One Of 18 Fish Gasping, Perfect Water Conditions?

[Ch4rlie]

Am sorry to hear that ester
 
Nitrate still at zero...
 
Usually a cycled tank will show readings for nitrate, unless your tank is heavily planted.
 
This is puzzling me tbh....

 

[ester]

Am sorry to hear that ester

 
Nitrate still at zero...
 
Usually a cycled tank will show readings for nitrate, unless your tank is heavily planted.
 
This is puzzling me tbh....

Thanks,
 
I'll test again today before I do a water change.  There are plants in there, I'm not sure what you would define heavily planted as though haha.

 

[ester]

 

Am sorry to hear that ester

 
Nitrate still at zero...
 
Usually a cycled tank will show readings for nitrate, unless your tank is heavily planted.
 
This is puzzling me tbh....

Thanks,
 
I'll test again today before I do a water change.  There are plants in there, I'm not sure what you would define heavily planted as though haha.
 

Nitrate was zero when I tested.
 
Now another clown loach is dying.  He would eat and be active daily, yet was shriveling away.  Could this be worms or something?  I can upload photos when I'm home from work.

 

[Ch4rlie]

 There are plants in there, I'm not sure what you would define heavily planted as though haha.

 
If you look at my signature photo, thats my tank with plants, I would say thats a moderately planted tank, so if your tank has the same or more plants then that would help towards the nitrate readings of zero.
 
And yes, please do add a photo of your clown loach with any irregularities on its scales or fins etc.
 
Also a pic of your tank set up may help us too if there is anything obvious in your tank that may explain this.

 

[ester]

 

 There are plants in there, I'm not sure what you would define heavily planted as though haha.

 
If you look at my signature photo, thats my tank with plants, I would say thats a moderately planted tank, so if your tank has the same or more plants then that would help towards the nitrate readings of zero.
 
And yes, please do add a photo of your clown loach with any irregularities on its scales or fins etc.
 
Also a pic of your tank set up may help us too if there is anything obvious in your tank that may explain this.
 

I was looking at your tank, it's nice.
 
Mine has less plants than that, in my opinion.  Most likely, when I get home the second clown loach will be dead....
 
But I will still take photos of my tank, and use the photos on my phone from yesterday of the skinny loach.

 

[ester]

Sorry for the delay, I've been busy.  I'll get photos this weekend. Thanks!

 

[ester]

 

 There are plants in there, I'm not sure what you would define heavily planted as though haha.

 
If you look at my signature photo, thats my tank with plants, I would say thats a moderately planted tank, so if your tank has the same or more plants then that would help towards the nitrate readings of zero.
 
And yes, please do add a photo of your clown loach with any irregularities on its scales or fins etc.
 
Also a pic of your tank set up may help us too if there is anything obvious in your tank that may explain this.
 

 
 
I'm trying to figure out how to upload my photos.  Do I have to use a host such as Image Shack?
 
Thanks

 

[Ch4rlie]

This may help you figure out about posting pictures on the forum -
 
Uploading Pictures To Forum

 

[Ltygress]

As others have said, Nitrates should never be at zero with a cycled tank. Nitrates are the third and last step in cycling, and the only way to effectively remove them is through water changes. And even then, you're only removing whatever percentage of water you're replacing. So if you have 40ppm Nitrates and do a 50% water change, you should theoretically end up with 20ppm Nitrates after the water change (50% of 40). If you're at 20, and do a 50% water change, you'll end up with 10ppm. And so on. But you can't really ever end up with 0 unless you're changing the water too much for the test to register, or 100% of the water at a time.

And that's not good.

Nitrates can be bad at high levels, but they aren't nearly as toxic to fish as Nitrites or Ammonia. That's why it can wait a week or two to build up before we do water changes to reduce it. The fact that yours is at zero all this time is VERY worrisome. There's no way your plants would remove that much. And that brings into question whether or not your other tests are showing correctly as well (such as the deadly Nitrite).

And yes your ich meds may be hurting the clown loaches. And so does the actual ich itself. But the problem with half-doses is that the ich parasite isn't being treated with something strong enough/long enough to kill it completely off. Vacuuming the gravel removes debris and whatever else is in that debris, but all it takes is one surviving germ for the illness to resurface. Just. One. So if the half dose is killing ALMOST everything, it's not doing enough. It absolutely must kill it all or it's a useless treatment. And there is nothing besides medication and a full tear-down and sterilization that will completely kill off ich.

So your task (aside from the pics) is to find out WHY your nitrates are reading zero, and to just suck it up and treat for ich at the full dose, full recommended time. You may be able to find a treatment online that is safer for scaleless fish and/or invertebrates (I'm sure if it's safe for invertebrates, loaches will be fine). If not, ask yourself if you'd rather lose the loaches now from medication, or ALL of your fish, one by one, from recurring ich.

 

[Baccus]

Could you please tell us what type of water tester you are using? Is it strips or API test kit? Strips are notorious for getting it wrong or even being out of date, which can effect the test outcomes.
Also when are you testing the water? Just prior to doing at water change, which is theoretically when any nitrites or nitrates are going to be at their strongest. Or after a water change when everything is going to be low especially after a 50% water change.
It is possible after only 3 doses of treatment that the ich parasite was still being harboured by one of the fish somewhere or somehow avoided the treatment in its free swimming stage. I recently had an outbreak of ich (after years of no issues), because of the shrimp and loaches in the tank I used a product similar in chemical make up to one I had safely used previously with shrimp and loaches. Because the medication was at half dose I and it was listed in the instructions to re-dose in 3 days if illness is still present I ended up dosing the tank 4 times consecutively to beat the ich. The fish and shrimp are all fine again now with no re-occurance of the ich. 
I am wondering if perhaps the medicines instructions mentioned anything about raising or lowering the tank temp during the treatment process? I am thinking there is a possibility that the combination of increased water temp (which will cause stress in itself allowing illness to take hold) and then the medication have some how caused gill damage to the loach.

