Sick Or False Alarm?

[FishAreFriendsNotFood10]

Hey all

im really new to fish keeping, im not sure on how to tell if my fish is really sick and dying or is it just a false alarm?

here is a vid of him (Sick Gourami?)near the top of my tank... he doesnt move alot and is either at the top or the bottom of the tank

i had a water test done at my LFS and the said my ammonia was just abit higher safe but nothing to worry about and to add some nutrafin cycle,

heres the results off my test strip : NO2 - 25 mg/l
NO3 - 1 mg/l
GH - 16 dh
KH - 6 dh
PH - 8.0

any help or advice would be muchly appreciated

 

[jonnyf84]

Hey all

im really new to fish keeping, im not sure on how to tell if my fish is really sick and dying or is it just a false alarm?

here is a vid of him (Sick Gourami?)near the top of my tank... he doesnt move alot and is either at the top or the bottom of the tank

i had a water test done at my LFS and the said my ammonia was just abit higher safe but nothing to worry about and to add some nutrafin cycle,

heres the results off my test strip : NO2 - 25 mg/l
NO3 - 1 mg/l
GH - 16 dh
KH - 6 dh
PH - 8.0

any help or advice would be muchly appreciated

you have ammonia and nitrite in your filter, i wouldn't hold up much hope for your gourami or the ram in your vid, your lfs have talked you into a easy sale without giving you proper instructions. is this a new set up?

 

[FishAreFriendsNotFood10]

Hey all

im really new to fish keeping, im not sure on how to tell if my fish is really sick and dying or is it just a false alarm?

here is a vid of him (Sick Gourami?)near the top of my tank... he doesnt move alot and is either at the top or the bottom of the tank

i had a water test done at my LFS and the said my ammonia was just abit higher safe but nothing to worry about and to add some nutrafin cycle,

heres the results off my test strip : NO2 - 25 mg/l
NO3 - 1 mg/l
GH - 16 dh
KH - 6 dh
PH - 8.0

any help or advice would be muchly appreciated

you have ammonia and nitrite in your filter, i wouldn't hold up much hope for your gourami or the ram in your vid, your lfs have talked you into a easy sale without giving you proper instructions. is this a new set up?

pretty much a few months old... is there anything i can do to help this?

 

[FishAreFriendsNotFood10]

please can any1 help? my gourami sadly died last night after putting up one hell of a fight! but this shouldnt of happened if i could of forseen the signs my tank was bad

i could really using a guiding hand on how to set things right

 

[Flute]

Welcome to the forums

I'm sorry you lost your gourami

My first piece of advice would be to go and read through this section of the forum: beginners resource centre. In there you'll find pretty much everything you need to know about fish keeping.

Test stripes aren't very accurate, and you're best off getting a liquid test kit from ebay. They last absolutely ages and are worth it, I promise
Secondly, your lfs gave you wrong information- any ammonia at all is bad for your fish. You need to do a large water change right away to get rid of it as it's poisonous to fish and is probably why your gourami died. Also that nutrafin cycle stuff mostly doesn't work as the bacteria needs oxygen and what not to live and therefore dies in the bottle. It's a rip off more than anything (in my opinion).

What size tank have you got? And what are they other fish?
Did you cycle it at all? If not then it's probably still in the process of cycling and if so then you need to be doing at least 50% water changes a day in order to keep your fish healthy and safe.

Are any other fish showing symptoms?

Good luck, and you've come to the right place

 

[Skins]

Hello and welcome to TFF,
Sorry to hear about your loss.
Having a quick look at your topic it seems to me your filter has not been cycled, what i mean by this is you havn't built up enough bacteria to process your ammonia and nitrites which are toxic to the fish. Your first step will be to perform a large water change(75-90%), this will help bring down your ammonia/nitrite levels. Make sure the water from your tap is dechlorinated and is near in temp to your tank water, Use boiled kettle water to mix with your cold tap water. Your next step will be to do what we call a fish in cycle, please find some links at the end of this post to guide you through your fish in cycle process.

