TransientWolf
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- May 8, 2006
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Hi
New member and really appreciate any help you might be able to offer me with a problem I have been having.
Background - Initial Setup
I have a 230 litre (50 gallon) tropical tank established since early January this year. I use a Fluval 305 external filter with fluval ceramic media in the bottom baskets, fluval carbon in the middle baskets, rowa in the middle basket, and fluval ammonia remover in the top baskets.
Following initial cycling of the tank in January I slowly built up the fish stock over a few weeks as follows:
3 x Sunset Wagtail Platys
1 x New Guinea Red Rainbow
1 x New Guinea Boesemani Rainbow
3 x Pentazona Barbs
3 x Golden Barbs
Background - Ammonia Spike
I had no problems at all with water quality until suddenly, after servicing the filter and doing a water change one weekend, got a huge ammonia and nitrite spike. None of the fish died but gills and fins got very red, especially on the barbs. Assumption was I had killed the filter somehow (I did use only aquarium water though).
That was when I added the fluval ammonia remover to sort it out, worked well, and I now change it every 6 weeks or so and refresh it with salt water.
Once the tank had restablised I continued to add fish slowly building up as follows:
3 x Blue Diamond Guppies
3 x Red Variegated Guppies
1 x Bristlenose Catfish
7 x Neon Tetras
2 x New Guinea Red Rainbow
3 x Silver Molly (2 x Female 1 x Male)
1 x King Tiger Peckoltia L066
I built up to the 30 fish and everything seemed fine.
Water quality since then has always been fine with ammonia and nitrite at nil and nitrates at 10-20.
I generally do a 30% water change about every 3 weeks.
Background - White Spot
After I added the King Tiger Plec (my pride and joy) I thought it would be a good idea to get a piece of bogwood in the tank for the plec and the bristlenose. Unfortunately I only soaked it for a couple of hours (subsequently told should soak it for a couple of DAYS!) and about a week later I suddenly noticed a couple of the fish had whitespot, which quickly turned into every fish having whitespot apart from the catfish within about another 24 hours. The tiny barbs were absolutely covered in them, as were the rainbows and the mollys.
The guppies also appeared to start with fin rot to add to the problem.
Water tests confirmed that Ammonia and Nitrite were fine, Nitrate was ok, but the water ph had suddenly leapt completely off the scale i.e. above 8.8. I can only assume this was because of the bogwood and the huge change in ph stressed the fish in a major way.
Following a 30-40% water change I treated the whitespot (removed carbon) with Interpet Anti Whitespot Plus - 3 doses over 9 days and eventually the whitespot seemed to clear up. I also tried to treat the finrot with API Melafix. Unfortunately during this period I lost all the guppies, and then just after they seemed to pull through all the pentazona barbs also died. The Platys were very very lethargic during this period, often just sitting barely moving at the bottom of the tank on the gravel, coming up only for food.
Last 4/5 weeks - odd one off incidents
2 weeks after everything seemed to be fine, I suddenly found a golden barb had lost almost all its weight, and then died. conversely the other two seem to be fatter than usual now.
2 weeks after that I had thought it was an isolated incident and thought I was through the problems. I added a stunning blue neon rainbow fish and although it was not chasing round the tank when I first added it, I assumed this was because it had come from a tank where it had been alone. Unfortunately 36 hours later it was floating completely upside down near the bottom of the tank and couldn't swim. I isolated into a separate bowl and it died shortly afterwards. I assumed this was a problem with the fish rather than the tank.
Started feeding varied diet, supplementing flake food with occasional treats of bloodworm and daphnia.
Everything seemed to start to settle down again and although I had not done a recent water change following treatment of the whitespot, and the water was getting a little green with algae, the fish looked really really happy. Water quality was fine, despite no recent water change the nitrates remained between 10 and 20, fish were zooming around, with only change being one female and one male silver molly turned a dirty yellow colour from the top down rather than the bright silver white when I first got them.
This Weekend
Disaster.
On Saturday suddenly noticed one neon tetra floating and being nipped at by the Rainbows. Fished him out, water checked fine ph 7.8, nil ammonia and nitrite, nitrate 10-20. Very odd. No apparent problem - looked perfectly healthy.
On Sunday real nightmare - start water change, and pull out my shipwreck and my King Tiger Plec falls out, dead, all colour lost, must have died 12/24 hours before. Usually hides a lot so hadn't noticed. Water seemed fine.
Panicked a bit, and concerned not had a water change for several weeks I did a 40% water change last night. Water checked yesterday and today, still no ammonia or nitrite, nitrate 10 and ph 7.8.
Today
All fish seem fine today although not quite as jaunty as they were last week. In particular the platys seem to have gone back to their whitespot days of sitting hiding at the back of the tank resting on the gravel and only coming out for food. Very disconcerting as 24 hours ago they were chasing round the tank like crazy.
Water quality is fine.
At a bit of a loss what to do.
Help
I really don't know what is causing the problems with my tank. I intend to do a 10% water change weekly from now on to see if that helps stabilise things better but I am concerned I might have some kind of undetectable bacterial infection here that is knocking the fish off at random.
Could the fish have got weakened from the previous problems which are just catching up with them? I can understand that with the barb, and maybe the neon but the plec had been strong and healthy up until he suddenly died. Don't understand.
Is the ammonia remover causing the problem? Should I take out now and let the tank manage the ammonia itself?
Is there something else going on I need to sort out?
Any help would be hugely appreciated. I am tearing my hair out trying to keep these guys well and happy! Only my Bristlenose seems completely unfazed although his fins look to have taken on a bit of orangey red colour, although not sure if that is part of his colouring (his spots are a dull orangey colour).
