FAQs on Freshwater Diseases
4
Related Articles: Freshwater Diseases, FW Disease Troubleshooting, Ich/White Spot Disease, Choose Your
Weapon: Freshwater Fish Disease Treatment Options
by Neale Monks,
FAQs on Freshwater Disease: Freshwater
Disease 1, Freshwater Disease 2,
Freshwater Disease 3, FW
Disease 5, FW Disease 6,
FW Disease ,
FW Disease , FW Disease , FW Disease ,
FAQs on Freshwater Disease by Category:
Diagnosis,
Environmental,
Nutritional,
Social, Trauma,
Genetic, Pathogenic (plus see Infectious and Parasitic categories
below), Treatments
Related FAQs: Toxic
Situations, Aquarium
Maintenance, Freshwater
Medications, Freshwater
Infectious Disease, Freshwater Fish Parasites,
Ich/White Spot Disease, Worm Diseases, Nutritional Disease, African Cichlid Disease 1, Cichlid Disease,
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Crayfish, cichlids; health ... English... "Buttons are
not toys" 7/31/08 ok so I have had
my electric blue crayfish for about 5 months now. he's appx.
5 inches long. <Cool. Now, make sure you don't keep him
with any fish.> doing well until I accidentally introduced a
seemingly well cichlid into the tank. <Oh dear.> he blew up
and died about a week ago. I think the Cray may have eaten it!
<Well, fish don't "blow up and die" for no
reason. Crayfish can catch living fish and eat them, and they
certainly will consume fish that are sick/dead for other
reasons.> he's pretty lethargic now and he sits cocked up
to one side and his legs on top just sway back and forth. he
really wont eat and I know he's dying. is there anything I
can do?? <No information here to work from. How big is this
tank? What filter are you using? What is the water chemistry (at
minimum: the pH)? What is the water quality (at minimum: the
nitrite concentration)? Almost certainly water quality is an
issue, if not THE issue.> pet smart gave me 'gel Tek'
'ultra cure PX' <Pointless, unless you know what's
wrong and how you cure it. Since you have no idea what the
problem is, how can you treat the animal?> they said it would
be ok for him to eat too, but he really wont. and now my other
cichlids are getting blown up looking too. <Ah, definitely
water quality.> I noticed when the other cichlid died her
scales were like coming up. don't know if any of that helps,
but what can I do to save my Cray and my cichlids!??? I know by
the way everyone looks I don't have long! thank you!
<I'm assuming this is an overstocked, under-filtered tank,
quite possibly with the wrong water chemistry for the species
being kept. Without names for these cichlids, it's impossible
to say what conditions they require. Some (e.g., Mbuna) need
hard, alkaline water. Others (e.g., Severums) need soft, acidic
water. All cichlids need spotlessly clean water with zero
ammonia, zero nitrite, and ideally as little nitrate as possible,
certainly less than 50 mg/l. In any event YOU CAN'T MIX
CRAYFISH WITH FISH. Cheers, Neale.>
Re: crayfish, cichlids; health 8/2/08 well the cichlids
are African Kribensis, and I've had them since birth. still
have the parents in a diff tank. the water is fine, for all,
checked it over and over. <If you say so!> the cichlid I
introduced was already sick, I know that, now) and when he died,
the Kribs ate it and I think so did the crab. <Letting fish
eat dead fish is asking for trouble. Many diseases are spread
that way. Remove fish as soon as they die, and ideally isolate
them when they're sick.> they were all fine till about 3
days after the Wal-Mart fish died. he seems to be fine with my
fish, I've never seen him raise a claw to them. not that it
wont or cant happen! <Indeed. Many cichlids become territorial
only once sexually mature, which may take 6-12 months, depending
on the species.> I am well aware of that. so total in the tank
I have 2 cichlids, and 5 small tetras, and the Cray. the cichlids
are still juvenile, only about an inch and a half. all were fine
until I put the seemingly fine Wal-Mart fish (which I didn't
buy, a friend did.) in. <If you can't quarantine new fish,
then you should be very carefully about selecting additional
livestock -- so accepting fish from friends really isn't a
good idea.> I have a 50 gal tetra filter, with two filters,
and a 20 long, which will soon be a 30 long. I know I need at
least a 50, but funds are low right now. there's plenty of
room for them, the Cray doesn't seem to mind, he's
usually busy and healthy, molted about 4 times successfully.
<Seems as if you're aware of the potential problems but
depending on luck. While we've all done that one time or
another, it's hardly the best strategy.> its definitely a
sickness from the Wal-Mart fish. <Why do you say that? Post
hoc ergo propter hoc? Unfortunately, there's no guarantees
that just because you've _added_ a new fish, the aquarium has
_developed_ problems because those new fish were sick. While it
can happen, it can also happen that the additional fish overwhelm
the filter, or break up the social structures, or a variety of
other possibilities.> I think by eating the dead sick fish
they got sick. <OK, if you say so. Can't say I'm
convinced.> the tetras I don't think ate any because they
are fine and I'm sure the cichlids didn't let em get to
eat any of the dead fish. <Hmm...> I noticed though that
the cichlids scales look funny too. this just started. they seem
to be itching on the rocks. no ich though. can you think of
anything??? <Many things. If they're itching themselves,
then Ick/Velvet are both possibilities, and both can make a fish
sick *without* obvious external symptoms, because both diseases
attack the gills before the skin. If the fish are breathing
heavily, for example, as well as itching, that's a good clue
that Velvet is in the tank. Saying the "scales looks
funny" doesn't help much. Are we talking excessive
mucous, making the body look cloudy? That's usually a water
quality/water chemistry issue. Are the scales sticking outwards,
like the scales on a pine cone? That's Dropsy (oedema) a
symptom of a variety of things from internal bacterial infections
through to inappropriate use of "tonic salt". Cheers,
Neale.>
Re: crayfish, cichlids; health 8/2/08 ok so I'm not
god, I don't know for absolute sure that the Wal-Mart fish
did it but here's my evidence... got 2 cichlids (don't
know what there were, just they were yellow.) <Likely Yellow
Labs, Labidochromis caeruleus. A smallish, fairly well behaved
Mbuna.> kept em quarantined for month and a half. one got fat,
and died. <Right. If this happens *in the quarantine tank*
then you obviously don't put the survivor into your display
tank. You run through all the possible diseases, or ideally, and
what I would have done, you take them back to the store. This of
course assumes the water conditions in the quarantine tank were
appropriate to the species in question. For a Mbuna, that would
mean hard, alkaline water with zero ammonia/nitrite, and low
levels of nitrate (less than 20 mg/l if possible). There is
*absolutely* no point quarantining in a tank that isn't
cycled or doesn't have an appropriate chemical filter to
remove ammonia directly. You can't just stick in a new filter
and hope for the best. If new fish are exposed to a cycling tank,
OF COURSE they're going to get sick and die. You may known
this, but I'm just putting this out here fair and square so
other people reading this can understand things.> thought it
was because of the water, they were in with goldfish, I know, but
it was the only thing I could do at midnight (drunk friends do
dumb but thoughtful things). I wasn't going to risk putting
em in my good tank. not fair for the goldies I know, but what
else could I have done??? <Hmm... no idea.> so when one
yellow fish died, after being fine for a month I figured it was
indeed the water. <Why "the water"? Think about this
logically for a moment. Fish live in water. They like water. So
why would water kill them? There are really only two ways that
water *conditions* can kill them -- either the wrong chemistry or
poor water quality. Pick and choose. If 50% of your new livestock
die, then your plan of action is firstly to see if the
environment was right. At minimum, you check nitrite and pH. In
the case of Mbuna, you'd need zero nitrite and a pH around
8.0. If this tested fine, you would then look for possible
symptoms of disease. But you would absolutely NOT move the
remaining "healthy" 50% into the show tank until
you'd at least checked off all the possible diseases and
perhaps treated proactively.> so I moved the last yellow
cichlid to my good tank in hopes it wouldn't die too. after
about a week he did die, at night. <I'm concerned that
these "mystery yellow fish" are Mbuna, and you're
exposing them to completely inappropriate water chemistry and
quality. Just to reiterate, Mbuna need water with a high level of
carbonate hardness and a high pH. Adding "tonic salt"
will not work. Kribs will tolerate -- but don't appreciate --
such conditions, and South American cichlids will be positively
stressed by them.> nothing I could do. by the time I woke up
he was already being consumed...I'm not depending on luck,
but I'm trying to do the best I can with what I have.
<We've all been here. Which is why I'm stressing
research and water chemistry/quality so strongly. You have very
little scope for error and seemingly no Plan B, so you have to
get things right first time. This demands a slow, methodical
approach rather than hoping for the best. In other words,
carefully identify all your livestock. Write down what conditions
they require. Determine whether you can provide those conditions.
We can help with all of these things. But so too will a good
book. Libraries are full of them.> I did not ask for these
fish nor did I want them. like I said drunken present at
midnight. not something I would have ever done. didn't need
any more fish. now, the velvet thing sounds like what I have. a
lot. would this cause my Cray to be sick too?? <Crayfish
won't get sick from the disease, but they certainly can carry
the infectious stages of the parasite life cycle on their bodies.
In any event, any Velvet medication can, likely will, kill the
crayfish because they contain formalin and/or copper, both highly
poisonous to invertebrates.> and what do you recommend to fix
it? <Remove the Crayfish to a quarantine tank. Treat the tank
with a Whitespot/Velvet combo medication. Nothing tea-tree oil
based! Remember to remove carbon from the filter (if you use the
stuff). http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWsubwebindex/fwfishmeds.htm
Once I'd finished that course of medications, I'd perhaps
run something for systemic bacterial infections, for example
Maracyn.> thanks for being prompt, I don't think I have
much time! <Cheers, Neale.>
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Black pom poms... no data of any sort ID 5/26/08 My
freshwater fish tank has been afflicted with numerous black balls like
pom poms the size of the eraser on the end of a pencil. What are they
and how can I get rid of them? Thanks <... gots me... Any chance for
a pic or two, water quality tests, history and make up of your system?
Bob Fenner>
Re: got prob again 5/16/08 hello, dear Neale,
thank you so much that u answered my question even you were busy,
thanks a lot. <You are most welcome!> May God blesses you and ill
medicate them until they become fully active and fresh but until I use
medicine should I introduce more fish or not? <Medicate the fish
until healthy. Once you are happy the fish are in perfect condition,
and the water quality is good, then think about adding another
fish.> thanks ALI <Have a good weekend, Neale.>
Sick
fish in distilled water- yikes! -05/07/08 HELP!!! My fish is
floating at the top of the tank. It is sideways so I can see it. Some
scales are missing and it is hardly breathing. <Sounds to be on the
way out, to be honest.> It looks normal apart from that but it is
very skinny. <Suggest starvation... have you been feeding it
properly?> I've put it in a separate tank with clean, distilled
water. <Distilled water will kill your fish. Remove. NOW!> What
is wrong with it and what do I do? Please help me save my fish. <No
idea. Need you to tell me what the fish is, how big the aquarium is,
what the pH and nitrite measurements are. Describe the symptoms. Then
we can do something (perhaps). Cheers, Neale.>
Question about disease/illness in
FW 5/6/08 Hello, <Hi> What is the most likely diagnosis
for a fish that breathes rapidly and stays on the bottom of the tank.
There are no physical signs on an illness on the fish's body. I
have had this happen a few times and find it hard to diagnose and treat
in quarantine. Both times it happened was when the fish was in my
quarantine tank after purchase. Thanks for your help. Zach <By far
the most common cause of these symptoms is water quality issues.>
<Chris>
Black calvus breathing really hard
for air 03/19/2008 I bought a black calvus and it is breathing
really hard for air. <... Mmm, all fishes (in fact all livestock) is
damaged, stressed in shipping/moving... hence one part of the
suggestion to quarantine, allow it to "rest up" before being
placed in a community setting where it may be harassed, have to compete
too hard for food...> I put him in well established tank, 80 degrees
PH 7.9 nitrites and nitrates are in a normal parameters. <... need
data, not subjective evaluations> The other cichlids he is with are
doing fine and breathing normal. He just sits on the substrate doing
nothing. He does not have any signs of disease no white spots or no
cloudy eyes all fins are good he sits right side up no swaying or
anything what do you think Troy <... Read more widely on the Net re
fish physiology, husbandry, particularly the value of quarantine...
there is very likely nothing "wrong" with this Cichlid than
that it's new. Bob Fenner>
Re: Fish suddenly sick 3/17/08 Hi
Neale, <Allison,> Unfortunately, all my fish died over about a
three-day period (after the pH shock I wrote to you about a few weeks
ago, see the email below). <Not entirely surprised, but I'm
sorry anyway.> I don't feel up to trying to do another community
tank, and after all that I don't even think I believe in the pet
aquarium business anymore, but I have a beautiful 30-gallon aquarium
set up and don't want it to go to waste, so I am thinking of just
getting a male Betta. <Ah, don't give up! Figure out what went
wrong. My recommendation would be this: go hard water! A hard water
aquarium is easy to set up, and chemically VERY stable. Put plenty of
calcareous media in the filter to act as a buffer, and maybe mix some
coral sand in with the plain gravel or silica sand substrate. Use
limestone or Tufa rock for decoration. Skip live plants or at least use
plants that like hard water (such as Vallisneria, Egeria, Anubias, and
Java fern). What fish? Livebearers are the way to go! Other good hard
water fish including wrestling halfbeaks and Australian Rainbowfish.
Plenty of scope between these for size, colour and temperament. The big
"score" for hard water tanks is they intrinsically buffer
themselves, so wild pH changes shouldn't happen.
http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwhardness.htm Trust me on this;
such a tank will be easy to maintain!> I don't have any bacteria
left in the tank. Do you think I can get the singular Betta and the
cycle won't be too bad, or should I do a fishless cycle? <Do a
thorough clean-out of the tank and filter, start from scratch, and use
a Fishless cycle product of your choice. Bio-Spira is popular, but
I'm Old School and simply grab some established media from another
tank.> I'm only going to have this one fish and there will be a
lots of dilution for his pollution, but I've read that the bacteria
won't build up until the ammonia spikes. Do I really need to have a
big spike or can the bacteria get started even without lots of ammonia?
<Bacteria DO NOT need a spike in ammonia. Just a little. 0.5 mg/l or
less is ample.> Thanks, Allison <Cheers, Neale.>
Various issues with guppies, Gourami, molly
and giant Danio- Itching, not eating, fungus, White
"poo" the list goes on- Please help! Iatrogenic
issues... -- 03/10/08 There are so many different
possibilities on what's wrong with my fish the 100's that
I have read are doing nothing but confusing me more- So, I turn
to you and Thank you in advance for your assistance and your
extremely useful/informative site- Now, where do I begin?
Yesterday I had one of my male FT guppies die- this was in my 10
gallon tank <Hard to keep such small volumes stable,
optimized...> and about 1 week prior a piece of his tale came
missing- then a few days later he started "shimmying"
then a day before he died his back tail got "clamped"
and yesterday he succumbed...I had just bought a used 20 gallon
(so I can convert my 10 to a hospital/quarantine tank) and after
his death I moved all the fishies, gravel, fake plants, and
filter media only to the 20 gallon. <Good> The light is
much better in there and I saw that on my other male guppy he has
2 fairly large scaleless patches on both of his front side fins
and its white where the scales used to be. my sm/med Molly and
guppy are noticed to be scratching on everything- but no other
visible symptoms Just scratching seems pretty vague- No white
spots, and still eating- but I do assume that this is related to
the death of my other male guppy <Likely so> and possibly
the male Betta that I just took out of the tank yesterday
(thinking maybe he was the one who caused the missing piece of
fin, <Could well be> but he's still healthy)- One big
problems is I went to the LFS store today and they gave me Organi
Cure <Uhh, don't use this... too toxic> and said to use
it and it was safe- dumb me put it right in and then noticed that
it was for MARINE FISH-- ugh...So about a half hour after putting
it in I re-inserted the carbon and am now about to change half of
the water....is it safe after this to put quick cure for
FRESHWATER fish in after this?? <NOT safe to use formalin
period...> And is it safe to add aquarium salt to this tank to
aid in the medicine with neon tetras in there? <Mmm, Neons
don't "like" much salt...> My next issue is in
my 100 gallon- this as of yesterday is now completely cycled- the
day before my Nitrites were still reading about 1.0ppm but now
its gone completely and my Ammonia has been gone for at least a
week- One of my dwarf Gouramis is acting "ill"- <...
it wasn't present during the nitrite...?> and I have a
Giant Danio that has had a white spot on his lower lip (maybe
"fuzzy") for at least a week but no other symptoms
(still swimming and eating like crazy!) Gourami (100 gal)-
"hiding" either on ground or upper back corner of tank-
not eating or moving much- going on for at least a day and I did
notice that him and one of my other blue dwarf Gourami's have
"white stringy fecal matter" (haven't noticed
anyone else though) <The species of Dwarf Gourami, Colisa
lalia is notorious for ill health issues... see WWM re> pH:
8.2 in both (has remained stable) ammonia: 0 in 100 gal (20
isn't really anything since all new water today 2 days ago it
was around 1) nitrite: 0 in 100gal (20 now irrelevant 2 days ago
around .5) <Any present is toxic> tank temp: 78 in both now
but before I changed the 10 gal to 20 I realized the heater was
broke in 10 and the water temp was about 70-72 Volume and
Frequency of water changes: 100 gal about a week ago 25% 20
gallon all of it yesterday (when moving everyone from 10) and
about to do half since I think it might be over medicated
Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: Charcoal in both-
(double dose Prime with all water changes In 100- Aquarium salt
(about 15 tablespoons), aquarium fertilizer for plants (safe for
fish) but only half dose, Bio-Spira about a weeks ago In 20-
While everyone was in 10 gal I had 2 tablespoons of salt (is it
safe for tetras?) and in the 10 gallon yesterday morning(?) I did
put one of those Lifeguard tablets in for about 20 min (about
half dissolved) then took it out put in the charcoal and my
husband then put a "fungus tablet" by jungle in there
(it was only in there for about a hour and half before I found
out and put the charcoal filter back in- Since yesterday after
changing everyone into the 20 gallon (with all new water) and
just added the Organi Cure (which contains formaldehyde and
Copper) <Yes... both toxic...> It was in there for about an
hour that not only was it for marine fish but I gave the marine
fish dose (1 drop per gallon) so I put the charcoal filter back
in- Tank inhabitants:100 Gal- 3 male Gouramis, 5 Mickey Platies,
3 Bala sharks, 2 mollys,2 giant Danios, 3 Bloodfin tetras, 2
med/lrg angelfish- 1 rainbow shark and 1 albino rainbow shark 20
gallon- 5 neon tetras, 4 molly fry, 1 sm/med molly, 4 FT guppies
2 male (1just got today(oops)) <Ummm... see below> 2 female
Recent additions to your tank: 100 gallon - plants- always
rinsing and adding more plants but I do take out ones that look
anywhere near bad and added the albino rainbow today and new
bubble wand 20- just added replacement male guppy today and new
tank/filter/heater/water yesterday I finally ask how should I
treat these itchy fish that are scratching their scales off??
