maybe instead of fish

[mattbeau]

ok when things are great they are great, when they arent, they definately arent.

just put down two neons with NTD,

1 cory died from something,

male honey dwarf died from stress(most likely),

had a mini cycle that seams to have restabalized now.

tried two female dwarf puffers at differnt times to hang out with male, both ended in disaster.

now my dwarf puffer, my favorite, has callamanus worms. why the hell do i even try anymore.



1 pearl guaramis (tumor of some sort)
2 mollys (fungus)
3 skirted tetra
many neons (lost count) various
6 cherry barbs (ich)
1 reticulated cory (unknown possible bacterial infection)
1 male honey dwarf (unknown possible stress)
2 female dwarf puffers (1 starved its self, other killed by male)
1 male dwarf puffer (starved its self)
1 oto (accidently got cought in net, my bad)


all dead since I started back in may

I started getting into taking care of these fish because it was relaxing, and fun to learn about. now it seams I do nothing but worry whats going to happen next. (predicting female honey dwarf is next unless I rehome soon, she's stressed)

now I have to figure out how the hell I'm going to treat my puffer, when he wont touch processed food.

 

[metfan581]

make sure the tank is cycled
i had a lot of problems because of cycling
be careful an good luck with what ever you get
-fire belly toads
-under water froghs
-shrimp

 

[Dwarfs]

Well, you only started keeping fish in May, becoming an accomplished fish keeper takes time, patience, and nerve. So your fish get sick, you can learn how to prevent that in the future. You can learn from the mistakes that you've made or the problems you've had. I started keeping fish when I was young, and my father guided me and showed me how to take care of sicknesses and stressed out fish. Last year my fish caught the camallanus nematode, which is supposed to be incredibly hard to get rid of. I did research, and all of the fish got better with the right treatment.

Use the forum as your guide to keeping fish, ask questions, do research, and if it all fails, get some new fish that are different and hardier so that you can get a better start than this one.

But if you just dispise fish and don't want to try them again, get some other pet.

 

[Fella]

Did you buy all the fish from the same store?

 

[mattbeau]

Dwarf,
Oh dont get me wrong, I must spend most of my time off going through the forum and researching, I got into this completely clueless. I apreciate all the time people spend helping me with my problems.

It just becomes a bit overwhelming when you try to do everything right setting up the right enviroment for the right type of fish

IE adding sand for the cories, changing filters to remove agitation for the gauramis, adding live plants(and maintaining those), using a plethora of frozen delicacies to keep the fish happy, adding ghost shrimp to help keep the floor clean monitoring water conditions (all the time), trying to do everything right, doing things so slowly as to not mess everything up. and it all just falls apart.

 

[rdd1952]

I hope things get better for you. It is difficult when things seem to just keep going wrong. Part of your problem is most likely that your tank isn't cycled. You may have had it cycled at one time but quite a few medications will kill off your bacteria colony. After all, you are putting them in there to kill the bacteria that is making your fish sick. Unfortunately, the medication kills everything. That's why it is good to have a quarantine tank where you can treat a sick fish and not have to treat your whole tank.

 

[FishFun]

Don't get too frustrated Matt! It's dis-heartening when everything goes wrong after you've worked so hard to make everything right, just focus on the next right thing to do to save the fish that you have.
Sounds to me like there is a concensus that your tank needs to be re-cycled, probably due to medications that were added to help one of your earlier fish. Just do daily water changes until your tank is cycled again and see if you can find some filter media from a mature tank to add to yours. Hopefully things will go more smoothly in the future.

Is that your tank in your Avatar? If so, it is beautiful!

And hey! At least no one has told you your overstocked! (hee hee)

Dwarf,
Oh dont get me wrong, I must spend most of my time off going through the forum and researching, I got into this completely clueless. I apreciate all the time people spend helping me with my problems.

It just becomes a bit overwhelming when you try to do everything right setting up the right enviroment for the right type of fish

IE adding sand for the cories, changing filters to remove agitation for the gauramis, adding live plants(and maintaining those), using a plethora of frozen delicacies to keep the fish happy, adding ghost shrimp to help keep the floor clean monitoring water conditions (all the time), trying to do everything right, doing things so slowly as to not mess everything up. and it all just falls apart.

[snapback]910732[/snapback]​

 

[mattbeau]

yep thats the puffer tank, 10 G

my camera cant seem to get the lighting right though when set to multi-burst

actually I havent used meds for about 2 1/2 months

the only thing I have used is Novaqua for water changes. when I threw in the new filter(while old one was still running) I used cycle and stress coat.



the stats are stable as of this morning with 0 nitrites 0 ammonia and about 20-30 nitrates.

I used meds when i had problems when I first started with the
1 pearl guaramis
2 mollys
3 skirted tetra
6 cherry barbs
5 neons

after I started to see a cycle of problems from using meds I decided to stop using them and that the best course of action was to keep the tank as stress free as possible.

I was good for about a month no probs with death or disease

then I added sand ( did properly rinse)
did one half one week did the other half the second week

picked up the reticulated cory as things were doing great

the whole re-cycling process started (the sand started causing my filters to shut down for some times 12 hours at a time.)

Try using prefilter, no go as it just made my filtres slow to a crawl

I figured ok, lets try to change the water flow by moving the air stone perpendiculary in the middle and raising the intakes away from the sand. that worked for about a week, then shut down again. So i figured lets try a different filter

fluval 4 (woops)

lets try fluval 2, much better, but too late. reticulated cory already has damadged barbel(still unsure of how he did it) and is lethergic, increase air flow, add 6 ghost shrimp to help clean-up

reticulated dies

next day.....
morning 1 neon dies

evening male honey dies

today
neons in qt show no signs of improvement decide it has to be NTD put them down.


Look at my puffer(he usually chears me up) hmm whats that thing sticking out of his butt, uh-oh

research
research....
worms!!!!


I have cats (the fluffy type) are they at risk? am I at risk?

 

[dwarfgourami]

Oh Dwarf, could you please do us a thread on this treatment as we have had a lot of discussion of worms lately and nobody seems to really know something that works. Please let us know what worked for you!

Last year my fish caught the camallanus nematode, which is supposed to be incredibly hard to get rid of. I did research, and all of the fish got better with the right treatment.

[snapback]910702[/snapback]​

 

[dwarfgourami]

I know how you feel, Mattbeau. They seem such fragile creatures at times, and sometimes it does feel like whatever you do you can't help them. I haven't felt this vulnerable since I had my first baby!
But hang on in there, sooner or later your tank will stabilise, and then all the sicknesses will stop coming at you. Don't give up!

P.S. Can't imagine either you or your cats would be at risk from fish worms. The worms your cat brings home are likely to be more of a risk- but tbh getting worms for a human is not the end of the world, the worming tablets make you feel a bit queasy that's all. For fish it is more worrying, keep an eye and see how it goes.