Tank Cleaning

[omordn]

Hey Everyone,

I have been having issues with my tank recently. I have been losing my fish left and right. Right now, I am dealing with a gill disease I believe on my Australian Rainbow. It appears that it has a red dot on its gill and the gill is also swollen. All my other fish seem to be fine but I don't want to run the risk of losing anymore fish. I do plan on medicating my Australian, but in the mean time I would like to know what is it that I can do where I can break down my tank and basically clean it 100% without losing any beneficial bacteria and risk losing anymore fish because of stress or wahtever. Do I only make 10% water changes every day for 2 weeks straight as an example?

I make weekly water changes and weekly maintenance on my tank. I don't know why I have been having these problems just recently. My tank has been running for about 2 years now. This is what I have in my tank:

1 Australian Rainbow
1 Dalmatian Molly
1 Silver Molly
3 Small Platies
1 Albino Pleco
2 Lava Rocks
2 Live Plants
1 Air Pump
Gravel

I do not have any ammonia spike that can harm my fish. I just tested my water levels and everything is fine. My temperature is 80 degrees and it is a 28 gallon tank.

Thank You in advance.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi omordn,

Sorry you are having troubles with your established 28G tank!

I think first off it will be helpful if you describe the type of water test kit you have and how often you are doing tests. If you are doing a number of tests, please report the results for each of these. The members will especially need to know your values for ammonia, nitrite and pH and possibly nitrate.

There are a number of possibilities for working on the cleaning without hurting your established bacteria, but first I think it will be important to be sure everything is going ok with your testing.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[omordn]

Thank You Waterdrop for your reply. I am using a liquid test from Aquarium Pharmaceuticals. Here are my readings:

pH about 7.6
ammonia 0.25
nitrate 5.0
nitrite 0

I tend to check my water levels once a month.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

the ammonia is cause for concern, anything other than 0 is dangerous and cause for immediate concern. is it always at this level or is it ususally at 0?

if it's always at this level then the filter is underperforming so you should upgrade it, if it's normally at 0 but has just risen then its probably a mini cycle in which case you should be doing water changes every day to keep it as low as possible until it's finished.