Skins.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=224306
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=175355
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=271928&hl=

 

[FishAreFriendsNotFood10]

Thanks for both of your replies, i'll get straight to changing the water ... its been setup for 3months now but recently i had to take some more fish because my girlfriends tank was deadly

my tank: fluval roma 90litres
my fish: 2 male gourami, 1 common plec, 1 bumblebee catfish, 1 zebra catfish
my girlfriends fish (which came from a deadly ammonia and nitrate tank): 2 rams, 1 tetra, 1 albino, 1 red finned shark, 1 huge catfish which i dont know the name of lol

i know its alot of fish and i hope to give the other fish back soon.

 

[FishAreFriendsNotFood10]

quick update i got a api freshwater test kit and the results are as follows:

tap Ph - 8.2
tank Ph -7.8
ammonia - 0.25 ppm
nitrite - 0ppm
nitrate - 0 > 5ppm

 

[Skins]

Now then, looks to me it was adding your girlfriends fish that has presented you with this problem. Basically your filter is struggling to process the extra bio load. May i suggest you re-house your girlfriends fish ASAP, until you do water checks will need to be done daily followed by a water change if ammonia or nitrites get to or above the 0.25ppm reading.

Hope this helps, Skins.

 

[FishAreFriendsNotFood10]

cheers for all your advice its very much appreciated as soon as my water is right im going to look into getting some more fish, (after giving the extras back ofcourse) so i need to get my cycle right asap! i did a large 50-60% change today, what % should i be doing over the next few days?

thanks again!

 

[Skins]

Hello,
Your water tests(ammonia/nitrites) will dictate how much water needs changing, e.g:
0 to 0.25ppm= 50%
0.25ppm to 0.50ppm =75%
0.50ppm to 1ppm+ =90%
I would suggest daily water checks while you have the extra fish.

Skins.

 

[FishAreFriendsNotFood10]

cheers for the info i'll check again tommorow and hopefully it will all be sorted in a week or 2...
i cant really give my girlfriends fish back atm as her tank is alot worse than mine, her ammonia is 0.50ppm so puttin the fish back would be unfair

seems we got alot of work to do to get everything right over the next few weeks!

 

[Skins]

How are things goin

 

[FishAreFriendsNotFood10]

just a quick final update things seem to be going well now had a 0 ppm ammonia and nitrite readings today. Guna watch it carefully now to make sure the other fish dont succumb to the poor gourami's fate i added some API Ph 7.0 buffer in a attempt to control my wildy swaying Ph as the water readings around my area are just shockingly high and would be more suited for a malawi cilchid setup!

thanks for your advice again someday i hope i can share with others what i learn on here

 

[roadmaster]

Thanks for both of your replies, i'll get straight to changing the water ... its been setup for 3months now but recently i had to take some more fish because my girlfriends tank was deadly

my tank: fluval roma 90litres
my fish: 2 male gourami, 1 common plec, 1 bumblebee catfish, 1 zebra catfish
my girlfriends fish (which came from a deadly ammonia and nitrate tank): 2 rams, 1 tetra, 1 albino, 1 red finned shark, 1 huge catfish which i dont know the name of lol

i know its alot of fish and i hope to give the other fish back soon.

As you have noted,,this is too many fish for 90 L tank, and careful feeding along with once weekly 50 percent water change or perhaps twice weekly will be needed in my opinion. Otherwise,your fishes will continue to produce considerable waste for rather small volume of water and I would expect tank to be difficult to maintain.
The ph adjuster you are using, will add further stress to the fishes due to your hard tapwater's buffering capacity which will always be trying to return the pH to the 8.2 you posted.
You would be better served by using dechlorinator and tapwater only for your tank. This will result in stable pH as opposed to fluctuating ph which is much better for the fish.