Should I QT them and/or treat the whole tank and with what and
Should I treat the old tank prior to putting anyone else in there
(could it be in the gravel that's left) (whatever
"it" is) What should I do about my Gourami- I want to
put him in my hospital tank but I am afraid that there is
something still in there from yesterday....AND should I worry
about the Giant Danio? Maybe QT and treat him also? Thank you so
much for following all this and I am sorry about the length I
just wanted to make sure I had everything covered in order to get
the most accurate advice....I am ever so grateful to all and any
assistance I receive...Thanks again!! V/R a newbie that needs to
stay away from the meds and stop buying and stocking so many
tanks!!! (but I just don't want my fishies to suffer by being
in cramped quarters or being ill and want to help ASAP!!) <We,
you, need to skip back a few steps... a very good deal, okay, all
of the problems presented could/should be avoided through simple
use of isolation/quarantine of new specimens... Posted on WWM...
the sudden loss of your Guppies... may well be infectious... see
the Net re Chondrococcus columnaris... the treatment you list
(OrganiCure) ingredients are dangerous to use, should NOT be
placed in main/display tanks (only in controlled treatment
ones)... and the mixes of livestock... Neons and some of the
livebearers (e.g. Mollies) are poor... too wide-differences in
temperature and water quality... I strongly encourage you to stop
buying livestock (for a few months) and instead going to the
public library or online and buying/borrowing a few standard
books on freshwater aquariums, reading them at your leisure,
taking down good notes... The many and grievous errors you are
making will just kill more livestock... Bob Fenner>
Re: Various issues with guppies, Gourami, molly
and giant Danio- Itching, not eating, fungus, White
"poo" the list goes on- Please help! -- 03/18/08
Your advice about stopping the increase of my fish load and
educating myself on aquarium care and each species requirements
is perfect and I honestly have been trying to do just that.
<Very good.> I don't plan on having the mollies in with
the Neons much longer- only until they are big enough to not get
eaten in my main tank (they are 4 fry and its taking forever for
them to grow) <Fry should take 3-4 months to get big enough to
return to a community tank.> My husband and Dad both seem to
think all this carefulness is a bunch of "bull" and it
was my dad that started this whole thing in the first place by
buying my 5 month old son a 1 gallon quickly followed by a 10
gallon fish tank and overstocked them with inappropriate fish,
which in turn guilted me into buying a 100 gallon (used) tank so
they could spread out- (and then a 20gallon so I could use the 10
for a "hospital" or QT tank and have a tank for the non
aggressive fish). <I'm sure your Dad has many wonderful
character traits and personal skills, but when keeping animals of
any sort, you DO need to be careful. It's like raising kids:
some people make very little effort to raise their kids, and the
kids turn out nice as pie. But often times when people are
neglectful parents, the kids get ruined. If you want to raise
great kids with the most chance of success, you need to make an
effort. Same with fish: some people have great fish tanks but do
nothing more than change the water once a month. But most folks
who take this approach end up with dead fish. So here at WWM we
advocate a "best practise" approach that delivers the
highest likelihood of success.> Dad has had a 55 gallon for
quite sometime now and has never paid attention or attempted to
learn anything about the Cycle process, water quality,
compatibility, or health of fish- His method of fishkeeping is
buy em put em in the tank feed 4 times a day and when one dies
flush then get a replacement. <Flushing fish down the loo may
well be breaking a law in your state. In any case, his approach
is about comparable to parents who say children should be beaten
on a regular basis. Might have been acceptable in Victorian
times, but not any more.> I am trying to take a more educated
approach- even though fish don't have "nerves"
(according to him) and cant "feel" I still find it
important to take the best care of them I can providing my
resources. <Your Dad is out of step with the science;
there's increasing evidence that fish can feel pain, though
perhaps not in quite the same way as mammals. At least some of
the argument against fish feeling pain is a way of rationalising
fishing: if we discover that fish do feel having a hook placed in
their mouth and then dragged by it out of the water, can we
really treat fishing as a harmless sport? I say this as someone
who quite enjoys angling.> Luckily I've finally got both
men to stop stocking the tanks for now ( it took a while there
have been quite a few additions since my last email) and taking
care of what I have is what the majority of my time has turned
into- Of course with a 5 month old the only time I can do
anything is when he's sleeping which leaves me no time to
sleep myself :). I am trying to educate myself as quickly as
possible and I have even tried to return some of the fish but the
places they bought them from won't take them back. <Very
good.> I have initiated the use of the QT tank and have
treated a couple of my fish with great success thus far- My only
ongoing problems - not surprisingly to you I am sure- Is my dwarf
Gouramis. <Total waste of space, these fish.> My first one
finally passed and I can't help but think it was only because
he wouldn't eat- I didn't see him eat a thing for well
over a month...after treating him with Fungus clear (I thought it
was worth a try because he was swimming and "resting"
on his side and/or upside down and it treated swim bladder) he
became right side up within 24 hours and no longer seemed ill
aside from the not eating (when I fed him he always appeared to
try to get the food but couldn't aim right or something) At
any rate he passed a few days ago and my 2nd one (a reminder I
have 3) started not eating and seemed to have a bubble in his
belly. My husband put him into QT but we haven't done any
sort of treatment except trying to get him to eat (peas
included). My 3rd still seems fine however I did move him from
the 100 gallon to the 20 because I noticed today that my Angels
were nipping and chasing him away from the food (and as soon as I
put him in the 20 gallon he pigged out) <Angels can be bullies
at the best of times. Anyway, re: Dwarf Gouramis, see here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/dwfgdis.htm >
Anyways- my new questions are solely related to DGD- I have read
that this disease stays in tanks after the sick is gone- now, is
this only if the infected actually dies in the tank or if they
show symptoms in it? <It's a viral disease, and no-one
really knows whether it "stays" in tanks. Some viruses
can lie dormant for ages, other viruses die quickly if they have
no hosts. No-one really knows how it is transferred between fish,
either. I'd tend to avoid Dwarf Gouramis anyway, hence for me
it's an academic question, not a practical one.> Also, the
one symptom none of my Gouramis have had is the skin lesions.
I've looked very carefully at all 3 and did not see any
abnormalities at all. Does this mean that they do not have DGD or
is this not a necessary symptom to classify it as such. <May
be other things. Dwarf Gouramis do get sick from Finrot,
constipation, and all the other things aquarium fish can suffer
from. It's just that in my experience here in England, most
of the sick Dwarf Gouramis I see in shops have symptoms of the
viral disease, so when I hear/read stories about sick Dwarf
Gouramis, I tend to put the viral disease at the top of the list
of suspects.> I guess that's not my only problem because I
have noticed that almost all of my fish have had the white
sometimes even clear and/or tape-like segmented feces. Does this
mean I should be treating them all for parasites? <Unless you
actually see worms (tapeworms or thread-like worms poking out of
the anus) likely not; constipation or lack of fibre is a more
likely problem. Hexamita and Hole-in-the-Head will also cause
similar symptoms, though this disease is most often seen (in FW
tanks) with cichlids. Do see here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwwormdisfaqs.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwfoods,fdg,nutr.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/hllefaqs.htm > Its a come and go
thing and other than these issues they seem perfectly healthy.
Thank you so much for your extremely informative and helpful
website and your time and dedication you give to us new
hobbyists. I am sure its frustrating when so many people jump
into these things feet first without any previous education or
forethought and then have to come to you when the inevitable
problems begin to arise. <Ah, you "get it"! Yes
indeed, if people researched before they bought their fish,
we'd get a lot fewer messages! But even if people do make
mistakes, what matters is that they learn from them. I've
done some really stupid things in my time... for example putting
a too-small male halfbeak with a female (she ate him!). When
stuff happens, figure out what went wrong, come up with a better
plan, and move on.> Thank you again for your time and this
amazing resource. Very Respectfully, A dedicated student.
<Good luck! Neale.>
|
FW... disease, learning 2/15/08 Hi
Guys. <John> In the last two days, 4 of my 13 fish have started
flashing. <Mmm... have you "done" something recently to
the tank? Added any new fish, live plants or foods?> Sterba's
Cory Albino Cory Juvenile Black Molly <Mmm... a brackish water
animal...> Juvenile Red Wag I've looked hard but at this point I
do not know whether it is velvet or ich. <Or...?> I want to
protect the other fish but I can't take the flashing fish out of my
30G as my 10G quarantine tank is being used right now. The only meds I
know that treat both velvet and ich is CopperSafe but half my fish are
Corys and I had a bad experience with CopperSafe before. <I would
not use copper...> I feel like I should be doing something now but
am I supposed to wait until I see obvious signs of what it is before I
use any meds? The flashing is pretty regular so I know something is
wrong but at what point would one normally use meds? <On more
assurity of their need, usefulness> I'm still pretty new to this
so please forgive my ignorance. I did try to find an answer to this by
hitting a lot of the forums and Google searching but I couldn't
find anything that was specific enough hence my bothering you guys.
Thanks. John Murphy. <Raising temperature may be enough here to
effect some relief... Read on WWM (again) re Ich... and re the Molly:
http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwich.htm and
http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/mollies.htm and the linked files
above. Bob Fenner>
FW... Ich, Guppy dis., using WWM
2/13/08 Exactly 2 weeks and a day ago, I bought 4 fish from
PetSmart. 2 Fancy Guppies (Male is, I don't know about female) and
2 Chinese Algae Eaters. <Do read re this fish, Gyrinocheilus... very
mean... don't eat much algae...> I put all four fish in Wardley
Essentials Ick Away in a 3 gallon tank <Mmm, too small, and why the
medication?> for 3 days. At the end of the 3 days, <Not long
enough to treat an actual case of ich...> the male guppy and
C.A.E.'s were moved to the community tank (10 gallon; four 1 inch
swordtails <Will need more room than this> and some sort of
snail) The female was moved into a 1 gallon hospital tank and treated
for Ick <If one fish has ich... they all, the system does...>
with the medicine I mentioned. For 2 weeks and 1 day now, she
doesn't get better or worse. Her top fin is clamped and her color
has faded. She eats A LOT. <A good sign> All the fish food and
frozen bloodworms and everything. She is also pregnant. She swims like
normal, but breathes rapidly. She's always breathed fast, opening
and closing her mouth. The swords don't breathe with their mouths
open, but maybe guppies do. (These are my first guppies) I'm
totally out of ideas. <I'd be reading on WWM re...> This
doesn't look like any disease people have ever mentioned. They say
that the fish stops eating. Mine doesn't. (Oh, and the edge of her
tail looks like it was traced with something white. <... reads like
a case of Columnaris... Chondrococcus...> (The edge of her tail is
white)) When she swims all fins are erect, but when she drops down her
top fin droops. I don't see any parasites on her body. I've
also heard something about giving egg yolk to fish. (I can't find
the website again.) Please help. Any help at all will be much
appreciated. <Read, on WWM, the Net re... Bob Fenner>
Freshwater Aquarium Issue, dis... env.?
1/27/08 Hello, <Ave.> Your site is a great resource. I read
the FAQs nearly everyday and have learned a lot. I have a problem with
one of my aquariums that has me pretty much stumped. <Hmm...?>
The aquarium is a 55 gallon that has been set up for about 6 months. It
has a Marineland HOB filter (rated at 350 gph) and a new Fluval 305
Canister filter. <Sounds good.> Its inhabitants are 3 Congo
Tetras, 2 Geophagus Surinamensis, 1 gold Severum and a Rainbow Shark
(all less than 3 inches). I do weekly water changes of about 25%.
Ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates around .20, pH 7.6, temperature 76.
<All sounds fine. G. surinamensis is a superb fish, though
notoriously sensitive to nitrate, so keep an eye on that.> Now, to
the problem: The canister filter was added about 3 days ago (replacing
an old Marineland HOB (200 gph)). All was well until about a day later
when I noticed slightly clamped fins on one of the Surinamensis. I then
noticed the Severum had some redness above its mouth. Within hours,
everybody (except the shark) was breathing heavier than normal and
generally were listless. <Uh-oh.> I tested for water quality
problems but all tests came back as normal, just as previously noted. I
started suspecting that somehow something toxic might have been
introduced with the new filter (I had rinsed out the inside of the
filter and all media before installing), since there have been no other
recent changes (fish, diet, hardware, etc.). I changed 50% of the water
and added Quick Cure (I know I am medicating without knowing exactly
what is wrong but I have had success treating unknown maladies with
this product on more than one occasion and have never had any negative
consequences). <OK. You seem to know what you're doing, so
I'll let this slide...!> I followed-up 24 hours later with
another 50% water change, more Quick Cure and rinsed the canister and
its entire media with very hot water. I am now seeing some improvement.
The redness has disappeared from the Severum and most of the fish have
started to behave normally, albeit, they all seem to be breathing a
little more rapidly than normal. <Does sound as if there was
something in the water. Did you clean anything with soap before running
it in the tank?> The most worrisome problem is the Surinamensis, who
continue mostly to just sit on the substrate instead of doing their
normal foraging throughout the sand. <This is what they do when
water isn't 100% perfect. They are among *the* most sensitive
cichlids out there. All the Geophagines are. They're better than
Tanganyikan goby cichlids I suppose, but not by much.> I am not sure
what else, if anything, I should do at this point. <Do consider
whether water chemistry changed; pH is often overlooked. The absolute
value is relatively unimportant, but changes can be dangerous. Do also
think if anything might have got into the water, e.g., paint fumes,
beverages.> I feel like the situation has improved overall and I am
tempted to just let things sit and see if the improvement continues.
<Agreed. Provided water chemistry is sound, you should just leave
things be. Water changes are always a good idea when things like this
happen, so feel free to do another 25-50% each day for the next 2-3
days just to make sure anything nasty has been flushed out. Adding some
carbon to a bubble-up box filter might help, and can be removed after a
week. A left-field thought is Velvet, which often attacks the gills
before anything else. Perhaps you had an outbreak of that, and the
QuickCure helped, and now things are better. Velvet often irritates the
gills sufficiently you see distressed breathing long before you see the
cysts.> Any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Michael <Cheers, Neale.>
Re: Freshwater Aquarium Issue 1/27/08 Neale,
Thanks for your very quick response. In the few hours that have elapsed
since I first wrote, ALL of the fish look much better. <Good
news.> The Surinamensis are out and about and I would like to
declare victory, except, I've been fish keeping for about 45 years
and know it's a bit premature. <As you say. But I suspect
you're over this problem at least, and things should settle
down.> Thanks to you and WWM I knew that dilution (since I've
seen parasitic, bacterial-type problems, etc., in the past), via big
water changes, was a key element to resolving this particular problem.
It should be noted that your advice concerning awareness of soap
residue (or any foreign chemical) on aquarium equipment and external
toxicity issues are imperatives and we all need to be vigilant
concerning these. <Agreed. I confess to using soap from time to time
to clean things, but that's always followed by serious rinsing and
soaking of said ceramic ornament or whatever. An "Old School"
trick after soaping or bleaching items is to stick them in the cistern
of the loo. With each flush, it gets rinsed a bit more! The safe
alternatives are lemon juice/vinegar (great for removing lime scale
from things, while being harmless to fish; brine (great for generally
killing algae and bacteria, also non-toxic); and hydrogen peroxide (for
serious grime removal and disinfecting, but breaks down so quickly as
to be harmless after a quick rinse and dry).> In hindsight, I would
have to blame something with the new filter (every time I've
checked the pH it's been about the same) and in the future,
I'll be even more aggressive in rinsing/cleaning anything I add to
my tanks. <OK.> Thanks again for your quick response and
dedication to helping others in our hobby. <We're happy to help.
Enjoy your fishkeeping!> Michael <Cheers, Neale.>
?... Neale... FW... nitrogenous...