Cheers
TW
New member and really appreciate any help you might be able to offer me with a problem I have been having.
Background - Initial Setup
I have a 230 litre (50 gallon) tropical tank established since early January this year. I use a Fluval 305 external filter with fluval ceramic media in the bottom baskets, fluval carbon in the middle baskets, rowa in the middle basket, and fluval ammonia remover in the top baskets.
Following initial cycling of the tank in January I slowly built up the fish stock over a few weeks as follows:
3 x Sunset Wagtail Platys
1 x New Guinea Red Rainbow
1 x New Guinea Boesemani Rainbow
3 x Pentazona Barbs
3 x Golden Barbs
Background - Ammonia Spike
I had no problems at all with water quality until suddenly, after servicing the filter and doing a water change one weekend, got a huge ammonia and nitrite spike. None of the fish died but gills and fins got very red, especially on the barbs. Assumption was I had killed the filter somehow (I did use only aquarium water though).
That was when I added the fluval ammonia remover to sort it out, worked well, and I now change it every 6 weeks or so and refresh it with salt water.
Once the tank had restablised I continued to add fish slowly building up as follows:
3 x Blue Diamond Guppies
3 x Red Variegated Guppies
1 x Bristlenose Catfish
7 x Neon Tetras
2 x New Guinea Red Rainbow
3 x Silver Molly (2 x Female 1 x Male)
1 x King Tiger Peckoltia L066
I built up to the 30 fish and everything seemed fine.
Water quality since then has always been fine with ammonia and nitrite at nil and nitrates at 10-20.
I generally do a 30% water change about every 3 weeks.
Background - White Spot
After I added the King Tiger Plec (my pride and joy) I thought it would be a good idea to get a piece of bogwood in the tank for the plec and the bristlenose. Unfortunately I only soaked it for a couple of hours (subsequently told should soak it for a couple of DAYS!) and about a week later I suddenly noticed a couple of the fish had whitespot, which quickly turned into every fish having whitespot apart from the catfish within about another 24 hours. The tiny barbs were absolutely covered in them, as were the rainbows and the mollys.
The guppies also appeared to start with fin rot to add to the problem.
Water tests confirmed that Ammonia and Nitrite were fine, Nitrate was ok, but the water ph had suddenly leapt completely off the scale i.e. above 8.8. I can only assume this was because of the bogwood and the huge change in ph stressed the fish in a major way.
Following a 30-40% water change I treated the whitespot (removed carbon) with Interpet Anti Whitespot Plus - 3 doses over 9 days and eventually the whitespot seemed to clear up. I also tried to treat the finrot with API Melafix. Unfortunately during this period I lost all the guppies, and then just after they seemed to pull through all the pentazona barbs also died. The Platys were very very lethargic during this period, often just sitting barely moving at the bottom of the tank on the gravel, coming up only for food.
Last 4/5 weeks - odd one off incidents
2 weeks after everything seemed to be fine, I suddenly found a golden barb had lost almost all its weight, and then died. conversely the other two seem to be fatter than usual now.
2 weeks after that I had thought it was an isolated incident and thought I was through the problems. I added a stunning blue neon rainbow fish and although it was not chasing round the tank when I first added it, I assumed this was because it had come from a tank where it had been alone. Unfortunately 36 hours later it was floating completely upside down near the bottom of the tank and couldn't swim. I isolated into a separate bowl and it died shortly afterwards. I assumed this was a problem with the fish rather than the tank.
Started feeding varied diet, supplementing flake food with occasional treats of bloodworm and daphnia.
Everything seemed to start to settle down again and although I had not done a recent water change following treatment of the whitespot, and the water was getting a little green with algae, the fish looked really really happy. Water quality was fine, despite no recent water change the nitrates remained between 10 and 20, fish were zooming around, with only change being one female and one male silver molly turned a dirty yellow colour from the top down rather than the bright silver white when I first got them.
This Weekend
Disaster.
On Saturday suddenly noticed one neon tetra floating and being nipped at by the Rainbows. Fished him out, water checked fine ph 7.8, nil ammonia and nitrite, nitrate 10-20. Very odd. No apparent problem - looked perfectly healthy.
On Sunday real nightmare - start water change, and pull out my shipwreck and my King Tiger Plec falls out, dead, all colour lost, must have died 12/24 hours before. Usually hides a lot so hadn't noticed. Water seemed fine.
Panicked a bit, and concerned not had a water change for several weeks I did a 40% water change last night. Water checked yesterday and today, still no ammonia or nitrite, nitrate 10 and ph 7.8.
Today
All fish seem fine today although not quite as jaunty as they were last week. In particular the platys seem to have gone back to their whitespot days of sitting hiding at the back of the tank resting on the gravel and only coming out for food. Very disconcerting as 24 hours ago they were chasing round the tank like crazy.
Water quality is fine.
At a bit of a loss what to do.
Help
I really don't know what is causing the problems with my tank. I intend to do a 10% water change weekly from now on to see if that helps stabilise things better but I am concerned I might have some kind of undetectable bacterial infection here that is knocking the fish off at random.
Could the fish have got weakened from the previous problems which are just catching up with them? I can understand that with the barb, and maybe the neon but the plec had been strong and healthy up until he suddenly died. Don't understand.
Is the ammonia remover causing the problem? Should I take out now and let the tank manage the ammonia itself?
Is there something else going on I need to sort out?
Any help would be hugely appreciated. I am tearing my hair out trying to keep these guys well and happy! Only my Bristlenose seems completely unfazed although his fins look to have taken on a bit of orangey red colour, although not sure if that is part of his colouring (his spots are a dull orangey colour).
Cheers
TW