add any beneficial bacteria just to be safe?

 

[Essjay]

Your tank nitrate is increasing. Nitrate has to come from somewhere and in an aquarium it comes from the nitrogen cycle. Since it is increasing, there must be enough bacteria to make it - unless it was that high before you changed the cartridge.
But with a lot of fish in a small tank, I would expect ammonia to rise much faster if the the tank had become uncycled.

Remind me, are there any live plants in the tank, and how long has the tank been running? Live plants use ammonia, though they don't turn it into nitrate, and when a tank has been running several months there are 'filter' bacteria in the substrate.

 

[Silencedogood]

Your tank nitrate is increasing. Nitrate has to come from somewhere and in an aquarium it comes from the nitrogen cycle. Since it is increasing, there must be enough bacteria to make it - unless it was that high before you changed the cartridge.
But with a lot of fish in a small tank, I would expect ammonia to rise much faster if the the tank had become uncycled.

Remind me, are there any live plants in the tank, and how long has the tank been running? Live plants use ammonia, though they don't turn it into nitrate, and when a tank has been running several months there are 'filter' bacteria in the substrate.

The tank has been running for 10 months and there aren't any live plants in this tank. I'm pretty sure that the nitrate was high before I changed the cartridge.