01/14/2008 I had my water checked about 2 weeks ago. The lady said
the ammonia levels were a little high and to change 1/4 of the water
which I did so I'm doubtful that it's the water, but I'll
go get it tested again. <You should have, at minimum, a NITRITE test
kit at home, so you can do this test whenever something looks amiss.
Regardless, ammonia levels are never "a little high" -- the
only safe ammonia level is ZERO, and everything else is somewhere on
the spectrum of dangerous to fishes and likely to cause disease. High
levels kill fish outright, lower levels trigger Finrot, fungus, etc.
You should also be changing not less than 25% of the water per week,
and I'd heartily recommend 50% per week if you're observing
problems. Nothing helps fish health more than regular water changes.
Just from your use of words here, I suspect you aren't maintaining
your aquarium properly, and you have water quality issues, and this in
turn makes me assume the problem is Mouth Fungus or similar.>
It's nothing like a wart, well it's not distinct. Its kind of a
milky white color but nothing actually sticks out of his skin, but you
can tell the mouth is swollen. Here's a picture, its kind of blurry
but you can still kind of see what I'm talking about. <Can't
see the picture, but assume Mouth Fungus (actually a bacterial
infection). Get a combination Finrot/Fungus medication and use AT ONCE.
Follow the instructions on the package carefully if you've never
used a fish medication before. Removing any carbon from the filter is
essential.> View full size <Picture didn't come through.>
as you can see there there's kind of a milky color on the top of
his mouth, and its swollen which you cant really see from the picture
<Sounds like Mouth Fungus.> View full size <This picture
didn't come through either.> this was how he looked before with
nothing around his mouth But thanks so much for your help and fast
response!! <Over to you. The problem here is two-fold: likely poor
water quality through inadequate maintenance, and then the Mouth Fungus
infection itself. Fix both of these! Cheers, Neale.>
Sudden FW angelfish death... & Epistylis/Protozoan
f' 11/25/2007 Hi, <Hello.> I've been
reading and reading your site looking for answers to the sudden
death of one of my Leopard Angelfish. <Hmm... sudden deaths
are always signals to check aquarium conditions: water chemistry,
water quality, correct functioning of heaters, filters.>
I've had these 5 Leopards ( none larger than half dollar size
and most between half dollar and quarter in size) for about 4
weeks in a 12 gal QT. <Quite a small tank even for juvenile
Angels, and small Angelfish do not, in my experience, always
travel well. I recommend people buy them around half-size, say,
5-6 cm.> The fish arrived just after an outbreak of ich in my
55 gallon cycled tank and so I had to move the worst victims of
ich into the hospital tank leaving the 12 as my only resource and
not cycled. I have been doing twice weekly 25% water changes ever
since to the 12 gal QT and checking the levels of ammonia, PH 7-
7.2 , nitrites and nitrates and all were kept at zero or nearly
so. <When it comes to nitrite, "nearly zero"
isn't good enough. Cichlids generally, and Angelfish
especially, are sensitive to dissolved metabolites.> The
nitrate being the only one ever over 0 and not over .25. <0.25
mg/l of nitrate is safe. But do you really mean this? Not many
test kits are this accurate! Most seem to measure on a scale of
0-100 mg/l. Nitrite, on the other hand, is commonly measured
between 0 and 1 mg/l.> Is this enough of percentage of a water
change each time? <No. 50% per week, minimum.> This tank
also has a Bio Wheel and I added a small pouch of charcoal-
ammonia absorbent in addition to it's regular filter
material. <Well, bin the charcoal for a start. If this is an
uncycled tank, then you may as well use Zeolite (ammonia remover)
exclusively. I'd personally skip any sort of fancy filter for
this. Just go with a plain vanilla bubble-up box filter stuffed
with Zeolite. Replace the Zeolite every week. You can usually
recharge Zeolite, so get two "batches", and use one
batch while recharging the other. There's absolutely no point
cycling a tank with Angelfish -- they will die long before the
filter bacteria come on-line.> They've been healthy and
lively and voracious eaters, but not overfed I think. This
morning I noticed one of the larger angels staying low in the
water near the heater. Tank heat is kept at 80 degrees. I have
just seen on your site that I should probably vary their diet
more than I have been doing. They've mostly been on flakes
and freeze dried worms. They ignored my attempts at adding an
algae pellet though. <Angels will eat anything... if hungry
enough. They are easily overfed. I'd use a mix of plain
flake, Spirulina flake, and live/frozen/freeze-dried insect
larvae. Because they willingly gorge themselves, you have to be
careful not to put too much food in the tank. One or two flakes
per day is plenty for Angelfish this size. Since they're
young, feed perhaps twice per day. Do watch the nitrates though,
and try to keep below 20 mg/l and certainly no more than 50
mg/l.> I went ahead did my regular 20-25% water change this
morning, and by this evening the lethargic angel was worse, lying
or hovering near the bottom seeming to gasp for air. The other
fish were fine, acting normally and active except for one other
large angel that seemed to be chasing the other three away from
the sick fish. <Indeed. Angelfish are schooling animals when
young, but become territorial as they mature. All too often
people end up with a single big Angel that rules the tank.> I
did another water test and the levels were the same, Ammonia 0,
Ph around 7- 7.2 and the nitrates and nitrites 0. At about
midnight my poor angelfish died. <Oh.> There were no signs
of any battering, discoloration in fins, skin, not a mark, but I
did notice a tiny speck of red near the outer edge of the eyeball
on both eyes, but in different placements. I'm totally
baffled as these fish were tank raised and extremely healthy from
the minute they arrived and showed no signs of any distress or
illness whatsoever. I've grown quite attached to them to the
extent that I don't even want to put them into the now
healthy 55 community tank and would like to upgrade to a 30
gallon tank for just them. I considered them so
"pristine" and didn't want to take any chances on
them being exposed to diseases. <Quarantining new stock is
always a good idea.> What do you think happened? The only
thing I can think of after all the reading I've done is water
quality and ammonia, nitrate or nitrite poisoning, but that
doesn't make sense with the readings I took. The kit is
fairly new, but I'm not exactly sure of the expiration date
since it was marked on the covering of the kit which I threw out
a while ago. I hope this is enough information. <To be honest,
I have no idea what precisely happened here. Sometimes very young
fish don't travel well, and one or two in the batch will die.
This is less of a problem with big fish because people tend to
bag them up sensibly. Profit margins on big fish are
proportionally smaller, so everyone along the distribution chain
takes more care. But small fish are often overcrowded.
Individually each fish makes a proportionally larger profit, so
if a few die, it doesn't matter. Mass-produced fish also tend
to be produced for a quick sale rather than quality, and
there's free use of antibiotics by the farmers and
wholesalers, and by the time they arrive at your house these
drugs have worn off and the results of overcrowding become
apparent. For now, I'd not blame yourself, but simply focus
on water quality and correct diet.> Thanks for your wonderful
site. It has the best tips, help and advice I've found
anywhere on the internet. <Thanks!> Thanks you in advance
for any insight you can give me. Polly <Good luck, Neale.>
Re: Sudden angelfish death 11/25/2007 Neale,
<Polly,> thanks for some answers to water quality, tank
size and feeding. Good advise. <Cool.> This morning the
remaining 4 Leopards are still fine and looking unaffected by
whatever killed the other one. These fish came from a very small
breeder in Michigan and I was worried about them travelling when
I bought them via Aquabid, but they were well packed, double
bagged and in Styrofoam qt. size cups, with oxygen, a mild
sedative and an ammonia blocker and when I acclimated them to the
QT they moved in and bounced back like champs almost immediately.
I think I was very lucky there. The breeder/seller communicated
with me and wanted to know how they arrived, talked me through
any questions about acclimation and general appearance, behavior,
etc. A good man who was into his fish, which he bred himself,
rather than the moola, I think. <This is indeed the best way
to buy Angels, and it sounds like you've dealt with a very
decent supplier. My comments were really more about the mass
produced fish farmed in Florida and Southeast Asia, primarily for
the low end of the market.> So you think a 50% WC once a week
is better than 25% twice a week? <Yes.> Not to sound dumb
here, but why is it better? <Many reasons. Primarily a
question of dilution and reducing the effect of acidification.
So, your filter removes certain pollutants, but does nothing
about nitrate, phosphate, organic acids. These accumulate.
Nitrate is a known toxin to cichlids generally, being at least
one of the factors behind hole-in-the-head as well as a general
lack of vigour. Diluting by 50% each week is the cheapest,
easiest way to get good water quality. Works better than carbon
for a fraction of the cost. Acidification is something that
happens in all aquaria. The longer the interval between water
changes, and the smaller those water changes are, the more
acidification takes place. This is one of the reasons why new
fishes put into an old tank sometimes fail: the existing fish
have adapted to the sub-optimal conditions, but the new livestock
are shocked. Again, water changes are the cheapest, easiest way
to maintain a steady pH.> I never intended to use the
angelfish to cycle the QT tank, just got stuck because of the Ich
in the 55. I've been looking around for a good price on a 30
gal for them, but since I'm running a 30 with 7 female Bettas
and 5 Corys, the 55 community and two 10 gal with guppies in one
and 6 baby Pearl Gouramis in the other and three 5 gals with
single male Bettas I have to tread softly with my husband who is
strictly a dog person! lol <Indeed! Perhaps keep Dogfish, so
you'll both be happy. (Note to Americans: a Dogfish is
British vernacular for small sharks, particularly Scyliorhinus
spp., which for some bizarre reason Americans called
Cat-sharks!> Also, do you think I should switch over to a
sponge filter in the 12 QT instead of the Bio Wheel? I have one
spare hanging around. <If both are being used as purely
biological filters, then stick with the one that is most mature.
But in quarantine tanks, using a box filter filled with Zeolite
is invariably easier, cheaper, and more reliable than any
biological filter. You have a zero run-in time, and you can
sterilise it between uses.> Thanks again, Polly <Good luck,
Neale.>
Re: Sudden angelfish death 11/25/2007 Neale,
<Polly,> all makes perfectly good sense to me and thanks
for the answers to my questions. <Good-oh.> We always
called those small sharks, Dogfish around here in Maine too and
they are nasty guys. Like to go for the bait in the lobster traps
and will follow the traps up while they are being hauled. Just
hoping for the bait or a nice fat Lobster to fall out I suspect.
VBG <Ah, I guess that's why they call New England 'New
England'... because you speak English rather than
Americanese! And yes, ours steal food from Lobster Pots too.
They're actually pretty amazing animals. Live for at least 30
years, and perhaps as many as 100 years. The eggs take 2 years to
hatch. Not something for the impatient aquarist!> I will
switch to a 50% WC in my tanks once a week from now on and just
rotate the days when each tank is scheduled, add to the diet for
the angels and follow your advise. <Sounds good.> I'm
going to look into the Zeolite too. <Yes, Zeolite is
definitely a good idea in temporary tanks or any sort of tank
where you don't have time to mature the filter. Cheap and
effective, provided you start off with enough to deal with the
ammonia produced by your livestock.> Thanks, Polly <Cheers,
Neale.>
Re: Sudden angelfish death 11/26/07 Neale,
<Paula,> when it rains, it pours! <Indeed?> The
Leopard Angelfish are still fine, but when I was doing the WC in
the Betta/Cory tank, I noticed that my largest Cory had some
spots on him, def. not ich or velvet. They appear to be oval-ish
and are concentrated on his spine and the base of the dorsal fin
and tip of dorsal. <Hmm... sure this isn't Ick? Do also
cross off silt particles and air bubbles. Both of these can stick
to fish and be mistaken for parasites.> I QT'ed him in the
hospital/baby tank, promptly discovered that the Gold Platy was
starting to give birth, moved her into a breeding/bearing net
hung over the side of the community tank where she lives and went
to do some research on the internet to see what was up with the
Cory. <Not a great fan of breeding traps, so do take care not
to stress her. I prefer to use floating plants, and then remove
the fry as they're discovered hidden among the plants, either
to a trap or to another tank.> It sounds like Epistylis from
the descriptions given. Can't seem to find any pictures that
show it though. I went back and took a magnifying glass and
flashlight and checked him out and the spots are not ich-like in
appearance at all, not moving and one spot, near the end of the
dorsal fin, is tufted a bit. The other spots are oval,
greyish-white in color as well and as I said, concentrated in two
or three areas. He has a space missing on his tail fin, but no
growth or spots on that area. <Does indeed sound like
Epistylis.> If indeed it is Epistylis, do I treat him in the
2.5 gal tank with something like Jungle fungus meds? <I'd
treat the tank with the anti-fungus medication of your choice.
Corydoras generally tolerate these medications well.> Do I
treat the Betta/Cory tank as well or just keep and eye on the
others and see if something develops? <Treat the tank.> I
did noticed that some of the other Corys have a few ragged fins!
<Fins sometimes get ragged when Corydoras are mixed with
aggressive or nippy fish; otherwise can be a prelude to
Finrot.> I try and spend time each day sitting and closely
looking over each fish to see if there is anything different in
their physical appearance or behavior. Yesterday this sick Cory
was just a tad underactive. Think it's a female from the size
and width of the body, but not positive. I didn't notice any
ragged fins on the others until today either. You must think
I'm a bad fish mamma at this point. Sorry to keep bothering
you. <Don't worry about that.> thanks, Polly
<You're welcome, Neale.> BTW, the Platy has had three
babies since I moved her and then stopped giving birth. Stress
from the move most likely. Babies look good. <Good-oh.>
Re: Sudden angelfish death -11/27/2007
Neale, <Paula,> Just went and looked at the Cory in the QT
and the lesions/spots have reduced in number, but some are still
present. Are they going into another reproductive phase,
something like the ich spores do? <No, I don't think so.
Epistylis is a ciliate protozoan that mostly just sits there on a
fish. It's not a parasite as such; as I understand it,
it's more a fouling organism than anything else (i.e., like
barnacles on a boat).> That brings up lots of questions in my
mind, secondary infections etc. but .... I then checked the
Betta/Cory tank and three of the Corys have no signs of fin
damage, color good, very active and looking for food. The fourth
is looking a little lethargic, fins ragged and no spots or
lesions, nada, just out of sorts and not active or looking for
food, similar to how it started with the sick Cory. Should I haul
him out into the QT with the sick Cory and still treat the
Betta/Cory tank as well as the QT tank? <Definitely treat both
tanks with anti-Fungus/anti-Finrot. Trying to target one
particular fish is probably a waste of time here because the
pathogens are in the aquaria generally.> BTW, Bettas are fine
and active, eating, clear of anything on their skin.
<Good.> As of midnight last night, I did another 25% WC on
the Betta/Cory tank, bringing the total WC for yesterday to 50%
on that tank. There was some uneaten stuff and crud underneath an
aquarium decoration and around the roots of some of the heavier
planted sections of the tank . I removed the large
decoration and tried to really clean up the crud, for lack of a
better description, and left the decoration out afterward to make
it easier to do WC in the event of doing treatments to the tank
for any length of time. Did a 50% WC to the QT tank as well.
<Good.> As for the weapon of choice in treatment.
Here's what I have in house right this minute. Will any of
these do any good? I have been trying to buy meds every time I go
to the LFS to have them on hand, but as you can see I am still
way under stocked on what I imagine are all the basics. Ich
Attack by Kordon, for ich, fungus, Protozoans, and
Dinoflagellates <Might work; Epistylis is apparently sensitive
to Formalin and Malachite Green.> Ick Guard II by Jungle
<Ditto.> Fungus Clear Tank Buddies by Jungle (tablets, 1
tab per 10 gallons) <Won't fix the Epistylis, but will
help with the ragged fins.> Pimafix <Useless.> Melafix
<Useless.> BettaFix <Useless.> Aquarium Salt
<Might help if used in the same way as for treating Ick, but
not my weapon of choice here.> Erythromycin and another
antibiotic...it's downstairs at the moment and I forget, but
I tried to get one gram positive and one gram negative when I
bought them. <Useless. Antibiotics are for bacterial
infections only.> I do live on an actual island. No bridge,
and therefore can't just pop into town willy nilly. My
husband is going to go over to the mainland this afternoon and if
there is anything he could pick up this would be a good time.
What meds should I have him get if none on hand are appropriate?
<See above; you may already have the tools required. Check the
ingredients lists on the medications, or simply test them out.
Epistylis isn't doing the fish any direct harm -- the problem
is that they open a wound that can become infected, and
furthermore that they occur at all is a sign of middling to poor
water quality.> To sum up, still treat the Betta/Cory tank as
well as the QT with a fungus med? Move the second Cory exhibiting
signs of Epistylis to the QT , OR treat him in the Betta/Cory
tank? <Treat both tanks. There's no mileage in isolating
diseases caused by environmental issues, since all fish are
likely subject. So treat all fish up front to prevent further
infections.> Much thanks once again. You are very patient with
all the questions and problems I've thrown at you in just two
days time. Let's hope the rain stops pouring ASAP. <It
will.> BTW Angelfish still fine. <Double-plus good.>
Thanks, Polly <Cheers, Neale.>
Re: Sudden angelfish death 11/28/2007
Hi Neale, <Polly,> well, I lost the first sick Cory in the
QT . <Too bad.> I had started treating both tanks with the
Jungle Tank Buddies for Fungus as I hadn't heard from you and
I thought I needed to do something quick. (The time difference
between us. ) I didn't go with the Kordon Ich Attack as it
doesn't contain anything but botanicals, no chemicals like
formalin or malachite green. <This is a somewhat unwelcome
trend: eschewing proven pharmaceuticals in favour of ingredients
that may be safer and less toxic if overdosed, but are of
questionable usefulness in some cases.> I probably waited too
long for the first sick Cory or he was traumatized by the move
and being alone as well. You know how Corys are. They look like
little tanks that can take anything, but they are so social.
