Holiday nightmare

[GLOBEMASTER]

I have just come back from a weeks holiday to find my fish in very poor health. It did not take too long to find out why I think! For some reason one of my clown loaches had died and was hidden from view under an ornament. I can only guess it had been dead a couple of days. I presume because of this one of my neon blue gourami's now has a small mouth infection, one of my koi angel fish has a clouded eye, four of my neon tetra have since died and my one remaining clown is now poorly (not eating, lethargic, gettting thinner). The tank is 60 litres using a fluval 2 plus filter. All was well before the holiday, the tank being cleaned the day before (30% water change) as is usually done weekly. Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were all good, as it is now and PH levels are constant at around 7.5. The only treatment I use are for de-chlorination and aqualibrium salt at 0.1% concentration. A single feeding block suitable for 7-10 days was placed in the tank before the holiday. On my return and the discovery of the state of the fish I carried out a 50% water change and added Aqarium doctor BSB anti bacteria treatment for 5 days, plus I raised the salt solution to 0.3% as directed on the packet. It was during this period I lost four neon tetras. However the koi angel's eye has improved to the point of being almost non-existant. The gourami's lip has shown little sign of improvement though. The only fish that seem to be eating are the koi angels. My list of fish that now alive consist of 2 koi angels, 1 clown loach, 1 neon tetra, 2 neon blue gourami's and 2 sucking loaches (these seem fine). Is there anything I am missing or can I do any more to help my poor fish. Many thanks.

 

[Davy Reynolds]

Hi, welcome to the forum. It sounds like your doing things right. Continued good husbandary will get the tank on the mend. The only prob being Neon tetras are not salt tolerant. They may have handled the small dosage, but the higher one would have effected them.
Just keep going in the same direction and you'll be fine :grin:

 

[Dragonslair]

Hi, and like the boss says, welcome to the forum.
There's not a lot more I can add to the advice that has been given to you from Davy. You have probably seen in other threats about Clowns. They are extremely water quality sensitive. In my experience the only safe way to treat a tank that has clowns in it without killing the clown is to use WS3 from King British. This is a med. to treat scaleless fish.

 

[Great Lakes]

GM, welcome to the site, sorry to hear about your troubles, you will be in good hands here.
And please everybody Learn a lesson from GM's misfortune. Don't do water changes before a vacation. You are doing the right thing by trying to give your fishy friends a clean home. But if you are not going to be home for a few days, don't change anything in your setup. You won't be there to monitor any impact it may have.

 

[ostrow]

Hmmm GL. Where were you when I was asking about vacation feeding?!? Lots of advice was to change water a day or two before leaving.

Oh well! Live and learn (or, in the case of the ex-fish :cry: ...)