 

[ester]

This may help you figure out about posting pictures on the forum -
 
Uploading Pictures To Forum

 
Thank you
 

As others have said, Nitrates should never be at zero with a cycled tank. Nitrates are the third and last step in cycling, and the only way to effectively remove them is through water changes. And even then, you're only removing whatever percentage of water you're replacing. So if you have 40ppm Nitrates and do a 50% water change, you should theoretically end up with 20ppm Nitrates after the water change (50% of 40). If you're at 20, and do a 50% water change, you'll end up with 10ppm. And so on. But you can't really ever end up with 0 unless you're changing the water too much for the test to register, or 100% of the water at a time.

And that's not good.

Nitrates can be bad at high levels, but they aren't nearly as toxic to fish as Nitrites or Ammonia. That's why it can wait a week or two to build up before we do water changes to reduce it. The fact that yours is at zero all this time is VERY worrisome. There's no way your plants would remove that much. And that brings into question whether or not your other tests are showing correctly as well (such as the deadly Nitrite).

And yes your ich meds may be hurting the clown loaches. And so does the actual ich itself. But the problem with half-doses is that the ich parasite isn't being treated with something strong enough/long enough to kill it completely off. Vacuuming the gravel removes debris and whatever else is in that debris, but all it takes is one surviving germ for the illness to resurface. Just. One. So if the half dose is killing ALMOST everything, it's not doing enough. It absolutely must kill it all or it's a useless treatment. And there is nothing besides medication and a full tear-down and sterilization that will completely kill off ich.

So your task (aside from the pics) is to find out WHY your nitrates are reading zero, and to just suck it up and treat for ich at the full dose, full recommended time. You may be able to find a treatment online that is safer for scaleless fish and/or invertebrates (I'm sure if it's safe for invertebrates, loaches will be fine). If not, ask yourself if you'd rather lose the loaches now from medication, or ALL of your fish, one by one, from recurring ich.

 
I administered 4 rounds at half dose.
 
 I really can't figure out why it is reading as zero.
 

Could you please tell us what type of water tester you are using? Is it strips or API test kit? Strips are notorious for getting it wrong or even being out of date, which can effect the test outcomes.
Also when are you testing the water? Just prior to doing at water change, which is theoretically when any nitrites or nitrates are going to be at their strongest. Or after a water change when everything is going to be low especially after a 50% water change.
It is possible after only 3 doses of treatment that the ich parasite was still being harboured by one of the fish somewhere or somehow avoided the treatment in its free swimming stage. I recently had an outbreak of ich (after years of no issues), because of the shrimp and loaches in the tank I used a product similar in chemical make up to one I had safely used previously with shrimp and loaches. Because the medication was at half dose I and it was listed in the instructions to re-dose in 3 days if illness is still present I ended up dosing the tank 4 times consecutively to beat the ich. The fish and shrimp are all fine again now with no re-occurance of the ich. 
I am wondering if perhaps the medicines instructions mentioned anything about raising or lowering the tank temp during the treatment process? I am thinking there is a possibility that the combination of increased water temp (which will cause stress in itself allowing illness to take hold) and then the medication have some how caused gill damage to the loach.

 
I'm using the API Master Test Kit.  That's an interesting idea about how I raised the temp and administered the medicine.  Besides some danios, it was only the clown loaches dying.  Are there gills more sensitive than my other fish? Gourami, RTS, tetras, Bolivian Ram.
 
 
Update: Another clown loach just died.  Only one left

 

[Baccus]

I don't know about being more sensitive (although that is possible), I wonder if its more to do with clown loaches might have evolved for cooler water which in turn holds more oxygen. The raised temp in conjunction with the medication could have reduced the oxygen in the water to such a degree that it actually damaged the loaches gills. Other fish that are already accustomed to warmer water may have handled the limited oxygen better, also gouramis can take oxygen directly from the water surface.
In the picture is that the last remaining live loach? It looks very skinny, has it always been that skinny? I am wondering if besides the possible water treatment and or raised water temp, if the loaches may be harbouring either internal parasites or worst case scenario fish TB.

 

[ester]

I don't know about being more sensitive (although that is possible), I wonder if its more to do with clown loaches might have evolved for cooler water which in turn holds more oxygen. The raised temp in conjunction with the medication could have reduced the oxygen in the water to such a degree that it actually damaged the loaches gills. Other fish that are already accustomed to warmer water may have handled the limited oxygen better, also gouramis can take oxygen directly from the water surface.
In the picture is that the last remaining live loach? It looks very skinny, has it always been that skinny? I am wondering if besides the possible water treatment and or raised water temp, if the loaches may be harbouring either internal parasites or worst case scenario fish TB.

 
Clown loaches can adapt to higher water temperatures.  But are all you guys saying that the loaches are more susceptible to gill damage in general?  That loach has already died.  It was always skinny and after I had it for a month, it started being comfortable.  It swam around and ate all the time after about 4 weeks.  The 4th one died last night, and that one looked like it had a small amount of fluff on his fins, and he tucked his fins into his body.  He was otherwise colorful and nice and fat.  There's only one left (unless he is dead in the castle).

 

[Ltygress]

Fluff sounds more like fungus than ich.

 

[ester]

Fluff sounds more like fungus than ich.

 
Yeah, and I definitely had ich too.  These clown loaches had all sorts of problems.  I never had any problems until I started adding them.  My next purchase is a quarantine tank because I have learned my lesson for real...