<Indeed. With schooling fish it is normally best to treat the
tank rather than individual fish. Lone Corydoras don't
necessarily die, but it is one more stress factor on an already
sick fish.> I did a water test before I did anything to treat
the 30 gal tank or do the WC that brought me up to the 50% WC
total, forgot to mention this last post. Everything read as it
should. Ph was between 7.2 and 7.6, I have high PH normally from
the well water, the ammonia was 0, nitrites and nitrate 0 as
well. <All sounds fine. Corydoras are relatively indifferent
to water chemistry, and tolerate hard, alkaline water just as
readily as soft, acidic water. What matters to them is stability
and quality more than anything else.> That didn't make
sense to me since the problem is an environmental one, so I did a
test on the 55 and got the same results except the PH being
different from the 30. The 55 gal was at PH 7-7.2 and nitrate and
nitrite 0. Could the test kit be getting old and need to be
replaced? <Possibly. But it also important to remember that
aquaria have a background acidification process. So as soon as
you put water into any aquarium, it gradually becomes more acidic
unless something acts to stop that. The key factor is decay of
organic material, which produces organic acids, and these lower
the pH. The speed with which the tank acidifies depends on its
size, its loading of fish, the amount of organic matter
(including plants and algae), the presence of alkaline buffers
such as Tufa rock, the nitrate level, the ammonia level, the
amount of carbon dioxide, aeration, and the frequency of water
changes. In other words, no two fish tanks will acidify at the
same rate, so it is entirely possible that these two tanks will
have very different environmental conditions despite receiving
the same type of "new" water each water change.> I
bought it within the last month, but it was the last one for FW
on the shelf at the LFS and didn't know about expiration
dates for tests. Didn't check to see what the date might be
and it was apparently on the outer clear packaging cause I
can't find it anywhere in the actual test kit. <Test kits
can and do go "bad", but this is rare unless the kit is
extremely old. The chemicals are largely inert, and provided they
are stored somewhere cool and dark they should be stable for many
years.> Since I wasn't sure of the test kit's
accuracy, I did a 50% WC on all the other tanks that hadn't
been done over the weekend, except the guppy and baby tank (did
20% on that ) because that tank seems to always be fine, totally
knackered me, but done. I'm so completely paranoid now about
the other tanks that I see cilia and parasites in my sleep. lol
<Ah, the joys of fishkeeping.> Obviously, my problems are
directly linked to poor water quality and my husbandry. My
question ( will they ever stop you think?) is... are water
parameters not always linked with cleanliness, are the two not
one and the same? <Interesting question. Most disease is
directly or indirectly linked to water quality and water
chemistry. Provided those two factors are appropriate to the fish
being kept, the incidence of disease should be very low. While
disease can sometimes happen for other reasons, such as genetics
or the introduction of unquarantined livestock, at a first-pass
there's a lot of wisdom in assuming any unexplainable
sickness was caused by water quality and/or chemistry issues.
Now, cleanliness can be looked at two ways. Oddly enough, visible
waste tends not to be a major problem. Yes, decaying plant
material and fish faeces contribute to acidification, but
"the wild" is full of decaying material that the fish
don't seem to be harmed by. Indeed, many fish, such as
catfish and loaches and cichlids, positively revel in the stuff,
extracting significant parts of their diet from the decaying
material or micro-organisms living therein. Invisible waste, on
the other hand, is the killer: nitrite and ammonia in the first
league of dangers, and then nitrate somewhere below them. On the
other hand, regular water changes undertaken to remove solid
wastes in the tank invariably dilute the invisible wastes, and a
good mechanical filter with plenty of current will not only
remove solid wastes but like have plenty of space for a good
biological filter as well. So while the two things are not
identical, they do tend to go hand-in-hand as far as
practicalities are concerned. It's too simplistic to say a
clean tank is a healthy tank: after all, a brand new aquarium may
look spotless and yet have high levels of ammonia and nitrite
because the filter isn't mature. But established aquaria that
are kept clean through water changes and adequate filtration tend
to have zero/low levels of ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate as
well.> Can there be too much goop or pollution in the bottom
of the tank that never show up on a test kit's results and
should water from testing be from the lower regions of the tank?
(why the Corys were the first affected?) <Not normally, no.
But if the sediment at the bottom of the tank becomes anoxic
because it isn't regularly cleaned somehow, it can house
bacteria that can, in theory, cause problems. In practise this is
an easy fix. If you're using sand, for example, keep it thin
and install some burrowing snails (such as Malayan Livebearing
snails) which will aerate the sand in the same way as earthworms
on land. Catfish and loaches generally like to dig and will keep
sand very clean anyway. Gravel can be more of a problem to keep
clean (surprisingly to some) but when stirred once a week at
water change time cleaning gravel shouldn't be too
difficult.> Hypothetical question.....say the second sick Cory
makes it and has some open wounds from the Epistylis. Should I
then treat the tank for possible secondary bacterial infection
problems? <Yes.> What would be the med of choice? If
antibiotics, gram positive or negative? <I can't really
answer this from experience, since antibiotics aren't
available to aquarists in the UK. But my expectation would be a
product such as Maracyn would be appropriate. Really anything to
treat Finrot, as that will get the Aeromonas/Pseudomonas bacteria
likely the problem here.> The more I write, the more questions
I have and the guiltier, to the fish and you I feel. Is there a
book you can recommend that I should buy that you consider the
best reference for fish disease and treatment? <Many, many
choices. I happen to like the 'Manual of Fish Health' by
Chris Andrews et al.> Thanks Neale, You Da' Man, Polly
<You're welcome.> Angel fish fine, mother Platy ate the
3 babies, you are right about breeding nets! <Indeed. Trust
me: floating plants work much better. Simply check the tank once
or twice a day and scoop out the babies as you see them. Any
floating plants will do. Even bunches of pondweed or algae.
Plastic plants even. The baby fish instinctively go into them,
and the parents tend not to notice them.>
Re: Sudden angelfish death 11/28/07 Once
again, thank you Neale for the detailed answers to my
questions. They are extremely helpful and make me want to
do more reading on water chemistry, acidification, substrates,
different types of filtrations systems, aeration, etc. Lots more
reading! VBG <Very good! Once you understand the basics of
water management, everything else in fishkeeping is easy. But if
you're muddled about water management, then things become
more dicey. An hour or two spent reading around this topic is
time very well spent.> The second Cory is still with us and
shows improvement. He never developed the full blown growths on
his body and after spending most of yesterday on the bottom
hiding in some plants, came out in the early evening to hang out
with the other three and actually start to actively ferret around
on the gravel for food. <Good stuff. I find that once a sick
fish starts feeding again, you're almost always home
free.> On further examination of the hype on the Jungle Fungus
Tank Buddies box, it states that it also contains something to
fight secondary bacterial infections, but I will probably also
treat with something else for the fin damage that he displays.
The other three Corys still seem unaffected. <I have never
used that medication so can't speak from experience.> The
substrate in this tank is a combination of an under layer of
Fluorite with some gravel over it to keep the fluorite in place
and make cleaning easier. The fluorite is great for the plants,
but I've found it hard to deeply vacuum without causing major
cloudiness. <A problem with sand. The trick is not to vacuum.
Instead, let the catfish and plants and Malayan Livebearing
snails do the hard work for you. Also lower the sand on one
corner so detritus collects there. You can then siphon or even
pipette waste as required. Much easier.> There is probably an
inch of Fluorite and a 1/2" of gravel over it. In our LFS
it's is very hard to find small/ medium uncoated gravel for
our FW tanks. <I sympathise. I tend to buy my substrates from
garden centres. Easier and cheaper, provided you choose smooth,
lime-free sand or gravel rather than, say, sharp sand.> I like
the Fluorite for the plants, but am not too sure I like the
substrate for the fish. I have just Fluorite in the 55 gal tank ,
about 1" deep. The Betta/Cory tank is running a Bio Wheel
filter, minus the media right now. I will be adding Zeolite,
which my husband found for me on his mainland trip the other day,
to all the tanks. <Zeolite is completely redundant on tanks
that have biological filters. Serves no purpose whatsoever other
than wasting your money in these cases. Zeolite is exclusively
for tanks with no biological filter, e.g., quarantine tanks or
tanks with strongly acid pH.> I love planted tanks, but have
decided that too many decorations such as rocks, caves,
artificial tree trunks, etc. are too hard to clean around if not
lifted at least every other time I do a WC, so have removed quite
a bit of the aquascaping add ons and will try letting the plants
and maybe one cave for the shy fish, suffice. If you're
finding too much silt and detritus, it is likely you have
insufficient water movements and/or mechanical filtration. In a
tank with complete circulation, there shouldn't be any solid
waste on the plants or gravel. Well, maybe a bit, but not enough
to be unsightly. So, do check water currents around the tank, and
if required, add another filter. If the bottom of the tank has
poor water flow, this will mean higher levels of ammonia and
nitrite down there, and this could be a factor for your
catfish's ill health.> I went to amazon.com to see if the
Manual of Fish Health was available and found there seems to be a
revised edition. The Interpet Manual of Fish Health by Andrews! I
assume it is a revised edition anyway, and will order it. <My
copy is from '88. It's a good book. Good level of
science, but lots of photos and charts explaining what's
going on.> As for snails......I had one hitchhiker on a plant
and now have what seems to be a million in the Baby/guppy tank,
Yikes! No sure I want to introduce them on purpose as I'm
sure they will appear, as if by magic in due time in the tanks
they haven't yet. LOL <Snails can be a mixed blessing, but
do remember they turn waste into snails. In a clean tank, their
numbers tend to be very steady, and removing them by hand works
fine. Snail plagues almost always follow over-feeding and
under-cleaning.> I'm cultivating a Java Moss like type
plant in the baby tank and will move some of it into a birthing
tank. Will save those breeding traps for brief isolation and
examination purposes. VBG <Enjoy the babies! Best bit of the
hobby, I think.> Thanks again, Polly <Bon chance,
Neale.>
|
Tropical fish disease... FW, no useful
data 11/15/07 Hi please help with a long term problem
we have variety of tropicals in a large tank, not overcrowded, water
quality consistently fine, <Need values...> plenty of plants
doing well, Dry and live food given. Platies doing well and unaffected
by disease (several batches of babies) BUT other fish suffering from
sores often with white fibrous material in center also some have white
material in mouth and gills some become very bloated 12 fish have died
in last 6months Treatment with Medifin hasn't helped. Hopefully,
Dot. <... need data... re the set-up components, maintenance, what
IS doing well here, actually all livestock... Bob Fenner>
FW? Dis.? 11/13/07 hi my fancy tail
has suddenly turned black and being bullied . it looks like his tail
has been eaten too. please help <Hello Lisa. Fancy tail what? Guppy?
Goldfish? Angelfish? Fish normally change their colours to black when
stressed, and the fact his tail is eroding would suggest Finrot.
I'd be checking the water quality before anything else in this
situation. So, let's have the name of the fish and some information
on the aquarium: it's size, the hardness, the pH, and a nitrite
test result. Cheers, Neale.>
Tropical Fish possibly sick? 10/3/07 Hello WWM
crew, <Hello!> My boyfriend and I have gotten into aquariums
within the last 3 years. I love how peaceful fish are and there little
personalities they all have. So of course it really is a bummer to see
them ill. (especially to think its probably due to something we may
have forgotten) <Indeed.> Problem #1 (26 Gal. Tropical tank-1
black molly, 2 blue dwarf gouramis, 3 Corydoras catfish, 1- Boesemanni
Rainbow *temporarily until he gets to big* and a female guppy) This
problem is only with our dwarf blue gouramis and our mollies. The
mollies seem to have black speckles on them, very tiny ones, and they
are also flat...they don't seem to be raised. (and the older molly
has a cut on her nose (from our aggressive black molly...who is REALLY
aggressive and am beginning to think there's some sort
of...problem? anyways, the cut on the balloon mollies nose never
healed. Its still bright red and seems to have gotten even redder.)
I've looked at many different bacterial infections, parasites, and
other information online. I can't seem to find out what it is, and
I don't want to treat for the wrong thing. Also the gouramis have
dark spots on them but these aren't like the "speckles"
found on the mollies, these look more like dark "patches" on
the fins. The only thing I've heard on the black patches is that it
could be cancer? or nerve damage. <Hmm... black spots can be caused
my a variety of things. Cancer and nerve damage are not among them
though, or if they are, they've most unlikely. The most common
reason is the fish are infected by parasite worms (flukes). Long term,
it isn't anything to worry about, because once the worms try to
move to the next stage of their life cycle, they leave the fish.
Because the life cycle can't be completed in the aquarium, the
worms die, and that's that. So for now, simply monitor the
condition of the fish, ensure they are eating properly, and treat the
water with something like anti-Finrot medication to ensure they
don't get secondary infections (which is what the red or grey
patches most likely are).> Problem #2 (80 Gal. Tropical tank- 3
mollies, 2 platy's 2 pearl gouramis, 1 gold ram, 1 blue ram, 2
Bolivian rams 2 emerald green Cory cats, 2 swordtails, 4 tiger barbs, 8
cherry barbs 3 bleeding heart tetras, 1 boesemanni Rainbow and 2
keyhole cichlids....) This problem is driving me NUTS. We
"adopted" the 3 bleeding heart tetras *whom are doing very
well* one of the emerald green Cory cats and the 2 keyhole cichlids and
ever since we put them in a few of our fish seem to be getting sick.
The Emerald green has a curved spine...and I recently noticed that 2 of
my albino tiger barbs are now developing slight curves by the base of
there tails. I've been asking around and it seems it could be a
mineral deficiency? I went out to by the frozen foods and minerals that
I was told, but I would LOVE to hear what you think. <Bent spines
are very common. I have at least one peppered Corydoras with a bent
spine at the moment, and I've seen similar situations with halfbeak
and cichlid fry. Typically inbreeding (or at least bad genes) are at
the root of the problem, but trauma when the fish is young appears to
cause similar problems. I suppose diet could be a factor, but it's
unlikely for something as omnivorous as barbs and catfish. Usually,
diet becomes a critical factor when specialist fish are being kept,
because they have adapted to eating a certain sort of food not easily
provided in the aquarium.> I've read through your forums most of
them) and spent many hours browsing, trying to find tips or solutions.
I'm really worried about my little guys, any tips or info. you can
provide would be much MUCH appreciated. The more information I can get,
the better homes the fish will have. I enjoy this hobby as long as the
fish stay happy :) Thank you very much ~Crystal <Well, I hope this
helps! Neale>
Sudden dying fish advice! 10/3/07 Hi
<Hello.> I hope you can help me, am a bit of a novice fishkeeper
and after a promising start am slight concerned about the goings on in
my tank! <Oh dear.> I have a 35gallon freshwater aquarium, which
I've had for three weeks (originally my brothers and kept for
6yrs). It had 5 Malawi's and one Plec and I added another 8
Malawi's, another Plec and 5 red claw crabs (about 2cm each).
<Red-claw crabs are brackish water animals, and shouldn't be
kept in a freshwater tank. They are also amphibious animals, and
keeping them permanently submerged is cruel. Kept properly, they are
more like frogs, rooting about on land, but dipping in the water to
moisten their gills periodically.> Everything was going fine but
then in the last 24hrs both my catfish and the alpha male (a 2.5inch
blue zebra) of the tank have died! <Check water quality when two
fish suddenly die.> I have checked all the levels and everything is
normal. <Define "normal". I'm assuming you aren't
using brackish water, so the conditions aren't normal for your
crabs at least. More specifically, have you tested the nitrite level?
Also, what's the pH and hardness? Malawi cichlids need fairly hard
water to do well (at least 10 degrees KH, and a pH around 7.5-8). I
don't know what Malawi cichlids and Plecs you are talking about,
but 13 Pseudotropheus zebra and two common Plecs such as
Pterygoplichthys multiradiatus simply cannot be kept in 35 gallons of
water. There is no way water quality will be acceptable for them all.
Even a single common Plec needs around 50 gallons of water, at
least.> My concern is that, could this be the work of the crabs and
should I really get rid of them? The shop said they could live together
but now am not so sure <Crabs shouldn't kill most fish, though
they will certainly catch and kill very small fish like guppies. But
unless you are keeping them in a brackish water vivarium with a
sand-bank and wood for them to climb about on, then no, this isn't
an acceptable home.> Advice would be most grateful as I don't
really want £80 stock all to die off! <Indeed.> Best
regards, Lester <Lester, you need to sit back and review the
aquarium conditions. A 35 UK gallon tank is simply too small for all
the fish you are keeping. What will happen is that the fish will die,
one by one, until the aquarium reaches its "carrying
capacity". You can delude yourself into thinking the aquarium is
fine, but Science doesn't work that way, and until the population
reaches a sensible level, fish will keep getting sick and die. For 35
gallons, you should be thinking about, say, one or two Ancistrus
Bristlenose catfish along with maybe three cichlids (one male, two
females). Nothing else will work in the long term. Hope this helps,
Neale>
Sudden loss of half of our fish, FW... nitrate, nutritional
deficiency effects likely 9/27/07 Hi, We're (my
9-yr-old daughter & I) fairly new to the land of tropical fish
keeping (we started in January); I've read your website a lot and
have learned so much, and we wrote you a while back about a sick fish.
