Poorly Rummy Nose's

[fish-rookie]

Can anyone help me diagnose the problem with my rummy nose tetras?

They are very pale/have lost a lot of colour and are breathing rapidly.

Please help!

FR

PS all attempts to upload the video failed!

 

[*Fishkies*]

Lots of questions here:

Have you cycled your tank?
What are your water stats?
What size of tank are they in?
Do you have aeration in the tank?
What other tankmates are in with them?
Do you have a heater what is the current temperature?
Have they eaten food lately? Do they seem interested in food?
Do you see any other external problems? like funugs?

 

[fish-rookie]

Lots of questions here:

Have you cycled your tank?
The water gets cycled regularly - 25% once per week

What are your water stats?
Ammonia/Nitrite = virtually zero, Nitrate = 20 ppm ish, PH = 6.8 ish

What size of tank are they in?
180L

Do you have aeration in the tank?
Yes, its a Rio 180L with the standard built in filter/pump system. The exhaust is directed such that it agitates the water surface.

What other tankmates are in with them?
Two swordtails, 4 neon, 6 false neon, 5 assorted cory's, twigg catfish, banjo, rainbow shark.

Do you have a heater what is the current temperature?
It is kept at about 26-28 deg C

Have they eaten food lately? Do they seem interested in food?
The always race towards any food and eat straight away.

Do you see any other external problems? like funugs?
There was once a case of fungus in the tank but it hasn't been back for a couple of months

Hope this helps?
FR

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Have you cycled your tank?
The water gets cycled regularly - 25% once per week

that's not what cycling your tank is, have a read of this which should explain more

Ammonia/Nitrite = virtually zero

this is likely to be your problem, any reading at all for ammonia/nitrite is dangerous, even 0.000000000001 is not a good reading, you should do a 20% water change every day until both readings are 0. If the tank is not new and there is nothing likely to have killed off your bacteria (e.g. cleaning the filters wrong, not dechlorinating the water etc) and you consistently get a small reading for ammonia/nitrite then it looks like your filter is not coping with the waste from your fish, so you either need to upgrade the filter or re-home some fish.

how often do you clean your filter and how do you do it?

 

[fish-rookie]

Thanks for the previous post Mrs. Wiggle, that article on cycling the tank was very informative.

I have not cycled my tank since I had it but having just gone out and bought an expensive test kit I can confirm that ammonia/Nitrite are both ZERO and the nitrate is about 15.

My PH is 6.8 - 7.0

My filter is the built in one that comes with the rio 180L tank. It's in 5 parts:

a carbon filter for chemicals: changed 4-6 weeks
green sponge to remove nitrates: 6 week
coarse blue: 6 - 12 weeks
2 x fine blue: 3 - 6 months

This is all exactly as per the tank's instruction manual, when I change the components of the filter I replace them entirely and they are all staggered so there is at least a couple of weeks between each change: no two components get changed together.

The rummy noses are now looking very poorly indeed. There is absolutely no colour on them whatsoever and they are all stationary about half an inch above the substrate breathing rapidly. The rest of the tank seems fine, one swordtail is hovering by the surface a lot but that might just be due to the CO2 system I have just added?

Any more help you can give would be much appreciated!

FR

 

[Miss Wiggle]

ok test results are spot on, that's a good start and something to eliminate

your tank will be cycled then, you just didn't know it was happening when it was!

on a side note the filters do not need to be changed that regularly, it's a scam by the manufacturers to get you to keep buying they're expensive products. The best thing in your filter is nitrifying bacteria, this lives on all the surfaces regardless of what sort of sponge/media it is. If you throw out your media you also throw out a chunk of your bacteria. You can keep sponges until they are literally falling apart, i have sme 5 years old and still going strong.

turn the Co2 system off and see what happens! It could be that they are starved of oxygen, turn off the Co2 and turn on an airstone if you hav one or position the filter so it breaks the surface of the water and you get lots of surface agitation, if the rummy noses start to come round that's your problem, if not it's one more thing to cross off your list!

 

[fish-rookie]

The rummy noses have been poorly long before the CO2 was added. I have started turning on an airstone at night just so they don't compete with the plants for the remaining oxygen.

This morning I discovered another dead swordtail. Other than a white and swollen anus there was nothing outwardly wrong with it, nothing that was obvious anyway.

That brings the total dead fish recently (in the last two months) to 11:
3 x swordtails
1 x cory
1 x plec of some sort
2 x rummy noses
4 x false neons

I don't have anywhere else to put the remaining fish so getting very worried for them now!

The tank has recently had a black beard algae explosion; which seems to be under control now, a hair algae problem; again under control now and always has a bit of BGA between the glass and the gravel that I remove as soon as I see it.

I have long since run out of ideas!

FR

 

[Miss Wiggle]

a white and swollen anus

that sounds really worrying, my gut instinct is internal parasites of some sort, i'll have a little look and see if i can find any further info.

i also think you should post in the emergencies section, you should get the attention of the people who know most about diseases and medication there