where did his tail go

[zaqxswcde]

vs his friends

I noticed this poor bugger hopping around in my tank a few days ago. he is about 1.5 inches long. I also have 3 german blue rams who are slightly larger, two 6 inch Siamese algae eaters, a 3 inch Tiger pleco, and a 2 inch zebra pleco. all other fish are smaller. I can't imagine any of them chomping off his tail though.. any ideas what happened to him?

 

[Colin_T]

It looks like an infection. The fish also has excess mucous on the anal (bottom) fin and the body colour under the skin looks wrong.

----------------------
WHAT TO DO NOW?
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. The water change and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration for a few weeks or while treating to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt.

If there's no improvement after a couple of days with salt, post some more pictures and tell us about the history of the aquarium and fish.

----------------------
SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.

 

[zaqxswcde]

thanks for the feedback. i've been doing 50% water changes a week, the last one being 2 days ago, along with a glass clean. my substrate is 1.5mm sand which doesn't lend itself well to vacuuming. for the large part I never disturb it, but agitate the water over it to sweet debris into the sump. short of a complete rescape I don't think I can make it much cleaner.

the tank is about 250 gallons and has been up for over a year. very few fish casualties in that time. for context, of 19 Otto's that went into the tank a year ago during cycling, 14 remain. I lost one gbr early, but all my original 8 Cory's and 10 hatchet fish are still there.

 

[itiwhetu]

I'm interested in knowing what your nitrate and pH readings are?

 

[zaqxswcde]

my ph bottoms out at 5.9 with co2, from a high of 7.0 in the morning. after a fresh water change it is 7.2. I would guess my nitrite is zero but I never measured it. i'm dosing an additional 30g calcium nitrate a week for my plants, which the tank is filled pretty densely with, so I figure the plants are consuming much of the ammonia even before the bio filter gets a look in.

 

[zaqxswcde]

TDS is 120 after a water change down from 200

 

[itiwhetu]

Nitrate?

 

[itiwhetu]

I think I will walk away because I know nothing about dosing tanks with stuff. There are expert doses on this site who will help you.

 

[Colin_T]

You don't want the pH fluctuating that much between day and night. Either reduce the CO2 or increase the KH to stop the pH dropping.

When was the last time you cleaned the filter/ sump?
If it hasn't been done in the last few weeks, I would clean that. The filter media can be washed in a bucket of tank water and the media re-used. The bucket of dirty water can go on the lawn/ garden.

If you only have sand, just hoover the gunk off the top of it and try to clean up any gunk building up around the base of plants. And try to suck out any gunk from under the driftwood.

 

[zaqxswcde]

the pH fluctuation is due to the high co2 ppm needed for some of these plants to thrive. also seems to keep the BBA back. I'll try hoovering all the dead spots around the logs, and give the bio media a good rinse out.

the nitrate is very high after dosing ca(no3)2 but falls as the plants consume it.

if the lost tail is due to pathogens, would I expect other fish to be affected?

 

[Colin_T]

It is possible other fish will lose their tails and even their lives if it's caused by a bacterial infection. Cleaning the tank & filter, and adding salt should hopefully stop it spreading and stop it killing the infected fish.

If the nitrates are high, perhaps try dosing nitrate at a lower level but more often. Then it won't be as high, which is better for the fish.

If you increase the KH in the water, the pH shouldn't drop as much.

 

[zaqxswcde]

thanks for the tips. fingers crossed it doesn't apread.

I actually have a few cuttle fish bones in the sump to try and increase kh, but it doesn't seem to help me much...

 

[Colin_T]

A couple of pieces of cuttlebone won't do anything in a 250 gallon tank. You would need to add 10-20kg of limestone to make a difference.

Alternatively, make a mesh bag filled with shell and put that in the filter. As the water passes through the shell, it will help to neutralise the acids and buffer the pH.