All had been going well with our aquarium for a couple of months, then
in the last few days we had 5 fish die. We are so sad. I'm hoping
that if I describe the situation, you might have some insight as to
what happened/what we can do to keep the remaining fish alive. I'd
gotten some ideas from your website but I'm really not sure what to
think of all this. We have a 12-gallon Eclipse system that has been
cycled since last January (we did fish-less cycling ?worked great), and
we've had a few different inhabitants along the way but we'd
been stable for the past 3 months or so with: 5 Platies, 3 Danios (2
zebra, 1 leopard), 2 Otocinclus, 2 panda cories. The tank has one
Amazon sword plant that is not robust but sends out new baby leaves and
hangs on. We do 25% water changes every 2 weeks; though we've only
been siphoning the gravel once a month, the other time we just change
out the water). <Mmm... a dangerous, too-changeable approach... Best
to make more frequent, smaller change-outs. Please read here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwh2ochgs.htm and the linked
files above> We feed with a tropical fish flake food, <Mmm, may
want to mix in some more substantial fare... frozen or dried,
freeze-dried foods...> and once a week or so an algae tablet. We had
ended up with not an ideal male/female ratio with the Platies, 2
females and 3 males, and our oldest male (a 1 ½ inch Mickey
Mouse) was rather an alpha male when we added his 4 friends, he chased
everyone, but after a couple weeks they all seemed to get along with
minimal chasing. A couple weeks ago, the Platies starting dying, one by
one; we have only one left (the Mickey Mouse). The Platies showed no
sign of illness that we could see (spots, growths), but, each time a
couple days before they died, they stopped eating. They would try to
eat, but spit it out. Then they would start swimming with fins clamped.
They would lose that nice round platy shape, and die. In the middle of
this, one of the zebra Danios got a really fat belly all of a sudden
and the next day it was dead. <Yikes> So, once this started
happening, we did a water change <How much and how?> and started
looking on your site. We have a test kit, our measurements were:
Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 40. <Much too high... You want to keep
NO3 under 20 ppm> Temp is 78. One other idea I saw was malnutrition
? <Yes> so I bought some frozen Emerald Entree which
has veggies in it as I thought it possible they weren't getting
enough veggies. <Or protein> I put an algae tablet in too, and
the Platies did go after that. They didn't much go for the Emerald
Entree. Another idea I saw was internal parasites, but as
nothing new had been introduced in the tank I hated to just medicate
without some more of an idea of what it might be? <Good> I did
add 1/8 tsp. salt which isn't much but I read that the cories
don't tolerate salt well. <Correct> So, we're very sad
and I'm thinking we should've done something else but I
don't know what. From this description, can you offer an idea of
what we might do at this point? <The nitrate, nutritional deficiency
effects likely...> The Mickey Mouse platy is looking very sad on his
own, and the 2 remaining Danios are wildly chasing each other around ?
I know we should not introduce any new fish until we are stable again
but we sure would like to not lose these guys too. The Oto's seem
fine, they are a bit skittish but they always have been. The panda
cories are extremely shy, they will not come out if we are nearby and I
only get a glimpse of them every once in a while (like when we do a
water change and move the furniture to siphon) and they seem OK. Any
ideas you have would be appreciated. Thanks, Jana (and Jenny) <Bob
Fenner>
Re: sudden loss of half of our fish... FW
cycling 9/28/07 Thanks for your reply. We now
have 2 different kinds of flake food, some TetraMin crisps for tropical
fish, the frozen emerald entree, frozen brine shrimp, and the algae
pellets. I hope a combination of these foods will be better
nutritionally for our fish. If you have any other suggestions they are
welcome. <Posted...> We will also start doing 2-2.5 gallon
(17-20%) water changes once a week. <Good> How long do you
recommend we wait before adding new fish? <At least two weeks>
And, I know you recommend a quarantine tank; we have a 6 gallon Eclipse
system that a neighbor gave us when they moved, however it is currently
dry except the BioWheel has been kept in a jar of water and fed a
couple drops of ammonia every 2-3 days. But I have no idea if the good
bacteria would still be around on the wheel -- is there a way to keep a
BioWheel "alive" if we can't keep the tank set up all the
time? <Mmm, well... they're "in the air"... will get
there in time...> That is a side question -- the main question is,
if we set this tank up with some gravel and water (how much water?)
<A gallon or two> from our current tank and put the BioWheel in,
are we likely to have a cycled tank 'soon', or will we have to
start from scratch with our fish-less cycling schedule? <Siphon some
gunk out of the present tank, place it in the new... Will likely
instantly cycle> We have a test kit so I can monitor for ammonia,
nitrite, nitrate... Thanks, Jana <Read on my friend...
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwestcycling.htm Bob
Fenner>
Curved Spine TB? 9/11/07 Hi WWM Crew,
I've read and read and now have become confused. Is a curved spine
a definite telltale sign of TB or could it be a symptom of swim bladder
disease or something else? I have a convict cichlid. She is very tiny 2
inches at most. She's about 3 years old. She was fine and a spunky
little fish. There is another adult pink convict (a male about 4
inches) in the tank who is sometimes a bully. Most times they are
compatible. They are in a 10 Gal. tank with water changes every week.
Yesterday I saw her floating on her side in a curled up position. Her
fins were moving and it seemed she was trying very hard to right
herself. When I noticed this I put her into a breeding net to keep the
male away from her. I didn't notice any visible signs of trauma. No
bloating or bleeding or missing scales/fins. I did a 75% water change
and cleaned out the filter and treated the water with Epsom salt. I
didn't know fish could get TB until I visited your site. She is
very thin, no appetite and curling up as if in pain. I feel really bad
for her and want to ease her suffering. The male isn't showing any
signs of illness (yet). He keeps swimming past her outside the breeding
net though and she tries to move toward him. It's very sad. I am
hoping you can help me try to diagnose my little girl. Do you think it
may be contagious and is it possible the male will be infected too?
Please help! Thanks, Maureen <Hello Maureen. Just as in humans,
physical deformities can be caused by any number of reasons, and
it's important not to assume that because something is symptomatic
of a particular diseases, that it's ONLY caused by that disease.
Also, Fish TB isn't the same thing as the TB humans get. Fish TB is
caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium marinum, whereas human TB is
caused by a number of closely related species including the
appropriately named Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Fish TB is very
uncommon in freshwater aquaria, and almost always when freshwater
aquarists blame fish deaths on Fish TB they're really making it up
and have no idea what killed their fish. A bit like those
"internal parasites" people mention for similar reasons,
citing Fish TB amounts to nothing more than a scapegoat alternative to
actually admitting their tank was overstocked, they used live feeder
fishes, they didn't quarantine new stock, and so on. In your case,
you have a couple of problems that are likely factors. To start with, a
10 gallon tank is not nearly big enough for convicts. I'm assuming
you're talking 10 US gallons (= 8 UK gallons, 38 litres). Even for
a matched pair of convicts you wouldn't be able to keep them in a
tank that small. While you might consider them to be small specimens,
the fish don't know that, and adults in the wild are anything up to
around 15 cm long and defend territories something of the order of 1-2
metres in diameter. Males are notoriously belligerent to unreceptive
females when kept under aquarium conditions. You have to remember that
evolution hasn't needed to come up with a "play nice"
gene; in the wild, if a female enters a male's territory but she
doesn't want to breed, she just swims away. In the aquarium, she
has nowhere to go, and the male's natural territoriality (which, in
the wild, is a good thing by making him a reliable father) ends up
becoming destructive. It is entirely possible she's received
internal damage from being attacked by the male. You don't say
anything about water chemistry or quality either. Convicts need
moderately hard to hard water with a pH somewhere in the slightly
alkaline range; pH 7.5-8, 10-20 degrees dH is what you're aiming
for. Water quality needs to be excellent, as just like any other
cichlid, dissolved metabolites in the water do harm over the long term.
Water changes must be of the order of 50% weekly, and given your tank
is so tiny, I'd be doing two such water changes a week. Regardless,
you're after 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and nitrates ideally 20 mg/l or
less and certainly not more than 50 mg/l. Finally, diet is an issue.
Convicts are omnivores, and that means you need to include green foods
in their diet as well as flake or frozen. Algae pellets and flakes are
probably the easiest things to use, but tinned peas, Sushi Nori,
spinach, blanched lettuce, and so on can all be tried. Very few
cichlids don't eat greens in the wild, and for many it provides
important vitamins as well as fibre. You may want to send along a photo
so we can better diagnose your sick fish, but in the meantime, I'd
encourage you to review some of the factors mentioned above and act
accordingly. Cheers, Neale>
Sick fish, FW 9/6/07 Hi <Hello
Kristi,> I'm a novice with a new freshwater tank. As with
most novices, I added the fish before it cycled and are now working
to get this done (with Neale's guidance and encouragement).
<Very good.> Here are current parameters: 20 gal freshwater ?
been going for about 4 weeks (fish for about 3 of them) Temp 78
degrees F. Gravel substrate, artificial plants moderately used, and
couple of cave decorations Power filter ? just changed to Bio-Wheel
yesterday along w/ adding BioSpira pH 7.6, high alkalinity Ammonia
? nil Nitrite - ~ 1.5 (I know ? yikes. This is actually better than
before and I'm working on it w/ emergency water changes,
BioSpira, sea salt for short term decrease in toxicity, etc. A huge
THANK YOU to Neale for helping me on this!) Nitrate ? 5.0 (still
high, but better than before) <Everything except the nitrite is
fine. Nitrate of 5 mg/l is practically perfect, and suggests you
have very low (no?) nitrate levels in your tap water. As for the
nitrite, that's way over the red line, and you should be doing
water changes as often as it takes to keep it well below 1 mg/l,
and ideally below 0.5 mg/l. Because you have zero ammonia, it's
apparent that the nitrosifying bacteria have become established,
but you're still waiting on the nitrifying bacteria. So
you're about "half way done" in terms of cycling.>
Inhabitants: Started with 1 MM platy and 1 dwarf Gourami about 3
½ wks ago (along w/ 1 swordtail and 1 sunburst platy ?
both died). Added 5 glass fish, 1 ADF and 1 black molly about one
week ago (none in QT? didn't know about this). Let's say I
was less than patient (along with my 3 year old daughter) to get
going on our new friends. All look great except for smallest
glassfish and the platy (symptoms described below). <Hmm...>
Let's first state the obvious ? water quality is waaaaaaaay
less then optimal and is the most likely contributor to illnesses.
Knowing that I? slowly but surely working on this, I need your help
to do some damage control in terms of treating the illnesses of 1
glassfish and 1 platy. <Well, the first thing is to simply do
more water changes. It isn't glamorous or high-tech like adding
potions, but more than anything else it improves fish health.
It's kind of like human healthcare: to improve your health
across the board doesn't take a gym membership and bottles of
vitamins with breakfast, but simply things like walking instead of
driving and eating more fruit and vegetables instead of meat and
starch. There's no secret to keeping fish healthier either:
more water changes = healthier fish.> The glassfish ? noticed
white specks last night on the smallest of the five. The specks are
about the size of table salt and suggested ich based on WWM
reading. <Indeed. Very common in glassfish under poor water
conditions. That said, they can be relied upon to recover very
quickly. Medicate the water with a good quality treatment of your
choice.> However, the fish is otherwise fine? eating like a pig
(literally) ?not scratching against anything? not lethargic, etc.
Today those specks have clumped at the base of his fin which made
me consider Lymph. <Lymphocystis is very common in glassfish,
especially ones that have been dyed. In fact Lymphocystis is really
only found on "advanced" freshwater fish that have
evolved from marine ancestors, e.g., glassfish, cichlids, and
gobies. It's almost never seen on "primitive"
freshwater fish without marine ancestors, i.e., catfish, characins,
barbs, etc. Now, it doesn't typically appear out of nowhere,
and is rather slow growing. So I'd assume it's Whitespot by
default, and treat accordingly. If it is Lymphocystis, as you
probably realise this isn't treatable, but does at least go
away by itself. Lymphocystis is a viral disease, but studies on
wild fish have show that the trigger is poor water quality. So
again, improving water quality is the way to avoid Lymphocystis
and, in part, fix it should it appear.> I'm attaching a
picture for your review. It may be hard to see in the picture, but
the largest spot on the base of his back tail fin is about 5 small
specks clumped together. No other fish ? including the other
glassfish ? are showing ANY of these spots. Thoughts? <It's
almost certainly Whitespot. Whitespot/ich is, well, white, whereas
Lymphocystis tends to be cafe-au-lait colour and has a distinctive
texture often likened to cauliflower florets.> The platy ?
Continually getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I know pregnancy
is a possibility, but want to rule out bloat. Dropsy doesn't
seem to fit because her fins are not extended like a porcupine (see
attached picture). <It's the scales, not the fins that
extend, and it's like a pinecone rather than porcupine. But
regardless, I agree, not dropsy. Just fat, really. Platies are very
messed around with genetically, and in every batch there seem to be
some that, in some way or another, are mutants. Provided the fish
stays healthy otherwise, I'd ignore. Naturally, factor out
constipation by feeding more greens, and take care not to
overfeed.> She also eats like a pig ? including non-natural
foodstuff like the frozen blood worms meant for the glassfish and
ADF. Her activity level and mannerisms all seem normal.
Constipation seems likely, but unsure as to how to treat this given
freshwater vs. marine tank. If this is the case, than how can I get
the ADF and the glassfish their blood worms while keeping her away
from them? <Very difficult, but what I'd do is feed in the
morning with only green foods. The frog and glassfish will ignore.
Use blanched lettuce, squished cooked/tinned peas, Sushi Nori,
algae wafers, livebearer flake food, etc. Let the Platies eat
these. In the evening, feed the meaty stuff.> I've had a
difficult time wading through freshwater vs. marine guidance and
need your treatment suggestions. <Fundamentally very similar,
especially for fish like glassfish and Platies that have evolved
from marine ancestors. The only real difference is that in a marine
tank you need to use medications that won't harm invertebrates,
whereas this is rarely an issue in freshwater tanks (snails are
resistant to medications, and shrimps/crabs/etc are rarely kept). I
am prepared to set up a hospital tank if need be, if suggested.
<Probably not required at this stage.> Clearly I will convert
from hospital tank to QT when adding our next fish (plan on final
add of a dwarf Bristlenose Pleco for algae control). <As
I've said elsewhere this week in the FAQs, fish don't
control algae. At best, they eat algae but at the cost of
increasing the rate of algal growth. At worse, they simply increase
the rare of algal growth dramatically. The only thing that
"stops" algae are fast growing plants. They do this
through one of two things, allelopathy and by removing nutrients
from the water faster than the algae. No-one really understands the
mechanism, but it seems to have evolved to allow plants to remain
algae free in the wild (which, largely, they are). Cabomba,
Hygrophila, Vallisneria etc are what you want. Things that grow so
fast (under good light) you're trimming them back weekly. Under
such conditions, tanks stay remarkably algae-free. All that said,
quarantining Loricariid catfish is an excellent idea. Wild-caught
specimens especially arrive rather emaciated, and giving them
optimal conditions and plenty of food is the best way to ensure
their success in captivity. Once fattened up, they can then be
placed in the community tank.> If the glassfish warrants a
treatment tank, would I just transfer him and hope his loneliness
won't negatively affect him further? <Yes, but I don't
think you need to. For Whitespot, you have to treat the tank, not
the fish. Indeed, you can't treat the fish -- the parasite
isn't killed by the medication. Only the free-swimming
infective stages are killed by the medication, and they're in
the water and on the gravel. If it's Lymphocystis then
obviously no treatment is required or possible.> Or would I
transfer the whole school? <No.> In terms of a hospital tank,
the smallest I can get away with the better (budget wise). I know
10-gal is ok, but could I get away w/ a 5-gal? Or would the water
quality in a non-cycled 5-gal be too variable? Suggestions? <In
US gallons, it would have to be a 10 gallon tank. A 5 gallon tank
would just be too difficult to keep constantly good. There's
really no mileage to having an unsafe, unhealthy
quarantine/hospital tank, for obvious reasons.> Thanks for your
help!!!! <Hope this helps, Neale> |
|
3 dead 1 left... FW trbleshtg...
9/3/07 Hello, <<Hello, Lxxx. (Interesting name, by the way.
:) ) Tom here.>> We bought some fish about a month ago.
<<What type of fish?>> We've treated the water for a
week before we bought them and had the water tested by the pet store.
<<Treated the water how? The vast majority of 'cycling'
products found in stores are of questionable effectiveness at best.
(There's some evidence that, contrary to what we've believed in
the past, there are bacteria (Nitrospira) contained in these products
that do, in fact, deal with nitrites, as well as those dealing with
ammonia, but only because these are 'naturally occurring'
bacteria and are contained in the product far more by accident than by
design. By bacterial standards, these bacteria reproduce extremely
slowly, however, and the populations of the bacteria can't be
guaranteed from one container to the next.) Recognize, too, that early
in the cycling process ammonia may be undetectable with our common test
kits. This may give the false impression/indication that all is well
when, in fact, the process has yet to really begin.>> I Hoover
the tank every week, but still we've lost 3 fish. Each one's
dorsal fin has gotten flat then they become sluggish and die.
