Tank Troubles.

[sellwoc]

I am new to this online forum and have never posted before and I am fairly new to keeping fish (about a year) and until now I have had no real major problems. I have recently bought a new tank (juwel trigon 350) and moved my old tank (juwel rekord 60). I moved the fish with the small tank and kept the old water. I do regular maintenance on this tank but did have a small ammonia spike (1ppm), now zero again. I keep 4 albino cory's, a shoal of neon's and 5 guppies in this tank. Ever since i moved this tank the guppies and neon have been dying with no visable signs and the replacement guppies I have bought have also died. Any ideas would be good ?
The problem with the other tank involves a bala shark. This is 350 liter tank and has just about cycled. It contains 3 balas, 3 clown loaches and a pictus. All fish are fine but one bala. The tank is quite young (10 weeks) and does experience ammonia spikes but subside with water changes. The bala is losing it's color on it's head and the black is disappering on it's fins. Not uniformly but in patches. He is eating, shoaling and doing everything else the others do, but he is now a much lighter colour on his head and fins. All other fish are fine, no colour loss, appitite, etc..

Some background info on the tanks.

Rekord 60 -
Request Help

Tank size: 54 litres
pH: 7
ammonia: 0 ( 1 ppm spike)
nitrite: 0
nitrate:30
kH:
gH:
tank temp:78

This tank has 2 filters, one juwel compact and 1 elite stingray, Air pump and air stones.

Trigon 350

Request Help

Tank size: 350 litres
pH: 7
ammonia: up to 2ppm (usually 0 ppm)
nitrite: varying ( has been as high as 5ppm)
nitrate: 40ppm
kH:
gH:
tank temp:78

This tank has 1 juwel jumbo filter and 1 eheim professional external filter, air pump and air stones.

i have been carring out 15 litre water changes on small tank and 120 litre water changes on big tank.

Any help would be a great help as i am at a loss.

 

[Spooky76]

Just sounds like normal new tank syndrome.

If your getting ammonia readings then your bound to get some nitrite readings too. All you can do is keep your eye on your water stats, maybe check them twice a day if you can, dont let it get too high.

I setup a 200L tank and had very similar problems early doors.

Your doing the right thing by the looks of it, did you add any stress zyme or anything when you started the tank off ?

Its good if your getting Nitrate levels, obviously your filters are doing their job. I would just leave it be for another month or so, until your no longer getting any ammonia readings, then add a few more fish, wait a month and so on.

Keep up the water changes while its cycling and maybe you could put some stress zyme in as per instructions on bottle.

by the way - what type of test kit do you have ? Liquid or those strip things ?

Good luck.

 

[jollysue]

I have used BioSpira and the Luv one with helpful results. Also seeding from the established tank/filters.

The shark is a concern. Can you post a pic? Are the faded parts couldy or white? Stressed fish have lower immune/resistance levels and can succumb to something that would not ordinarily get them down. I want to rule out anything like an outbreak of columnaris or fin rot.

 

[sellwoc]

Thanks for the replys. Yes i have been using the stress zyme as instucted by the bottle. Thats is what is confussing me. I have done exactly the same as the little tank when i got that and it was ok. Shark is still feeding, swimming, following others but he has now almost lost all the black from his tail. The fin isn't damaged or rotting away, it appears to be fine as is his head. The only other thing that has changed in the tank is i got rid of a uber aggressive rainbow shark about 10 days ago ( ate one of the other sharks dorsal fin, but it's grown back now.) will try and take a photo but he doesn't usually swim near the front of the tank.

would the adding a little salt help the fish?

like i say the tank is home to 3 balas, 3 clown loaches and a very shy pictus?

 

[plaskotki]

Hi, I have recently transferred my fish to a bigger tank. Guess what-I had similar symptoms. The nitrates were high. The fish shop advised using antibiotics just to be on the safe side. 2 of my fish got better after a watech change and 2 days of antibiotics. One of them lost abouth half of the tail fin... but it seems happy again.

 

[Spooky76]

I personally would NOT use salt, as far as I know you may not help things with it.

You could try a general antibiotic medicine, such as Interpet bacterial infection medicine. Most LFS in UK sell it.

I would keep using stress zyme as per instructions too.

As Jollysue said - stressed fish are susceptable to infections etc. But remember things will only get better in the tank as long as you keep up water changes etc. Try the interpet and see if the shark improves.

You could also try feeling them some veg, sometime does them some good. Some peas out the shell pupled up, or some brocolli.