New Tank, Problems With Platys And Corys

[erica234]

I'm new to this forum so apologies if this is in the wrong place.

Okay so a brief outline:
- the tank is 19l and is 4 weeks old.
- we added 2 platys after 1 week
- we added 2 cories 1 week after that.
- The tank has a filter (a Jebo Q112). This is the tank: www.petsathome.com/shop/starter-tank-19l-by-pets-at-home-92215

We have been having trouble with water quality with concerning ammonia and nitrite levels. We have been doing regular water changes with gravel cleaning once a week. Part of the problem was that our plant died - we have since set up a light and bought a vallisneria americana, which seems to be doing well.

The ammonia levels now seem to be receeding (todays reading was 0 - 0.5) - we are now expecting the nitrite spike part of the cycle.

2 days ago we noticed that the platys had developed white spot/ich. We were not too sure how to treat it but following advice opted for aqurium salt as many other treatments we were told could damage the bacterial population and send us back to the begining of the cycling stage. The salt has been added gradually, up to 1 uk tablespoon for the 19l.

I was hoping someone might be able to give us some advice as to whether this is the right thing to be doing (we are under the impression that we should be maintaining the salt conc for a week to get rid of symptoms and then an additional week to make sure it doesnt come back).

Also, regarding the corys - one was always slightly less active than the other but now seems to have little appetite and spends most of the day fairly motionless. When we had the ammonia spike it showed slight redening of the gills and general ammonia poisoning symptoms. These, however, cleared up and the fish seemed to be back in good health before the current problems emerged. We are concerned that the active cory is begining to become more lethargic. Any help and advice would be really appreciated, is it possible that they might have a disease or parasite?

Finally, thanks for taking the time to read this. We are trying to do the best for our fish but advice from stores isn't always particularly helpful!

 

[juggernuts]

Hi erica and welcome to TFF, sadly for the wrong reason i guess!!

First of all it sounds like you have started a "fish in cycle" if you look in the fish forum emergencies you will find information regarding it.

I know starter tanks etc are a great way to get involved in fish keeping, but they are nothing but bad news unless pretty well expirienced In my opinion. Many suggest getting the biggest tank you can, as larger volume of water means less chance for parameters to fluctuate.

My first and still my favourite tank is a 350litre 4 ft tank and it had its fair share of starter problems, but nothing major. Im sure people here can help point you in the right direction. As for the salt, Id give that a miss personally and try and buy some King British original formula WS3, carefull where u get it. it stains ANYTHING blue.

Salt I find can cause too much trouble for the other fish involved and is likely the problem with the cory's.

Good luck with them, just keep on a 30% water change daily with fresh water roughly the same temp as tank and hope you see an improvemant soon. Anything else ask away people will always try and help.

Thanks

 

[elmo666]

Sorry to hear of your troubles. Unforetunately you have a number of issues going on at once. Your tank isn't cyclced yet, this has caused your fish stress and had it's part to play in the whitespot outbreak. Adding salt will not be tolerated well by your corys, and won't do alot to clear the whitespot. So, what do you do next? Tricky one, as you need water changes to keep ammonia in check, but this will effect any ich treatments efficiecy. What you will need to do is correctly dose the tank as per the instructions, then accrately dose the water added for each water change, this should keep the doseage in the tank at the right level. Hope things worth out for you,

 

[lefty07603]

And also, the corys are very social and need to be in groups of at least 6. So the added stress of that may make them less tolerant to sickness

 

[erica234]

Hi erica and welcome to TFF, sadly for the wrong reason i guess!!

First of all it sounds like you have started a "fish in cycle" if you look in the fish forum emergencies you will find information regarding it.

I know starter tanks etc are a great way to get involved in fish keeping, but they are nothing but bad news unless pretty well expirienced In my opinion. Many suggest getting the biggest tank you can, as larger volume of water means less chance for parameters to fluctuate.

My first and still my favourite tank is a 350litre 4 ft tank and it had its fair share of starter problems, but nothing major. Im sure people here can help point you in the right direction. As for the salt, Id give that a miss personally and try and buy some King British original formula WS3, carefull where u get it. it stains ANYTHING blue.

Salt I find can cause too much trouble for the other fish involved and is likely the problem with the cory's.

Good luck with them, just keep on a 30% water change daily with fresh water roughly the same temp as tank and hope you see an improvemant soon. Anything else ask away people will always try and help.

Thanks

Hi, Thank you for your advice. Do you know the ingredients in the King British WS3? We've noticed that the treatments all have different compositions. We're worried that if we treat the whole tank it might kill the plant off and also mean we need to start the cycling process again. Also, should we give the cories less treatment than the platies? I've read somewhere that they need a half dose. Apologies for all the questions, just worried about our poor fish!

 

[snazy]

When treating with salt, you need to raise the temperature too to 28-29 degrees gradually and keeping up with the salt/high temperature method at least a week after all spots have disappeared from the fish. I have never tried salt on corys so I can't vouch but there's enough information online stating that for treatment purposes they can withstand salt without problems contrary to popular beliefs.
As for them being inactive, I call corys ammonia radars. They become super still when there's water quality issues. In a cycling tank, adding medication that mostly requires no water changes and kills the beneficial bacteria is just plain simple dangerous to the fish and doesn't work in most cases.

Your best bet is to keep the ammonia down to below 0.25 at all times via as many water changes as you can. I would keep up with the salt treatment since you've started it and increase the dose slightly. Make sure the salt is well dissolved before adding it. Also, corys do not get white spot/itch so you are basically treating your other two fish. If you had another tank, putting the corys in it for 3 weeks with no access to other fish should be enough to prevent spreading the disease. In a cycling tank, salt will also neutralise most of the toxic nitrIte, which in your case is beneficial.

The below paragraph is part of an aricle about salt and catfish:

This study flies in the face of anecdotal advice about not using salt with catfish.
See the chart to the above/left for the mortality rate of Catfish with Edwardsiella ictaluri (which is a similar gram negative rod bacteria to Columnaris) treated with salt at different levels, please click to enlarge.
You can see from the diagram that the best results were achieved at a dose of 3000 milligrams per liter; based on the weight of salt this converts .67 teaspoons per liter or 2.54 teaspoons per gallon. This is Much more salt than many aquarists commonly believe a Catfish can tolerate. Please keep in mind that this amount of salt is not meant for long term use.