<<Too little information for me to be very specific on the cause
for this other than to suggest to you that the behavior is indicative
of poor water conditions and/or quality. This doesn't necessarily
mean that the water's 'bad' but it may not be right for
your fish.>> We have three real plants in the tank. I can't
see any spots or fungus on the fish. There is also a shoal of the
little fish in the tank!!! <<Well, now you've given me a
little to work with. Almost certainly you've got livebearers of
some type (Platys, Swordtails, Mollies, Guppies, et. al., fall into
this category) at least one of which is/was a female. Fish in this
group require relatively hard, alkaline water conditions. (Mollies are
a brackish water species requiring still a different environment.)
Without knowing what the current ammonia/nitrite, nitrate and pH levels
are (hardness would be another good reading to have), nothing I can
offer to you would be more than a wild guess on my part.>> Please
help. I don't want this one to die and its fin is starting to
deflate!!! <<The best generic approach I can suggest is to stay
on top of water changes. From what I can gather, the problem is
largely, if not completely, environmental which can be addressed with
these changes. Change out at least 50% of the water a couple of times
each week. In the meantime, get yourself a test kit so that you know --
without relying on the sometimes questionable results that the pet
store may give you -- exactly what's going on in your tank. I
understand that you're very concerned here and likely wrote to us
in a hurry but we need some detailed information the next time. Type of
fish, tank size, type of filtration, heater (if any), water
temperature, type(s) of food you're providing and, most especially,
the exact water parameters. I specify 'exact' here because
'good', 'fine', 'safe', 'within
limits', etc., are too subjective to be of any real use to us. What
certain fish may be able to tolerate over a brief period of time might
kill others in short order.>> Many thanks Lxxx <<Well, I
don't think I've been able to give you much more than a place
to start but if you'd like to write back with the information
I've suggested, perhaps I can be of more assistance. Cheers.
Tom>>
Fish rubbing on rocks - a sign of something other than
disease? 7/25/07 Hello WWM, <Didi...> I have
another question, unrelated to the fish disappearances :) The question
is about the same fish - molly, 2 swordtails and a guppy in the 3
gallon tank. I've had them since February, and they haven't
been sick yet (except the latch-on worms that the molly came with from
the store... but we got rid of those early with CopperSafe). <Mmm,
Lernaea? Not treatable with such> Anyway, so my fish have been
healthy and happy and I've never seen them rub on rocks for any
reason. However, recently I decided to make their life a bit more
interesting and changed the decoration. I took them out, cleaned the
tank <Describe this process... Not too thoroughly I hope> and put
in new rocks, shells and plants, organized in a different way. I put
the fish back in (with a portion of the old water, to keep the bacteria
and everything). At first the fish looked confused, not recognizing
their home. Then they started exploring the new decorations, and
vigorously rubbing themselves against everything - rocks, shells, even
the plants. All of the fish did that for a while. They would approach
an object, look at it for a moment and with a swift motion rub the side
of their body against it. They weren't exhibiting any signs of
illness - no white spots or patches on their skin, no worms, etc. They
did the rubbing for a while that evening, and by morning the next day
they were fine again. That was several weeks ago. They haven't
rubbed since, and none of them has gotten ill. They look as healthy,
active and stupid as always :D <Trouble with all the too much, too
soon changes here... Very likely you've lost bio-cycling...> My
question: is rubbing a sign of anything else, that is not a disease?
<Can be indicative of a few challenges... though some rubbing is
"natural"> If those were cats, I'd assume they're
marking a new territory, hehe, but who knows what fish mean with it...
The marking is the only thing I can think of. Please let me know.
Thanks, Didi <Please read here:
http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwestcycling.htm and the linked
files above. Bob Fenner>
Re: Fish rubbing on rocks - a sign of something other
than disease? Wasting time... 7/28/07 Hi Bob,
<Didi> I've mixed in my replies with the previous message:
>I have another question, unrelated to the fish disappearances :)
The question is about the same fish - molly, 2 swordtails and a guppy
in the 3 gallon tank. I've had them since February, and they
haven't been sick yet (except the latch-on worms that the molly
came with from the store... but we got rid of those early with
CopperSafe). ><Mmm, Lernaea? Not treatable with such> -->
no, ours were tiny, fat white worms. Lernaea are long and thin, and
darker in color. Anyway, one of the fish experts at our PetCo has 30+
years of experience and knows a lot; <I built their program in the
early nineties before the first time the co. went public...> he
looked at the fish and said CopperSafe would kill the worms it had
(CopperSafe should kill anything that's invertebrate). <...
no... Please... don't waste our time writing... Read a reference
book or two... You attend college? They have a life science dept. I
take it...> The latch-on worms never came back. I occasionally see
Planaria worms crawling on the glass, but that's all. > Anyway,
so my fish have been healthy and happy and I've never seen them rub
on rocks >for any reason. However, recently I decided to make their
life a bit >more interesting and changed the decoration. I took them
out, cleaned the tank ><Describe this process... Not too
thoroughly I hope> --> Okay, the process. With this small tank, I
do 1/3 water changes every week. Then once a month I take everything
out, rinse the tank, gravel and shells with just water (scrubbing the
nasty layer of algae off the walls and washing the mountain of crap out
of the gravel), reassemble and let the fish back in with about half of
the old water + half fresh water with conditioner, plant enhancer drops
and a bit of salt. With the bigger tank hopefully I won't have to
take everything out, but this small one gets very dirty very fast. I
got a "gravel vacuumer" hoping to be able to suck the waste
out of the gravel instead of taking the gravel out and rinsing it, but
it doesn't work with such a small tank. By the time I've
vacuumed a third of the bottom, I've already sucked almost all the
water out of the tank. With the large tank there's more water and
I'll have more time to clean the entire area, so I won't have
to take the gravel out. <Please see WWM re... FW maint... I would
not switch out this much water...> > and put in new rocks, shells
and plants, organized in a >different way. I put the fish back in
(with a portion of the old water, >to keep the bacteria and
everything). At first the fish looked confused, >not recognizing
their home. Then they started exploring the new >decorations, and
vigorously rubbing themselves against everything - >rocks, shells,
even the plants. All of the fish did that for a while. >They would
approach an object, look at it for a moment and with a swift >motion
rub the side of their body against it. They weren't exhibiting
>any signs of illness - no white spots or patches on their skin, no
worms, etc. They did the rubbing for a while that evening, and by
>morning the next day they were fine again. That was several weeks
ago. >They haven't rubbed since, and none of them has gotten
ill. They look as >healthy, active and stupid as always :D
><Trouble with all the too much, too soon changes here... Very
likely you've lost bio-cycling...> --> I cleaned the tank
just as I had done every month, and as I described above. The fish
never reacted this way before though. The only difference now was that
I had new shells and two new plants (same gravel). The fish never
rubbed after cleaning sessions before. <Tapwater is not a consistent
product... could be that your livestock were poisoned with
sanitizer...> Seems like they were reacting to the new decoration
itself. What I noticed before is that they were aware of the particular
decoration I had in the tank before, and after putting them back in
after cleaning, they recognized the tank as the same space (I put the
decoration back exactly as it had been) and knew they were at home.
They would return to their usual sleeping places, feeding places, etc.
What threw them off was the change of setting - the familiar rocks were
gone, so now it looked like they were in a new space. That's how I
explain it. The parts of the tank that are in the same locations, like
the filter tube and cascading water, they recognized right away. I used
to always feed them right in front of the cascade (so the water can
spread the food around), and when I leaned over the tank after the big
move-around, they all swam up to the cascade in a cluster and started
vacuuming the surface in search of food. Anyway, my point is that fish
have a memory for landmarks as they need to navigate in the water in
the wild, so in this case they must have interpreted the change of
landmarks as a change of location altogether, and acted confused
because they were in unfamiliar territory. <Possibly got used to it
though, and now they're not rubbing anymore. With that in mind, I
still wonder if the rubbing was indeed a response to the change of
scenery, and if, behaviorally speaking, the rubbing has a particular
message and purpose. Let's assume that it's not a matter of
health, because none of them have gotten sick or exhibited any signs of
weakness or dullness. Is there a behavioral explanation?
<Interesting... but I know naught> >My question: is rubbing a
sign of anything else, that is not a disease? ><Can be indicative
of a few challenges... though some rubbing is "natural">
>If those were cats, I'd assume they're marking a new
territory, hehe, but who knows what fish mean with it... The marking is
the only thing I can think of. >Please let me know. >Thanks,
>Didi ><Please read here:
http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwestcycling.htm >and the
linked files above. Bob Fenner> --> I read the article, thanks. I
am in the process of establishing the environment in the big tank now,
by using the old shells and gravel from the small tank + a small school
of zebra fish for a start. It's been cycling for more than a week
now. The small tank was already established though, and whenever I had
to clean the walls and rinse the mountain of crap out of the gravel, I
put at least half of the old water back after that. <Good>
Including in the case of the new decorations when the fish did the
rubbing... <Ok! RMF>
FW, fish don't last... Can Neale hold on!?
7/2/07 I recently started a new 5 gallon fish tank with a bio
filter. I started with 5 fish but now I'm down to one. They all do
the same thing, they lay on the bottom of the tank with their gills and
mouths opening and closing. I added an air pump after the first four
died. HELP! <Greetings. For a start, 5 gallons is a very small
aquarium, so keeping fish healthy in there at all will be difficult.
Not impossible, but difficult. The bigger the tank, the easier. For
beginners, a 10-20 gallon tank is a better starting point. Anyway, the
reason the fish are dying is that the filter is immature. The fish
produce ammonia, and without a biological filter that works, the
ammonia accumulates and kills the fish. It takes about 4-6 weeks for a
biological filter to go from zero to established, and a few weeks more
for it to be really stable and 100% effective. The easiest approach is
to grab a quarter to a half the filter media from an established
tank's filter, stick it in the new filter, and then add a small
number of fish. With luck, the "old" media will work straight
away and colonise any new filter media in the filter, and jump start
the whole cycling process. (Don't worry about the filter in the
established tank -- mature filters will colonise new filter media
almost at once, so apart from cutting down the food a little for a few
days, there's no risk involved.) Have a read of this excellent
article on "Your First Aquarium", here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwset-up.htm . Then read this
article on Cycling aquaria: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwestcycling.htm .
Hope this helps! Cheers, Neale>
Help my fish is dying - I can't help without more
useful information! -- 6/12/07 I have a Plecostomus
floats on its side. <Not a good sign. How long has this been going
on?> The tail fin is either nipped off or deteriorating off.
<None of the fish you mention would below would likely cause this
sort of injury (although I'm not sure what a "small ground
feeder" is...); I'd be willing to bet this is tail rot, a
condition typically caused by poor water quality. Have you used a
quality liquid test kit (Aquarium Pharmaceuticals and Tetra both make
good products) to measure the levels of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate in
the water? The former should be at zero, while the latter can safely be
as high as 20 ppm (though lower is better). How large is this tank and
how often do you do water changes? What type of filtration is running
on the tank? I need lots of information to be able to help you/your
fish...> I have added three neon fish and a dojo fish to my tank
that all ready had come with the Plecostomus another small ground
feeder that has never changed sizes for the last three years and
another fish not sure what it is. I haven't had any problems with
them until I added this dojo and Neons. What should I do? <Test your
water for starters. Most fish illnesses and diseases are caused by poor
water quality; remedying this underlying environmental cause often
times will solve the problems. However, I can't say for certain
without additional information; see questions posed above. In the
meantime, start reading: here's a good place to begin -
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwsetupindex.htm Best regards,
Jorie> Thanks Cassi
FW crashing.. but numbers look good. - 04/20/07
Hey guys, your site is great. I tried to sign up to post something on
the boards, but it said registration was down. I didn't want to
email, but this is pretty serious. <Hello, and thanks for the
compliment.> I have a 75 gallon FW tank and as of Saturday its only
inhabitants were 3 small zebra Danios, 5 Neons, 3 marble hatchets, and
two Cory's. <Certainly plenty of space for those fishes!> My
wife decided she wanted new fish for the our Easter party, so on
Saturday I did a 15 gallon water change, and changed all of the carbon
pads in my 3 hang on Penguin power filters. <Why are you using
carbon? I can't say this often enough, but except in very specific
situations, filter capacity is better used to hold some biological
filter media of your choice. Carbon serves no useful purpose in a
regular aquarium except to part aquarists from their cash. Worse still,
carbon removes most medications, so making treatment for things like
Whitespot more complicated than they need be.> On Sunday we bought 6
mollies and 6 zebra Danios. <Mollies wouldn't be my choice here:
they *need* hard and alkaline water and arguably do best in brackish
water. None of your other fishes share these requirements, and in fact
prefer soft and acidic water. Please, get an aquarium book and read the
sections on water chemistry requirements before purchase.> I floated
the bags, dumped out the LFS water, and put them in my tank. They all
swam around, met each other and things are great. <Dumping the LFS
water solves one problem but causes another. The problem it solves is
keeping the ammonia produced on the trip home out of the aquarium. The
problem it causes is that your fishes had no chance to
"taste" the water in the aquarium before they were put into
the tank. If the pH and hardness differences are great, this can be
fatal. Far better to use a variation on the drip method. Put the fish
and LFS water into a bucket, and then add water from the tank a
half-cup or so every 5 minutes. After about 30 minutes, net the fish
out and put them in the aquarium. This way, they've had a chance to
acclimate to any changes in conditions. Extend the period of
acclimation for more delicate fishes like discus or halfbeaks.>
Monday night I notice a little wiggly black thing in the tank, and then
another. It didn't take long for us to find 15 small molly fry (and
for me to get back from my LFS with a net breeder). <Very good!>
Tuesday no news, just enjoying the tank. Wednesday night notice a molly
not acting well. Thursday morning. I have now found four out of six
(adult) mollies dead, two out of nine Danios dead, and three out of
five Neons dead. <Oh dear.> I found the Neons last, and up until
that point had thought that the fish were just diseased and stressed
from the over crowded LFS tanks. <Possibly, but (contrary to
expectations) it can be more harmful for a fish to go from bad
conditions it is used to good conditions it is not used to. Hence the
importance of acclimation and quarantining.> But when I saw the
Neons I thought my tank was imploding. I tested and here's what I
found: Temp 78, trite 0, trate 10ppm, amm .25ppm, pH 8 <Your ammonia
level is way too high: 0.5mg/l is a lethal level for many fish, and
even half that is severely stressing them. Also, the pH is really a bit
on the high side though most freshwater fish will generally adapt to pH
8.0. They may not like being dumped straight into it, though. Hence
acclimation and/or quarantining!> The water change was done with R/O
water from my 'non big box' LFS so I can't imagine
chlorine..... <My concern is with the filter. That you are using
carbon suggests to me you don't *quite* understand how a filter
works or what it does. Please have a look at the primer, here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwfiltration.htm and
then read around a little more. Carbon is a legacy from when people
didn't do water changes -- the assumption was that "old
water" was better than new water. Carbon removed dissolved
organics (the stuff that made the water yellow) and so made the
aquarium *look* sparkly clean at least. We now regularly do 50% or more
water changes once a week, and have learned that the more
water changes, the better. Under such conditions carbon has almost no
time to do anything useful. What you want in a filter is as much
biological filtration capacity as possible, because it is ammonia (and
nitrite of course) that kills fish. So, bin the carbon, and replace
with sponge, filter wool, high-end ceramic media, whatever. Also,
perform daily water changes of at least 25% to bring down the ambient
levels of ammonia.> I know adding 12 fish seems stupid anyway...but
without so much as a spike in anything...I can't seem to figure out
what's going on.....PLUS...all of the Molly fry are still alive and
eating like pigs, I thought they would have been the first to go if the
water was THAT bad. Any ideas? <What will happen is that the fish
will (literally) die back to what the filter has biological filtration
capacity to support. Everything will then suddenly seem fine. This is
the basic biological law that whatever is in least abundance limits
success. In this case, you may have plenty of aquarium space, but your
filtration capacity is limited, and that's putting a ceiling on the
number of fishes you can keep. Have a read through the Cycling topic,
here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwestcycling.htm and
then once ammonia is at zero add a couple of fish at a time, building
up the numbers perhaps every other week. This will give the bacteria a
chance to colonies the new biological filter media you are using,
ramping up the filters capacity to clean and purify the water. Keep
checking the water chemistry/quality.> Thanks very much, Bruce in
Chicago <Cheers, Neale in Berkhamsted>
Re: FW crashing..
but numbers look good. - 04/20/07 Thank you very much
for response. I do read very often, and do understand how a cycling
tank works. <Cool.> I use the carbon pads for two reasons. They
have a sponge on one side, the side the water initially goes through,
which removes large debris from the water (and since it has a large
surface area allows bacteria to grow). <Filter media *either* work
biologically, chemically, or mechanically. They can't do two or
three things at once. So if the carbon is at the front of the filter,
straining incoming water (i.e., mechanical filtration) it will get
coated with detritus and silt very quickly, and this will prevent the
carbon adsorbing dissolved organics. Clean carbon works for a matter of
weeks at best in most aquaria, and the whole point of
"activated" charcoal is that it is sintered to maximize its
surface area. As soon as silt fills the micro cracks on the surface of
the carbon, it's effectiveness drops orders of magnitude.> The
water then flows through the carbon to help remove waste and since it
too has a large surface area, being porous, it contributes to my
bacteria culture. <Again, it can't do both these things. If
bacteria coat the carbon, they isolate the carbon from the water, and
prevent adsorption. I agree carbon makes a good substrate for bacteria,
but there are better ones, like ceramic filter media.> All three
filters are the type that also have a 'bio-wheel', which spins
in the stream of water, allowing bacteria to meet water and air and
grow. <Yes indeed, this is the case. But honestly, the carbon is
doing nothing useful. It is mostly a commercial con: by
"looking" more sophisticated and being part of a proprietary
filter cartridge, the manufacturers are able to get more money from
you. It's a case of "giving away the razors but selling the
blades". By all means stick with carbon if you want -- it's
your money -- just remember to remove it any time you medicate the
aquarium.> BUT....I will take a look further into your suggestion
because it makes the same sense to me as using live rock in my SW
tanks. <Exactly so. Pretty much everything you've learned with
your marine tanks holds with freshwater, too. Biological filtration
trumps everything else. Get that right, and the rest is easy.
