Help Advice Greatly Appreciated

[Jo Booth]

Hell all,

Im new here, have lurked a while reading your tips and advice ... now I need to sepak to you direct!

I have a 40litre (british) tank, complete with filter system (sponge & cabon), heater and aeration (air brick).

The tank has been set up for 5 weeks. Was set up for one week before three white cloud mountain minnows were added (advised by aquatic centre as had a single old age specimen which required company)

The tap water is treated with Stress Coat and StressZyme. Tank cntains 3 plants, an ornament and an imitation bog wood.

Within 2 weeks I lost two of the minnow - the old boy and one of the new ones. One showed no symptoms that were obvious - died overnight. The othe however, had what looked like a cotton wool fungus on his pectoral fin. He was removed, the tank treated withInterpet anti Fungas and Finot treatmen (carbon removed).

Following two weeks and a 30% water change as stated on the treatment instructions, all seemed well. Water tests have been spot on and pH and temp are constant. I have added API aquarium salt as directed on the packet when starting the tank and when carrying out a water change.

5 new minnows were added over a week ago, water was tested - again fine as follows

Ammonia - 0 (or not enough to read off 0 on the colour chart)
Nitrite - 0 (or as above)
Nitrate - 0 (or as above)
pH - 6.8
Temp of water 26 degrees celcius

Yesterday we lost another minnow and today we are about to loose another -

Symptoms -

Fish is fine, suddenly over the course of a day it goes to the surface and floats there. This is followed by the fish pointing upwards with its nose touching the surface of the water, then righting itself again, then follows the fish rolling onto its back belly facing the top the tank. Slight loss of colour as time goes on. Pectoral fin is slightly clamped to the body. Th fish doesn't seem to be rapid breathing. This lasts about 4-5 hours then the fish dies.

There are no white spots, no obvious damage to fins or scales, no parasites that I can see on examining the dead fish.

It really is horrible watching this happen - all other fish are fine.

Todat

No other obvious symtoms, and I am getting desperate. Today I have added Interpet Anti-Bacterial number 9 treatment in a desperate bid to rectrify whatever is going on.

Sory this is so long, but you need the info !!

Any advice would be appreciated - I fel at the minte that my only option is to start over again.

Many Thanks
Jo

 

[shang hi]

I have a 40litre (british) tank, complete with filter system (sponge & cabon), heater and aeration (air brick).

Filter system (sponge and carbon), no Media, no media means little bacteria and your tank will not have cycled.

Ammonia - 0 (or not enough to read off 0 on the colour chart)
Nitrite - 0 (or as above)
Nitrate - 0 (or as above)
pH - 6.8
Temp of water 26 degrees celcius

as stated above 0ppm nitrate is very very very very...... uncommon almost imposable, your tank has not cycled if you have no nitrate. are you sure your reading the tests right and are they liquid or strip as liquid is more accurate. 0ppm ammonia, Nitrite are good but with 0ppm Nitrate your tests are not accurate or you have a miricle in your tank. however if you have ammonia remover in your filter that would explain the water stats but you will not have a cycled tank.

a fungal infection (cotton mouth) is usualy caused by dammage to the fish (and sometimes badwater quality with a open cut.dammmage to the fish)

 

[natural blue nina]

Filter system (sponge and carbon), no Media, no media means little bacteria and your tank will not have cycled.

Shang Hi, I'm not sure that is true. Media often takes the form of sponges rather than Bio-balls or other plastic blobs. I wouldn't say that the presence of sponge and carbon only would prevent a cycle. That said, I second what you are saying about the tank NOT being cycled with a Nitrate level of 0....

Jo - You say you had a 0 / 0 / 0 reading when you bought the 5 new minnows, do you know what the reading is now? I'd suggest buying a liquid test kit if you are currently relying on strips or testing in the shop. If you have ANY ammonia or nitrite then you need to counteract it by completing small, frequent water changes, and monitor the stats closely. I'm not sure how that will affect the medication you are using, hopefully someone else can advise there, but what I do know is that you would do better to get the water stats right beore spending lots of money on fungus treatments that will not solve the root cause of the issue.

Good luck and I hope your fishies make it!!!

 

[DarkEntity]

Is the tank cycled?

 

[Jo Booth]

Thank you all for your responses - and Merry Christmas!

I should have added before that I have gravel in the tank as well - I don't know if that makes a diference. I have no media of what you seem to be describing.

I did a fishless cycle for the first week - as advised by local aquatic centre. They advised me to add a pinch of food to assist this along. After two days the water went cloudy which I have read in the vaious books that I have could suggest a 'bloom'?

My testing kit is liquid - pH, high level pH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate. It works by comparing the colour of the water in the test tubes to colour charts for each test - therefore when I say 0, I mean that the test are showing the water is within the colour zone that is indicated as 0 - however, for example if the next colour is for a reading of 0.5, then I guess the water could actually be 0.4 but I wouldn't be able to guess this - I hope I make sense here?

