Lighting Question

[Queen Bee]

I am back after losing 2 full tanks full of fish. I cleaned the tanks, added more air stones, changed the gravel, put in a stronger filter system and changed the water conditioner. Tanks weren't 100% cycled, almost though, and I thought that adding 2 fish would finish things off without harming the fish. I keep a close eye on the water tests, and do them every day. Nitrate is 5, Nitrite is 0 and ammonia is .25 and ph went from 7 to 6 over the last week.

The 2 platy in the 29 gallon have been treated for ick for the last week.(Worked 14 hour days Fri & Sat so wasn't around to do the medication on time) Things look good this morning. One platy is missing the bottom part of the end tail which I noticed happened right before the ick appeared.

Yesterday, I did a second treatment in the 10 gallon for fin rot. (Using primafix). 2 hours later I noticed the guppies were acting like they were in distress. One was wedged into a fake plant, and the other was at the surface, not panting or gulping, just lying at the surface. It is the one at the surface that I thought had fin rot. Most of his back tail is gone and the remaining part is frayed. I also noticed that the (bad with anatomy) fins at his side are frayed looking and it seems that the ends of these fins look like they have cotton. (Maybe a fungus not fin rot). The other guppy has 2 small specks of white on his tail. Other than that he is normal and does swim around. I immediately did a water change to get rid of most of the primafix, added the carbon back into the filter and kept a close eye. Nothing open yesterday and couldn't get to the store. The guppy stayed at the surface all day.

Today I noticed that the back of the tank and the sides have small white deposits on them. This is in the 10 gallon tank with the 2guppies and 1 snail. Looks like the snow in a can when you spray it very finely. What is this now??

Could the lighting be causing this? I live in a basement apartment, and I do get some light, but not too bright. I work crazy hours, and I turn the light on the tank in the morning while I get ready for work. About 1 1/2 hours. Then I return home after 3 or 4 hours, turn the light on while I have lunch, about 1 1/2 hours, and then I am gone until midnight or later. I never turn the light on then as I am going to bed. Could this lighting issue be stressing out the fish and causing some of these diseases to occur? I could get a timer, if it would help the situation.

 

[Queen Bee]

Update, 1 hour later, the red tail guppy (the one who spent all day at the top) is dying. He is being thrown around the tank from the water coming out of the filter, having difficulty swimming, got stuck to the filter intake valve. I have removed him and have him in a container to die in peace.

 

[jonnyf84]

put it out of its misery mate. I doubt the light is causing your problems, it will be better for your setup to have regular lighting at set times, i also work 12-14 hr days and have always used a timer for 12 hrs light a day. The white 'snow' is probably just bio film, very common in newly cycled tanks, i dont know the purpose of it has never harmed my fish in the past. Treating with white spot treatment (probably malacite green) and fin rot treatment at the same time probably wasn't the best idea. But honestly i think the core of your problem is not fully cycling your tank before you added the fish, the PH slide could of been the final nail in the coffin - the fin rot was probably brought on by stress of poor water conditions which in turn brought on the ich.

 

[Queen Bee]

I am getting a light timer today for sure! Never heard of bio film. Just tested the water, 0 for ammonia and nitrite.

Poor guppy has died while I was researching what to do for him.

 

[jonnyf84]

clove oil puts them out of there misery if you can't bring yourself to do i the old fashioned way. Sorry for your loss, at least you know to fully cycle next time aye, life wouldn't be progressive without learning from mistakes.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I agree with Jon, I would be the most suspicious of this simply being a not fully cycled situation. Its complicated by the fact that you've been doing medications and we will possibly need other members to analyze this aspect and tell us where we stand with this -- whether any of the meds have killed the bacteria. And we'll need (at least I would, cause I usually get confused~) a clear re-statement of which tanks have which fish and which will now be fishless and which will be fish-in cycle etc. if you're sort of starting over.

OK, so it would also be ideal if you could get a liquid KH test kit so we could deal more carefully with the dropping pH situation. It sounds like the KH will be too low and that can be dealt with in different ways for fishless and for fish-in. I remember your threads when you were originally cycling and so I believe you are probably pretty up on a lot of the testing stuff.

I agree with Jon that the white films will probably be just biofilms, although there is a small chance they might be small patches of fungus or other odd things that are basically harmless but that appear in new tanks, especially ones without live plants I think. To answer Jon's question about the whitish biofilms: Just about all bacteria create biofilms to grow in. The secretions help in anchoring the original cell and readying a better place for the subsequent cells that will be coming along from cell division, thus its a big part of colony formation. The whitish biofilms we see out in the main tank come from all the types bacteria, both useful ones and non-useful ones. But most of the ones you see out there on the suction cups and glass are from the "heterotrophs" that have a larger presence in the free water, grow much more rapidly and are the ones that break the debris down into ammonia. They are not the autotrophs we are trying to grow in the filter, although those will also create biofilms out in the tank in addition to their main ones on the filter media.

Regardless of all my going on about it, the bottom line is that the whiteish stuff is harmless and you can just clean it off with your sponge or hand when doing normal tank maintenance if you want to. It doesn't represent a significant addition to the cycling populations, so its not a worry in that regard.

I agree that simple timers are the answer to lighting, especially when you have to be away for long periods.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Queen Bee]

Tested my tap water today. The GH is 180 ppm. The KH is 50 ppm. Pretty low. Adding crush coral to see the effects it has on the tank water.

The white spots have not grown and some are disappearing or fading. Good sign.

 

[waterdrop]

Crushed coral can take 2 or 3 weeks to show any changes.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Queen Bee]

Crushed coral can take 2 or 3 weeks to show any changes.

~~waterdrop~~

Maybe I added too much. I put a handful in a bag & put it into the 10 gallon. In 24 hours it raised from 6 to 6.4

Should I add it to the 29 gallon. It is still reading ph of 7. Add it now or later when it starts dropping? Got the timer for the light. Works great! Fish seemed normal and ick free now

 

[waterdrop]

Looking over your posts, it seems the crushed coral is an ok thing for you. I don't see any problems with doing the same thing for the 29g. To be honest I can't recall anyone saying, numerically, what would be a safe *rate* of rise for pH, other than "slow." I probably would have made the handful pretty small for a 10g and I would wouldn't make it much bigger at all for the 29. Keep monitoring things in them.

~~waterdrop~~