Mechanical filtration is next in importance, and primarily for
aesthetic reasons rather than fish health. Chemical filtration is
(normally) way down the list, except perhaps where you are using the
filter to buffer the pH via peat or calcium carbonate. Beyond that,
stuff like carbon and Zeolite are bolt-on goodies to spend money on if
you want but hardly essential or even useful.> Porous bio-balls or
ceramic give much more room for bacteria to live, therefore increasing
the amount of contaminates they can take care of. I did read both of
the links provided, thank you, but I did have one question. If using
bioballs or the like in my power filters, would the cultures benefit by
placing airstones in the back of the PF with them? This would seem to
add quite a bit more oxygen, but I guess I'm not sure if there is
such a thing as TOO much oxygen with these bacteria. <In theory,
yes, the more air bubbling through the filter the better. But the
problem is if you get bubbles inside the pump, you reduce the flow of
water and increase the amount of noise. At worse, the bubbles can stop
the pump turning altogether, which will cause the filter to fail. So it
depends on the precise filter system you have. If the air can rise to
the top of the filter without getting sucked into the pump, certainly
your idea is well worth trying.> Thank you for taking the time to
respond, the lesson has been learned (about fish and filtration alike)
and I appreciate the input. <No problems.> Bruce in Chicago
<Neale in Berko.>
Gravel washers, dis. transmission -- 4/10/07
Greetings, I recently purchased a gravel washer and believe it's
the best thing since sliced bread for water changes! I do
water changes and gravel washing at least every two weeks. <Wow,
you're a better person than I... water changes weekly, gravel
cleaning once or twice a year!> I am wondering though, should the
gravel washer be soaked in any kind of disinfectant between washes?
<If you have more than one aquarium, it is a good idea to clean
things between moving them from one tank to another. You'll see
retailers nowadays often keep their nets in jugs of disinfectant so
that any diseases in one tank can't hitchhike to another. But
realistically, cleaning the gravel washer every two weeks is probably
overkill. If you want, sit it in a bucket of strong (at least 70
grammes/litre) salt solution. That'll kill most bacteria and
parasites, while at the same time not being toxic to the aquarium fish
if any gets left behind on the device.> I realize that the water is
chlorinated going through the tubing back into the tank but trapped
water does lay in the tubing between washes. <Store things dry. Most
bacteria and aquatic parasites cannot tolerate exposure to air or
sunshine (UV light) for very long.> Could that be a potential source
of any kind of disease for the fish? <Potentially, yes, but the risk
is trivially small compared with live foods (esp. Tubifex) and new
aquarium fish.> Just wondering what you might
recommend. Thanks in advance! <Cheers, Neale> Linda
Ritchie
Gravel washers & Value of "Quarantine", aka
Isolating new livestock... FW here -- 4/10/07 Morning Neale,
Thanks for the quick response. <No problem.> I'm slowly
getting it through my head that the best way to protect your existing
healthy fish is to use an iso tank for the newbies. <Yes it is.
Also, when breeding fish, nothing beats having another tank to cosset
pregnant females or rear the babies.> I've taken many fine
suggestions from your crew and website. Most of our LFS in
this area are large chain stores that don't do much to isolate or
even recognize a problem with their stock so it's vital that I take
every precaution to prevent infestation in my
tanks. It's very relaxing to me to watch my livebearers
go about their daily chores happy and healthy and to watch the fry grow
into adults. I've been keeping fish off and on for
almost 30 years and much has changed in husbandry techniques since I
started. <Cool. One thing I forgot to mention in your
original question -- is chlorinated water going into the tank when the
fish are there? It shouldn't be. The chlorine is quite nasty as far
as the fish are concerned. So always use a dechlorinator on any water
that is in the tank when the fish are there.> Linda <Cheers,
Neale>
Re: Gravel washers & Value of
"Quarantine", aka Isolating new livestock... FW here --
4/10/07 Yes, the water is chlorinated but I add the dechlorinator
in conjunction with the water. I put some water in a pitcher
and add the dechlorinator to prime the filters. So far this
has worked great. I wash the filters and filter packs with the water
that comes out of the aquarium into the sink during the water
change. <Cool.> I don't try and adjust the pH to
much for the livebearer tank. <Always wise. Easiest to get fish that
like your water, rather than try to fiddle the water to suit your
fish.> I just added some crushed coral to work on the KH, it's a
little low at 4. <Agreed, and the solution sounds good. Be sure and
deep clean the coral sand though: once covered in bacteria and algae
(i.e., after a few weeks) it is isolated from the water, and
doesn't do any buffering.> GH is right about 7-8 which should be
okay. Ph is very stable at about 7.4. <Both fine for
Platies.> Found out the hard way that the pH neutralizer does a
number on the live plants! <Odd. Some plants like acid water, some
alkaline, so that may be the thing. Many of the hardier plants, such as
Vallis, like hard, alkaline water. If you soften the water too much,
they get unhappy very quickly. Done this myself and watch hundreds of
Vallis die overnight! Not pretty. Again, best to choose plants for your
local water. There are lots of species that love hard, alkaline water:
Vallis, Egeria, some Amazon swords (e.g. E. bleheri), some Crypts (e.g.
C. wendtii and C. ciliata), Java fern, Java moss, etc.> I bring down
the pH to around 7.2 for in the tetra tank. As long as it
remains stable the fish are okay. <Most tetras shouldn't mind
even pH 7.4, so I'd not bother with the pH adjustment. The
difference between 7.2 and 7.4 is not that important. Fish don't
really "feel" pH anyway; they feel the total dissolved
solids, which the acidifying agent isn't doing anything about. I
personally wouldn't bother with the pH adjuster -- I'd sooner
do more water changes to keep the quality high. Cheers, Neale>
Stocking a 15 Gallon FW Plant Tank 3/21/07 Hello,
I have a 15 gallon eclipse system tank, that has been cycled since
late August. The inhabitants I currently have are 3 marbled
hatchets, 3 nanus neon cories, and 1 German blue Ram. There
are also 2 different Amazon swords, one is ground level that grew
a stem and leaves to reach the surface, emergents I am
guessing? Also, the second is a large sword, with large broader
leaves that stretch to the top of the tank. These have been
in my tank since Early November or late October. Temperature is at
78 degrees and pH is about 6.4 (slowly bringing it down to 6, it used
to be 7) I have a couple of questions. My blue ram is very shy. He has
been in my tank since October, the last fish added, and since then
he has been very frightened of me. He eats and explores the tank,
but only when I am not in the room. I would have to hide and
watch as he scouts around the tank. When I walk by, he
hides, and does not come out at all. Is there a way for me to get
my trust in him and so he gets to know who I am better? He
won't even come out to feed when I am standing there, I would
have to go hide. Up until this day, he has not had any diseases or
such and has been quite healthy. I don't even feed him the
bloodworms because it doesn't go to his belly but to my tanks
nitrates. Any advice? < Rams are normal very shy fish to
begin with. Having other fish in the tank creates some activity and
helps these fish get over their shyness. They are referred to as dither
fish.> Second, is my stocking complete? I have the three small nanus
cories, at the moment not bigger than an inch, the 3 marbled
hatchets about 1.5 inches long each. And the ram who is about two
inches. I understand that the inch per gallon is just a
general idea to help you stock, but it doesn't necessarily give
you the exact stocking level. The tank is 10 width, 20
length, and about 18-20 height depending on how high the
water level is. Can I add anything else to the tank? Maybe a
mate for the ram or a small group of tetras? < Check the nitrates.
If you can keep them below 20 ppm between water changes then you can
add some additional fish. A small group of tetras would work just fine
for your dither fish problem too.-Chuck> I am fixing up the tank,
adding some real driftwood, more live plants, upgraded
lighting to the least 30 watts, and better fertilizing gravel for
the plants. The lighting is the only problem, because of
the eclipse hood. Thanks, Joe
Fish problems... actually Hobbyist
problems 3/20/07 Greetings,
<Sherly> I'm so glad I found your site, but since I work
50+ hours a week, I don't have a whole lot of time to read
& find all the info I need. Please forgive me for
needing to ask of your time. <We'll
see...> I love my fish, and because of bad allergies,
they're the only pets that I can have. After a year+ of having
tropical fish successfully, about a month ago I went from a
10-gallon to a 30 gallon tank. But I'm having some
problems. Since my original fish appeared to be healthy
in their new "home", I bought some more fish to fill the
rather empty tank. <No quarantine?> But I had 4 deaths in the
first week, and 2 of my original fish don't look so well these
past few days. I find it unusual to have so many deaths in such a
short time. Normally, I see one pass away after several
months. The deaths of my very first & original fish
occurred over many months, but one at a time and not within a few
weeks of each other. My original fish included: 3 Rosy Reds (test
fish -- all gone) <Are coldwater minnows... not really suitable
for tropical aquariums... may have brought disease in...> 2
Lemon Von Rio Flame Tetras (had 4, the other 2 have passed) 3 Black
Phantom Tetras (had 5, ... 2 have passed) 2 Colored Kuhli Loaches 1
Golden Algae-eater (had 2, I watched this survivor
"Sardine" kill the other by sucking, ramming and
literally knocking the other algae-eater out of the tank) <Is
often too "mean" to keep with smaller fishes... Look up
Gyrinocheilus... on WWM, the Net...> I added... 6 Blood-fin
Tetras 5 Silver Hatchet Tetras (which I was told they jump &
therefore, purchased a different lid) 5 Albino Cory 5 Upside-down
catfish <Live in different water...> I lost 3 Albino Cory, 2
of the deaths were less than 12 hours from each other (and only
bothered replacing one -- since that's all I had time for) And
I lost 1 Upside-down catfish to the water filter (don't ask me
how it managed to swim in there, I found it during a water &
filter change after the other 3 deaths). <...> But 2 of my
Black Phantom Tetras are ill (I think). One is
displaying very, very red gills (and one side of his gill looks
flared-out ... or just plain broken/bent out of shape), and the
other has some funky junk on his mouth. I put fish
medicine in the tank (I doubt the stuff works, but it says it
treats red gill and fungus mouth). <...>
... and just recently I got 4 Balloon-belly Mollies -- <What re
your water quality?> "Ebony", "Ivory",
"Salt" & "Pepper" (I got impulsive
today). And "Ivory" gave birth to 17 fry (16
survived... I lost one to the water filter (again with the
filter). I have the fry in a breeding basket in the same
tank. I do plan on checking with the pet store(s) here
to see if they'll take these fry because I think I'm a bit
overloaded. <You're a bit compulsive I'd say> I want
to know what I might be doing wrong? <The list is long... not
researching the life... its requirements, compatibility before
purchasing... Not monitoring water quality...> I
only have a PH test kit - and it's last reading was 7.0 (I
haven't checked since I got the mollies today & added a
little aquarium salt... <The Characins/Tetras don't
"like" salts...> and had an unexpected birth of
fry). I also have a different filter. Instead
of one that hangs outside the tank, I have one that submerges in
the tank. I got this filter because it's quieter
(and I can't sleep with loud noise at night). My current water
temperature averages 76 Fahrenheit. I set up this new
tank just like the 10 gal -- I let it run a week before adding
fish, <Cycled?> except this time I didn't use any of the
cheap 10 cent fish after a week, I just transferred my original
fish. My algae-eater is now 5" long
("Sardine's" the largest thing in the entire
tank). I feed my fish freeze-dried bloodworms, shrimp
pellets and an algae chip for "Sardine" -- my original
fish stopped eating flakes after a while, so I switched to
bloodworms to get them to eat again (are they being picky?)
<Mmm, no> All the other fish seem fine, I'm at a loss at
what exactly I did wrong to incur so many losses in such a rapid
time. I don't want to lose any more fish and
don't really have the time to constantly return to the pet
store. ~Shirley <Well... it dawns on me that you may just not
have time for this hobby really... To be absolutely frank with you
(though my name is Bob), I think you ought to consider whether
you're ready to commit (yes, with the big C) to being involved
with captive life... Your letter reveals a few things. One: a lack
of reading, involvement... Two: Good/Bad consumerism... you
"just buy" things... This is not a hobby/past-time for
such casualness... IF you intend to keep an aquarium, this will
demand more of your time... In investigating what can "go
together", and how to set-up and maintain a given mix of
compatible species... Are you willing, able to make that promise?
Perhaps another non-living interest would be better for you at this
time. Bob Fenner> |
Neale's much better response...
3/20/07 Greetings, I'm so glad I found
your site, but since I work 50+ hours a week, I don't have a
whole lot of time to read & find all the info I
need. Please forgive me for needing to ask of your
time. <Please understand that we all
work, too, so forgive me if I send you along to pages you should
read over to get the general idea before trying to answer specific
questions.> I love my fish, and because of bad allergies,
they're the only pets that I can have. <Catfish instead of
cats, eh?> After a year+ of having tropical fish successfully,
about a month ago I went from a 10-gallon to a 30 gallon tank.
<Good, a bigger tank is usually easier to care for. But you did
cycle the filter in the new aquarium, didn't you?> But
I'm having some problems. Since my original fish
appeared to be healthy in their new "home", I bought some
more fish to fill the rather empty tank. <Never a good idea.
With a new tank, go slow. Add the fish you have, wait a few weeks,
then add some more only if the water quality (nitrite and ammonia)
is where it should be, i.e., zero.> But I had 4 deaths in the
first week, and 2 of my original fish don't look so well these
past few days. <Anytime fish die off unexpectedly or in clumps,
whip out your nitrite and/or ammonia test kits. 99% of unexplained
fish deaths are caused by water quality issues.> I find it
unusual to have so many deaths in such a short
time. Normally, I see one pass away after several
months. The deaths of my very first & original fish
occurred over many months, but one at a time and not within a few
weeks of each other. <It is unusual. So DID you do a nitrite or
ammonia test?> My original fish included: 3 Rosy Reds (test fish
-- all gone) 2 Lemon Von Rio Flame Tetras (had 4, the other 2 have
passed) 3 Black Phantom Tetras (had 5, ... 2 have passed) 2 Colored
Kuhli Loaches 1 Golden Algae-eater (had 2, I
watched this survivor "Sardine" kill the other by
sucking, ramming and literally knocking the other algae-eater out
of the tank) <Algae-eaters (Gyrinocheilus aymonieri) are
notoriously aggressive and just plain nasty fish. Watch your
specimen very carefully, and be away it will reach about a foot in
length.> I added... 6 Blood-fin Tetras 5 Silver Hatchet Tetras
(which I was told they jump & therefore, purchased a different
lid) 5 Albino Cory 5 Upside-down catfish <OK, here's where
you went wrong. When fish die unexpectedly, you find out why. You
don't add new fish. It's most likely a cycling issue, so
please read: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwestcycling.htm
> I lost 3 Albino Cory, 2 of the deaths were less than 12 hours
from each other (and only bothered replacing one -- since
that's all I had time for) <Please realize that you may be
"wasting time" but your poor fish are "wasting their
lives away". Spend the time figuring out the problem before
buying any more fish!> And I lost 1 Upside-down catfish to the
water filter (don't ask me how it managed to swim in there, I
found it during a water & filter change after the other 3
deaths). <Strange. Perhaps it died and got sucked in? That said,
these catfish must have hiding places, and if there aren't any
in the tank, they will search in places they shouldn't go.>
But 2 of my Black Phantom Tetras are ill (I think). One
is displaying very, very red gills (and one side of his gill looks
flared-out ... or just plain broken/bent out of shape), and the
other has some funky junk on his mouth. I put fish
medicine in the tank (I doubt the stuff works, but it says it
treats red gill and fungus mouth).
<PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do a water quality test for nitrite and/or
ammonia. Also pH if you can. There are nice, inexpensive dip sticks
that will do water quality and water chemistry tests all in one
fell swoop. A real time saver. Fish almost always get sick because
the water quality is bad (in the same way people get hypothermia
when they're too cold, or cholera when given dirty water). Just
wildly adding medications hoping for the best will not work!>
... and just recently I got 4 Balloon-belly Mollies --
"Ebony", "Ivory", "Salt" &
"Pepper" (I got impulsive today). And
"Ivory" gave birth to 17 fry (16 survived... I lost one
to the water filter (again with the filter). I have the
fry in a breeding basket in the same tank. I do plan on
checking with the pet store(s) here to see if they'll take
these fry because I think I'm a bit overloaded. <Breeding
baskets are not a good idea with mollies. The mollies are too big,
get stressed, miscarry, and generally get unhappy.> I want to
know what I might be doing wrong? I only have a PH test
kit - and it's last reading was 7.0 (I haven't checked
since I got the mollies today & added a little aquarium salt...
and had an unexpected birth of fry). I also have a
different filter. Instead of one that hangs outside the
tank, I have one that submerges in the tank. I got this
filter because it's quieter (and I can't sleep with loud
noise at night). (Why are you adding salt to this tank? Sure the
mollies like it, but the tetras and catfish won't. Salt is
redundant in a properly run aquarium. Mollies are basically
incompatible with most community fish. They need either pristine
freshwater (less than 20 ppm nitrate) or brackish water. You have
neither.> My current water temperature averages 76
Fahrenheit. I set up this new tank just like the 10 gal
-- I let it run a week before adding fish, except this time I
didn't use any of the cheap 10 cent fish after a week, I just
transferred my original fish. My algae-eater is now
5" long ("Sardine's" the largest thing in the
entire tank). I feed my fish freeze-dried bloodworms,
shrimp pellets and an algae chip for "Sardine" -- my
original fish stopped eating flakes after a while, so I switched to
bloodworms to get them to eat again (are they being picky?)