The first 4 minnows were added after the 1st week following the water test. again I was advised by the aquatic centre that this was ok to do to begin maturing the tank. Out of these, I lost 3 within 1 week (towards the end of the first week). Following the fungal treatment (again as advised), I carried out a 30% water change as advised by the treatment instructions.

A week later following another water test, I was advised that I could add a few more minnows as I only had one left at this point.

I did small 20% water change at the weekend - all testing seemed fine. I lost on fish yesterday, one earlier tonight just after posting and one in the last hour that didn't do anthing that the others did - it swam to a plant and died.

I am at my wits end as I feel that I may have been given poor advice and now the fish are suffering for it - or they brought the disease to the tank from the centre.

The two that are left are relatively large minnows and look strong, swim well, fins are up, they feed well and are a lovely colour. The two dead ones again have no obvious signs of illness.


Thank you again, all advice greatly appreciated.

 

[doubledee]

It does sound like the tank is not cycled, so I would cut down on the feeding for now and do daily small water changes and don't add any fish until it is sorted. Make sure you continue to monitor the water stats. I'm afraid it takes longer than a week to cycle a tank if you're not using any mature media. If you have a friend that has a tank, ask to borrow some media (cut off from a sponge etc.) and add that to the tank. Failing that, even some gravel will help to speed it up. My tank took nearly a month (twice) to cycle.

Anyway, don't lose heart and continue to watch for any problems and I'm sure all will be well soon.

Merry Christmas
dd

 

[TarkMalbot]

Merry Christmas.

Like just said before. I dont think your tank is cycled yet. You say you did a fishless cycle for a week using fish food but the cycle can take 7 weeks or so. Mine took 5 weeks with fish. I like you took advice from the LFS and had to suffer the loss of about 4 fish.

If you read some topics about Cycling you will see what its all about. From what I have picked up over the last 2 months when I first started is that the tank needs to produce a large enough amount of good bacteria to transform the Ammonia and Nitrites into less harmfull Nitrates. This is what takes the time. You need to measure the values and you will see the ammonia rise and then fall, the nitrites will rise and then fall leaving you only with nitrates. By adding the fish food for the first week you are introducing ammonia to the tank but 1 week is not enough time to convert.

I cycled my tank with fish cos I didn't know any better at the time. I did water changes and prayed that the fish would be ok whilst the Nitrites were soo high. No they are back to zero and the fish all seem fine (touch wood). I too had to watch the fish get White Spot & Fin Rot so treated the whole tank for white spot which seemed to work and the fin rot got better on its own as the cycle completed.

Dont wash your filter for a while and allow the bacteria to produce. Measure you Nitrites and hopefully they will go all the way to the top of the scale and then back down again. After this you know the bacteria are present and coping with the waste your fish are producing. Then only add one or two fish at a time and leave a week or so between.

I am no expert so have tried not to give any advice I am not sure about but others might have a more expert view.

I hope it all works out for you anyway.

Mark.

 

[shang hi]

i suggest doing a fishless cycle, this involves removing all fish and either returning them to your LFS or asking if someone else can look after them.
A fishless cycle is best and thats why i did it, a sucessful way that i have found (not the best but if you cant get bottled ammonia it works a treat) is to add large amounts of food and let it rot, on dady one-7 no ammmonia should be present as it takes time for the food to breakdown. for day one- seven feed a small amount once daily and thats all you should do NO water changes whilst cycling. on day 7 - 21 feed same amount twice a day, once in the morning and one in the evening. after about day 14 Ammonia shoulds start to show up on your tests but very little nitrite but no nitrate. after day 21 do the same time feedings (morning and night) but feed twice as much for atleast a week and nitrite should start to climb up and ammmonia drop, feed like this untill nitrite drops to 0ppm and so does Ammonia and nitrAte statrs to climb. after about 2 weeks Ammonia and nitrite will stay at 0ppm and nitrate will constantly climb. leave for 1 day on no food and instantly add fish the next day if water levels are stable (0ppm ammonia and nitrite and no more that 50ppm nitrate).

after you have reached this stage do a large 50% - 80% water change to remove nitrAte and repeat if nessary (if NitrAte is over 50ppm do another water change). its best to use no gravel during this as it is easier to remove all dirt from the bottom of the tank. your tank has now gone through a mini cycle, if you can acces liquid ammonia then by all means use it and dont use this as the bacteria count will be alot less.
add fish, can easily stably house 5 minnows on one feed a day (no more than a pinch). and a volar (lol i bet that bits spelt wrong )

-------------------------------------

mine worked fine and finished in this time frame and is able to stably hold 6 odessa barbs, 5 adolfi corys, 2 platys, 7 minnows, 2 colombian tetras, 2 herliquin rosybarbs. and was also able to hole pair of dwarf gouramis (male died) and a pair of kribs (both removed due to violent nature). with no spike of ammonia or nitrite.

have fun and a merry christmas,
shang hi

PS: if bottled ammonia is available, use that as the cycle will have produced more filter bacteria and you tank is more likley to be stable to start with.
shang hi

 

[Jo Booth]

thank you all again for your advice. Sadly only 2 minnows remain but this should make it easier for me to have them housed elsewher wilst I allow the cycling to do its thing.

jo