New Member - 2 Tanks

[VTDrew]

Hi, So relatively new to fish keeping, my oldest tank is 6-7 months old, and my new tank is under 1 week. At first I've had tons of success with my 20 until recently. The new 56 is killiing me already. I'm hoping to have a few questions answered.

The 20 had what I believe to be columnaris. It killed off a gourami and a serpae before lightening up, although I'm worried that it may just be in a "remmissive state". Kanamycin had no effect, maracin had some effect but only temporary. A superdose of those together (I dumped everything I had in there as a last ditch effort, about 4 doses of each in one shot...and raised temp to 84) seemed to save all fish but the one very sick fish. It seems to have cleared but I'm treating with sulfaziadol as a precaution as I have some free floating columnaris still popping up when I disturb the water. Water briefly got very out of control in this with numbers through the roof on all parts of the cycle. Gills turned red. I did 5 25% water changes over 1.5 weeks and lots of liquid bacteria. Everything is good now except nitrates are at around 20....I'm going to try to bring those down now. I've also noticed some of my neons have expanded or wrinkly bellys. Pregnant? I'm hoping for some thoughts on what happened.

Now for the 56. 0NH4, 0NO2, 0NO3. Added 9 fish as per the really good fish guy at my local pet store. Added 6 Zebra Danio's and 3 Buenos Aires Tetras. Went away for a day, came home and found one of the danios dead split wide open at the belly but he was also very well eaten (no tail, no fins). I looked around the tank and noticed the following. The tetras have 1 clamped fin, just happens to be the right pectoral on all of them. Almost looks like the fin is upsidown. One appears real fat (not dropsy...googled that good), another seems to have a lump in the belly. The danios appear OK except they swim and clamp their tail (might be normal hydrodynamic behavior...but I don't know them) Current numbers are .25, 0, 2.5 (NH4->NO3). Could all of this just be a symptom of a new, cycling tank?

 

[Nightfall]

I can tell you right away your tetras aren't livebearers so they can't be pregnant, but a distended abdomen can be a sign of dropsy. If the scales start looking 'pineconed' then it's definitely dropsy. Dropsy isn't an illness in itself, but a frustratingly general symptom. While they could be egg-carrying females, the 'wrinkly' description makes me think they're not eating and are skinny with the bloating that comes with dropsy. When it gets to the pinecone stage it's usually too late, unfortunately. You say you googled Dropsy and know what it looks like, but the pictures you see on Google are almost always of the pinecone stage rather than the early stages before the pineconing. The fish could also be constipated, if you're feeding too frequently and there is too little water in their food (sounds strange to say that about food fed in an aquarium, but worms and brine shrimp are much higher in water than flakes or pellets).

I think it was a big mistake adding 9 fish all at once. It seems like it overloaded the system. You should always start very small and monitor the cycle. When the tank is at 0 ammonia/nitrate/nitrite, then you can add one or two more fish, then observe the cycle, wait for it to get back to zero, and add more.

It does sound like new tank syndrome. Did you cycle the new tank before adding the fish, or are you attempting a fish-in cycle?

Throwing medicine at the fish is not a great way to go, in my humble opinion. I get that they were dying, but bombarding the water with chemicals can definitely stress the fish, especially any survivors. The survivors are also going to build up a tolerance to those meds, which is a very bad thing. Meds should be used as precisely and as sparingly as possible.

There are a few things I can think of for you to do to help the tank.

- If you don't already, buy a master test kit. Make sure it's not a dip test. Test your parameters every single day. I'll leave more experienced members to suggest the amount of water to change, since I've never dealt with anything over 40L. Changing water is your very best defense against New Tank Syndrome.

- Wash your filter substrate, gravel and ornaments (by ornaments I mean driftwood, plastic plants, any decorative tank object) in the 'dirty' tank water when you do changes, that way you clean out any debris while still keeping the beneficial bacteria there. Never scrub the ornaments or filter. You need that layer of bacteria.