<Don't expect fish to eat one food, day in, day out. Cycle
them. Give bloodworms one day, flake the next, some veggies the
third, and so on.> All the other fish seem fine, I'm at a
loss at what exactly I did wrong to incur so many losses in such a
rapid time. I don't want to lose any more fish and
don't really have the time to constantly return to the pet
store. <1. Do a nitrite/ammonia test. 2. Don't add any more
fish until everything is settled down and the fish are happy. 3.
Don't buy any fish for a while; buy a nice aquarium book
instead. 4. Go buy some more fish now you've read up on what
would be compatible, but just a couple, so you don't overload
the filter and give everything time to re-adjust. Cheers,
Neale> |
A very new fish owner. FW, ich, cycling
2/23/07 Dear Crew, <Stacy> I am really having a hard time
keeping fish. I believe that the 6 neon tetras that I bought
5 days ago now have Ich. I've been all over the web and,
admittedly, have found tons of information. However,
everything is so confusing! <Let's see if we can make all
clear/er> Here are the facts: My tank is a 6-gallon
tank. <First source of trial here... small volumes are difficult to
keep stable...> I had my water tested (I managed to kill 4 other
fish a couple of months ago by overfeeding and kept the water - I did a
50% water change, rinsed all of the ornaments, let the water sit for a
day, and then bought new fish). <... not likely cycled... Are you
familiar with aquatic biological filtration?> The fish currently in
the tank are: 2 small orange fish (not goldfish, but I
don't know the name!) and 6 neon tetras. Now, the neon
tetras have white spots all over them. <Does "sound" like
ich> I also bought a small algae eater the same day, but he died
yesterday (not enough algae in the tank? <Perhaps... could be that
the system is simply not cycled...> No one at the store advised me
about algae fish food). Maybe the ich? <Perhaps> I
have an aerator, a filter with a bio-wheel and a water
heater. The temp stays at about 81degrees F. Please
help! With care, Stacy Menendez Desperate fish owner
P.S. I have two children - they're 5 & 7 - and
it's killing me for them to see these fish die! <Please read
here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwestcycling.htm and
here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwich.htm and the
linked files above... You likely need to add a bacteria culture or
other source (see the articles) for useful material to rectify the
environmental troubles here... and I would just elevate the temperature
(to the mid 80's F.) to rid the ich... for now... READ soon... Bob
Fenner>
Re: A very new fish owner 2/23/07 Thank you so
much! I've been told that I should definitely take the
fish back too. Since I got them 5 days ago, there's a
chance that the ich came from the store. <Of a certainty, it did>
You are very generous with your advice. Thank you again.
Stacy <Welcome. BobF>
Bubbles? - 02/09/2007 I have a small ten gallon fresh water
tank for my daughter. It is about a month and a half old. For some
reason fish continue to die. I test the water regularly and the only
area that seems to be of even the slightest concern is the hardness.
<Mmm, how hard... what species of fishes?> All other areas fall
under the recommended norms. <Need values...> Before the fish die
they always seem to develop what look like tiny bubbles on their sides,
fins and amongst their tails and fins. <Mmm...> The fins and
tails appear almost matted as well. I had a Chinese algae eater in
there after about three weeks but it died also. <Wow... this is a
very tough animal generally> I started with two guppies and one is
still around. However two more have died. After several weeks I added
two more small community fish, I can't remember what type right
now, but one has survived and seems in good health, but another just
died recently. Any ideas? <Mmm, all sorts... but need more data...
Please read here: http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwdis3setsfactors.htm And
get back with me re what stirs your consciousness here. Bob
Fenner>
2 Angelfish,1 Platy with clamped fin--what's the
cause/cure? 1/26/07 Hey all, <Dave> I've been a
long time lurker (I've learned a ton from this site) but I
haven't been able to find an answer to this anywhere, so now
I'm posting. I have 2 adult angelfish in a 30 gal
freshwater community aquarium with a few Platies, tetras, and a couple
new yo yo loaches (added just 2 days ago). I change out 5
gal of water every 2 weeks (last change was this Sunday) and test the
water conditions weekly, everything looks fine as far as the
water's concerned and I haven't done anything differently over
the last 8 months that I've had this tank. Let me start back 2 days
ago (same day I added the loaches). One angelfish began to
gasp at the surface <Mmm, likely more related to the water change...
best to (nowadays) pre-condition, store new water for a week or so
before using... Not the loaches influence> (it looked like at least,
I don't know if she got any air) but otherwise was
fine. I noticed it more yesterday so I tested the water
(fine) and changed out about 5 gals. I figured they needed
more aeration so today I picked up a powerhead and placed it in the
corner of the tank. After sitting in front of the tank to
watch the fish in the current I noticed that both Angelfish were now
holding their right-side fins close to their bodies. They
will use them if they need to move quickly, but if they're just
hanging out the fins are held close to their sides. Their
side fins are frayed slightly at the ends, I think because they nip on
each other a little but I am not positive as their main top/bottom/tail
fins all look excellent (and move freely). Also, their
clamped side fins are red near the base, where the muscle attaches to
the fin. I decided to feed them to see how their appetite
was doing, both appeared hungry but the gasping one barely ate and
seemed a little confused near the surface--she would look at the food
and then let it drift on by. Also, I noticed yesterday a
platy (been in the tank for at least 2 months) was resting on the
bottom of the tank and was clamping its fins as well, but it's body
is black so I cannot see any discoloration. Any ideas? Could
the loaches have brought in a new disease that could progress this far
in 2 days? <Mmm, unlikely... but a remote possibility> I've
read that clamped fin could be caused by parasites, maybe I should
invest in a hospital/quarantine tank and treat the
angels/platy? Any info would be greatly appreciated.
<Hard to decide here... on whether to suggest a sort of pre-emptive
treatment for possible infectious or parasitic disease... or to advise
you to wait out what is likely really only a situation arising from
environmental challenge... Have you, had you tested for nitrogenous
wastes, pH... What did these tell you?> Thanks, -Dave <Please
read here: http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwdis3setsfactors.htm and
the linked files above. Bob Fenner>
Freshwater Ick? Not likely - 1/22/07 Hi folks,
<Jennifer> First off, thanks for all of the great info you offer
on your website! I've been an avid reader since I started the hobby
a few months ago. I think I have an outbreak of Ick in my 29 gallon
freshwater tank. I haven't introduced anything new to my tank for
about a month. <Yes... FW Ich can "rest"
indefinitely...> The tank has been up for about 3 months. Right now
I have 3 Platies, 6 penguin tetras, 3 panda Corys, 2 spotted Corys, 3
dwarf gouramis, 3 Oto catfish and a rainbow shark. I just noticed that
one of the Platies has a white, round, fuzzy growth under her bottom
lip. It seems bigger than the pictures of Ick that I have seen online
so I'm not sure it is Ick. <Mmm, no... likely a
"secondary" bacterial infection, following some sort of
physical trauma... a bump, jump into something> Maybe a fungus or
something? The water parameters have been stable and pretty good
(nitrates at 5, nitrites at 0, ammonia at 0) except for some unknown
reason the pH started dropping in the past week. <Natural... can be,
likely should be countered with just partial water changes (maybe
weekly) with water that has some degree of alkaline reserve> The guy
at my LFS told me that instead of purchasing a pH upper, I could just
use pure baking soda to raise the pH and stabilize the alkalinity.
<This is so> So I did that, and added some dissolved baking soda
(about a teaspoonful as per the guy's recommendation) to the tank
<Not directly... should be introduced, dissolved in new water during
a change-out> which has helped the pH situation. That was this
morning. The other change that I made recently was about a week ago I
switched from the filter that came with my tank to a Penguin Bio-Wheel
filter. Could that have been the cause of the pH drop? <Mmm, not
likely... pH drops are mainly due to reductive/acidic (natural)
activity...> Could that have stressed my fish too much and caused
the outbreak? <A possibility, yes> I have some aquarium salt on
hand so I was hoping that I could use that to treat as soon as possible
as the stores are all closed by now. <Mmm, not much... the Corydoras
and Tetras don't "care" for this> However, I've
read that salt can be dangerous to some catfish and I was worried about
my Corys and the Otos. I tried to read more about the salt treatment by
clicking on the link in one of your FAQ's but the link wouldn't
work for me and kept saying that the page had a fatal error. <Mmm,
could you send along the specific URL/page...?> Is there another
page you could recommend to read up on the salt treatment? <I would
just read the FAQs on the one there. There is no article as yet as far
as I recall> Will my cats be okay with the salt? <I wouldn't
add more> If it isn't Ick but rather is a fungus of some sort
will the salt help or hurt it? <Should help> Should I raise the
temperature in addition to the salt or is that going to be too much
stress on the fish at once? <To the low 80's F. should be
fine> Thanks so much for all of your help! Jen <Welcome. Bob
Fenner>
Prophylactic treatment 1/10/07 Hello
Crew, <Hey Eric, JustinN with you today.> Thanks for answering my
past questions and thanks again for taking the time to read this one (
and hopefully answer it ). <Thanks for the kind words, we answer all
that we receive (when our mail server troll doesn't consume
them!)> I quarantine all new additions to my tank ( learned the hard
way a couple of years back ) for a couple of weeks at the minimum.
<Good to hear. We all learn the hard way at some point in time.>
Initially I treat them prophylactically with a regimen recommended by a
fellow aquarist who works in ichthyologic research. He recommends (
after I told him that I lost a batch of cardinal tetras in quarantine )
that I treat new additions prophylactically with the following regimen
- Nitrofurazone ( I use Furan-2 as per instructions which are one
tablet/10 gallons every other day for four days with a water change
after each 2nd dose), followed by malachite green ( as per dosage on
bottle ) for three treatments every other day. He also recommended (
especially for cardinals ) an anti-bacterial food and an initial bath
in Praziquantel if available. I always like to get additional opinions
before making a decision so what do you think of this regimen ? Thanks,
Eric <This sounds like a very harsh regimen of unnecessary
medications. I much prefer the idea of perhaps a quick Methylene blue
dip en route to an extended quarantine (3-4 weeks) to watch for any
signs of ill effects, and then only after diagnosis follow with proper
treatment. It just seems to me you're forcing the new additions to
harden up in potentially toxic conditions, surely making the task
harder. After the rigors of shipping and changing of hands, these
little guys could usually sure use some TLC (tender love and care) when
they first reach you! Hope this helps you! -JustinN>
New Tank Crashed, No Quarantine Tank, Bad Advice
1/7/07 Hello. My name is Pip. I am rather concerned
about my fish in my tropical tank. I have a 36in long glass tank, with
an undergravel filter, internal power filter, heater, light, plants
(real) and several fish. My tank is fairly new. I set it up at the end
of November with the help and advice of my local aquaria store and
several books, some that I bought and some from the library. I like to
read up on a subject to do with animals before I actually start keeping
them, so that I more or less know what I'm doing, and doing it
right. < Very commendable.> My aquar store, told me to set it all
up, get it up and running and leave it for a week to settle before
introducing any fish, which I did. < Really you only need to let it
set up for a day or so to check that the heater and other equipment are
working properly.> Then as suggested by them I introduced 5 white
cloud mountain minnows, one of which I'd had on his own for about 4
years, and 5 leopard Danios, as they are hardy fish and would help with
the nitrogen cycle. At the same time I also bought a few test kits,
i.e. ammonia, pH, nitrite, GH and KH, and a nitrate kit, which I used
every few days to make sure everything was fine. Within a week, the
ammonia was 0, and the nitrite was 0, and the nitrate was 25 which I
was told was ok. <A tank cycling from scratch in a week is not
possible without some introduced bacteria from another tank or possibly
the plants.> I then introduced 2 female and 1 male Siamese fighting
fish, which settled in very well. Again tested the water and waited
till it was right, then added 2 female and 1 male red dwarf Gouramis a
pair of breeding dwarf Gouramis with the blue and orange stripes, male)
silver and blue stripes (female), and 2 female and 1 male black balloon
mollies. Did the same thing with the water testing then bought a red
tailed black shark. Everything seemed fine, and I was told I would be
able to buy more fish, so I bought 2 pairs of platys, 4 zebra Danios, 5
silver tipped tetra's 10 neon tetra's and 2 bulldog Plecs. I
always introduced all my fish the way the books said, turning off the
lights and floating the bags in the tank to acclimatize for half an
hour or so, then I used a net to put the fish into the tank so that I
didn't have to tip the water from the bag in incase there was
anything not very nice in there. All seemed fine for ages, the fish
were eating well, even mating. The temperature was and still is 75.
(Which incidentally the mollies and platys are still doing and seem to
be gravid). But about just over a week ago I noticed that one of my
leopard Danios seemed to have bulging eyes, which I thought might be
pop-eye, so I bagged her up and took her to my dealer for confirmation
and to buy a remedy. He confirmed it for me and gave me a med that
would treat that as well as dropsy, which I read can also cause bulging
eyes, but she didn't seem to be bloated. Then I noticed some of my
other leopards and minnows started to look bloated and pop-eyed too, so
I treated the whole tank for dropsy carefully as the instructions said
and got a smaller tank with some other meds that were sold to me to dip
the fish in for 20 min.s or so, which I did, and gradually, one by one
I began to lose them. I was very disappointed because I also lost
Minnie, my 4 year old minnow. Gradually, 2 of my minnows seemed to
recover, and become less bloated and bug eyed, though they are looking
a bit tattered as their scales were a mess, though they are beginning
to look a little better now and are still eating, though they are the
only two minnows I have left now, both females. One of my leopard's
has recovered, but doesn't appear to be eating. I have 3 of those
left, the other two escaped the disease. Now some of my neon's are
beginning to look bloated, I found one half eaten on the tank bottom
about 4 days ago and promptly removed it, and two days ago another went
missing, which I haven't found. To top that, 1 leopard that escaped
dropsy and 1 silver tipped tetra both look like they may have tail rot.
I'm not sure if it is rot or if they've been nipped, the others
are fine though, so I've put them both together in my spare tank to
keep an eye on them, I don't want to treat them for fin rot in case
it isn't that, so I'm just watching to see if their tails begin
to regenerate. One of my back balloon mollies had what looked like
Whitespot all over her mouth, eyes and sides of her head, and looking
closely some of the smaller fish, leopards and silver tips seem to have
the odd one or two as well, so I treated the tank for that yesterday
(not at the same time as for dropsy, that was about a week ago), most
of my mollies spots have gone now, but some are still there, as are the
other fishes, the treatment says to use again if necessary 48 hours
later, so I will if I need to, but what I don't understand is what
I did wrong. My sister has a tropical tank and her dealer said that my
problem was called 'fisherman's run' and would sort itself
out, that doesn't make me feel any better, I don't want to give
up, but I sometimes feel like it, I'm determined not to cos I love
the hobby, what should I do? Is my tank still going through it's
maturation process? I tested the tank yesterday and the pH is 7.6
(which has been the same since the start) GH was 9/180 and KH was 4/40
( which is quite soft compared to what it usually is which is around 6
or 7) Nitrite was 0, Nitrate was 25 which was 10 for quite a while and
ammonia is 0.I also have a smaller tank set up of guppies with 5
pregnant females, though I'm not sure what the gestation period is
or when to move them to a breeding tank, they're all fine though,
though their KH is 5/50 which was usually 6 7 or 8. I'm really
sorry to be bothering you with this very long epic, but I felt that I
had to tell you the details so that you could maybe help me see what
I'm doing or have been doing wrong. Thank you for your time and
patience. Yours desperately Pip. <If you really read up on all those
books you might have discovered that it usually takes about 30 days to
cycle a tank unless some bacteria were added or an additive like
Bio-Spira was added to the tank to get things going. You should have
placed the fish you had for four years in the tank, since you knew it
was disease free. Additional fish could have been purchased but placed
in a quarantine tank for at least two weeks. Diseased fish could be
treated in the QT tank and not affect the main tank. When you medicated
the main tank it probably affected the biological filtration in the
tank and you may have had ammonia spikes that have stressed the fish.
Now what to do? Start out by doing a 50% water change, vacuuming the
gravel and cleaning the filter. Treat with Nitrofurazone and
Metronidazole as per the directions on the packages. raise the water
temp to 82 F to treat the ich. Add a teaspoon of rock salt per 5
gallons. When the fish are either dead or cured you can add carbon to
the filter to remove any medication. Then add Bio-Spira from Marineland
to establish the biological filtration. All future fish need to be
quarantined. Lots of current info on this website about quarantining
fish. The term "Fisherman's Run", is crap! Find a new
fish store.-Chuck>
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