- Buy some wet food. Bloodworm and Brine shrimp

- To do this, put your ingredients in a small glass jar full of water, then add the defrosted or live food to the jar.
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[VTDrew]

Yes, I saw the pinecone stage. I'm going to try wet food like you said.

The new tank partially cycled without fish. It had a small amount of ammonia early on, and that disappeared. 0-0-0 became my reading. I have a liquid test kit, unfortunately I have trouble with some colors (not colorblind) and the blue and brown pH's are just the right shade that I can't read it. but I can tell you its in the low-mid 7's.

The 9 fish, I just took the advice of the pet store owner who said I needed more fish for this size tank. My 20gal he had me start with 3.

For the 20 I'm going to try wet food and wait as that tank seems to be recovering finally.

For the 50, well, if its new tanks syndrome I guess its a wait and see.

The reason I got the 56 was to turn the 20 into a hospital tank so I can medicate individual fish instead of a tank. Once the 56 is cycled I plan on slowly moving the inhabitants over there. Keep a small population in the 20 for cycle purposes, and if I ever get a sick fish, move the 20 inhabitants to the 56, and the sick fish to the 20.

 

[Nightfall]

I didn't realise my message was cut off at the time. I was going to suggest soaking the worms/shrimp in water with crushed garlic in it, then taking out the food (might be tricky with the shrimp, just drain as much water off as possible and remove the garlic) and giving it to the fish to boost their immune systems. It might be too late at this stage, but it can help the healthier fish.

You never 'need' more fish - I understand you were trusting in their expertise, but they were just trying to sell more fish. Less is always better, and you've discovered the hard way why you never just add a large number of fish to a new tank. 20L is considered a pretty good sized aquarium for a single siamese fighting fish, it's too small for a community of anything other than maybe a few small shrimp, or a few tiny tetras (smaller than neons). The fish you had stocked also grow, so while it might look like they 'fit' now, in a year they would have had no room at all. It's good that you've upgraded, but even the roomiest aquarium will get NTS if you suddenly introduce more than one or two fish without cycling it first. Always cycle the tank, and when it's finished cycling (nitrates/nitrites/ammonia at 0 consistently without fluctuation for a week or more) then you can introduce one or two more fish at the most. The tank will need to adjust and once it's back to zeros you can add again and so on.

As I said, medicating the fish won't help them if it's NTS. If they have secondary infections it might help (providing you can accurately identify the disease and are giving them the correct medication for it), but there's no medication that can cure NTS or dropsy. Dropsy can also be caused by poor diet (too dry, not enough nutrients), overcrowding, poor water conditions (too much ammonia, too many bad nites) and also fluctuating temperatures. You have a couple of those issues - the overcrowding and poor water conditions, even if the water is filtered and appears clean and new to the eye - and I suspect that's what's causing your dropsy.
Keep water conditions pristine in the hospital tank and keep a sharp eye on your nitrate/nitrite/ammonia in both tanks. If you want to save the fish, you need a test kit, and not one of those cheap strip tests. The API Master Test Kit really is worth its weight in gold. For the ones who haven't pineconed yet, you might be able to save them with small, frequent water changes to disperse the ammonia, nitrates and nitrites. Make sure the water you're adding is the same temperature as the water in the aquarium, even if you need to buy a small water heater and put it in a bucket of conditioned water with a thermometer until it's the same as the water in the tanks.


Just for future reference, at the first sign of any bloating at all, take the fish out of the main tank. If you catch dropsy before major swelling and pineconing sets in you have a chance of saving the fish, if you can work out what illness the fish has. Remember that dropsy is a symptom of disease, not a disease itself (kind of like how a human will get an infection and get a fever as the result of the infection). The live food should also tempt them to eat more if they're sick, fish generally love live food/frozen food more than anything and it will help relieve any constipation, as I mentioned before.