Urgent Help Needed Please

hi

I am very worried about my fish, I have noticed a few unusual things over the past week and am conserned that something serious is going wrong - I want to act quickly to try and help the fish and hopefully not loose any.

Here are the details:

I have around 20/25 smaller fish (about 1 inch or less) mostly platys and mollies and I also have a gold severum.

I have tested the water and the reading are as follows:

Ammonia 0 to 0.25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20/40
PH 8.8
Temp 26 C

The tank is 240 litres and has been set up for more than 1 year. I have a filter and good water agitation. I do a partial water change once a week and clean the filter every 2 week (only one part at a time). I use the gravel vac every week but usually only clean half the tank each time (this was last done at the weekend).

Here is the issues:

The first thing I noticed was about a week ago when I saw what looked like white poo coming from one of the fish - I though this looked a bit strange but I havent seen any more of this. The next thing I have noticed is that over the last couple of days the severum has been swimming a little strangly, leaning to one side a little and also swimming a bit vertically with his nose upwards - he seems to be able to swim ok and does swim normally as well but this seems strange to me and is not his normal behaviour. Then today I noticed a couple of the smaller fish flicking and rubbing on the rocks - they were only doing this a little but again this is not normal. This prompted me to take a very close look at the fish and I cannot see any parasites at all apart from some very small white bits in the side fins of the severum. There seems to be one on one side and 2/3 on the otherside. They are very small and it is very hard to tell if it is ich or more like a cotton wool type growth or nothing at all.

I am obviously now very concerned - I have been watching the fish for the last half an hour and the severum is definatly swimming strangly - I think he is trying to rub on the plants.

I want to do everything I can to try and help the fish and hopefully if I act quickly I wont loose any - I have some aquarium salt and some ich treatment. I am thinking of doing a partial water change and adding these treatments, can anyone tell me if this is the right thing to do? How much water should I change? How much salt can I safely add? and is it safe/should I add the ich treatment also?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Risso

Hi Risso,

I'm no expert, but at a glance I see your PH is above your tank occupant's preferred range, especially for the gold sev. 8.8 is really quite high - do you get the same reading from water straight out of the tap?

Otherwise though, the "small white bits" do sound like the onset of ich, I'd be tempted to add some aquarium salt and begin your ich treatment together. Standard ratio for salt is one tablespoon per five gallons of aquarium water, so that's 10 to 12 tablespoons for your 240L (almost 55g) tank, then just follow your ich instructions to the letter.

Edit: Forgot to comment on your water change question - first check your tap PH is also 8.8 - I'm wondering if something in your tank is making your PH go up. If it's the same, go ahead with a large water change (dechlorinated) of 50% or more via gravel vac as this can only be beneficial - this alone might "cure" your fish.
If the PH is wildy different hold back on the water change and we'll need a new plan. Swings in PH are very bad for fish.

Hi

Thanks for coming back to me - I did a partial water change last night around 30% and added the white spot treatment and salt.

Things are about the same today, no worse but also not right!!

I have tested the water again just now and here are the reseults:

Ammonia 0.25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20/40
PH using high range test kit 8

PH of the tap water:

Using standard kit 7.6 usinh high range kit 7.4!!

I am still concerned that something is definatly not right - the severum has definatly got some white on its side fins (no marks anywhere else) I can only describe it as looking like white mould? Also I have noticed today that one of the black widow tetras has a black spot nears its mouth - I cannot see anything else on any of the other fish - I could try and post some photos if you think that would help? let me know.

I am thinking should I do another water change tonight and again tomorrow? I have the decholrinator to do this if needed but if you think I should do this (please advise), how will this effect the white spot medication and salt that I have already added? If I do a water change do I need to add more treatment and salt or not? If so how much?

Thanks in advance for your help with this

Risso

Also I just noticed on another topic someone said 'I just tested the water again and the Ammonia is .25 but it always reads that no matter what I do. I use the api kit and I heard this happens with that one sometimes'. My kit is an API so is this true? If so my reading above may be inaccurate - it is strange as it always seems to be 0.25, can never seem to get the tank to 0 but maybe there is something wrong with the kit - what do you think? When the tank cycled the ammonia went up to 4 so I know the test kit works in that respect.

Hmm, a persistent 0.25 ammonia reading is enough to cause irritation to your fish and could be the reason for your fish acting the way they are and possible weakening their immune systems - hence ich or fungal problems. Strange to have permanent 0.25 ammonia in your tank - even if your tap water contains 0.25 ammonia your bacteria colony in the filter media should be quickly consuming this ammonia down to zero. I've always used API kits without issue, I doubt your kit is faulty, but you could always take some water to your LFS for testing for comparison. Is your filter working as well as it always has? Check for good flow, blockages etc - even a small build up of mulm around intakes or around the impeller can reduce flow a lot. Extra filtration might be a consideration - large external canister filters are the best.
Dechlorinated water changes of the same temperature can only be of benefit - so do as many as you see fit. Don't be afraid to replace large amounts of the water column. While you have this problem, I think I would take out 50% at a time to make it easier to work out the replacement salt amount (50% water change would need 6 tablespoons of replacement salt, plus half your original dose of ich treatment).

Getting back to your ammonia problem - there's a chance your water company are adding "chloramine" (different to chlorine) to your water. Chloramine is actually chlorine and ammonia bonded together, so when you add your dechlorinator you are getting rid of the chlorine but also releasing the ammonia into the water - this might explain the 0.25 reading, but again your filter should be taking care of that. To see if you have chloramine in your tap water do this simple experiment:

1. Test some untreated tap water for ammonia and note the reading.
2. Test some dechlorinated tap water for ammonia and note the reading.

If the second result gives a higher ammonia reading that the first one, you have chloramines in your water and you might need to start using something like 'Prime' to condition your water.

Your PH situation is worrying. If I understand correctly, your original reading from the tank was 8.8, then after a 30% water change it was knocked down to 8.0 because the water from your tap is 7.4 to 7.6. Fish do not tolerate changes in PH very well - they need the PH to remain stable, that's the most important thing. It sounds like something in your tank is slowly dissolving or leeching into the water and increasing the alkilinity. Can you think of anything in the tank which may be doing this? (Could be an unsuitable ornament, unsuitable type of rock etc). I would definitely look into stabilizing the PH.

Pictures would be helpful yes - maybe others will chime in with some answers/help. I hope you see some improvements in the fish soon

I would reccommend performing a water change of a lot less than 30%! Up until recently I was changing about 30% also on a weekly basis but was constantly having to deal will instances of ich and mild fungus. Didnt loose many fish but I could always see that they werent in the best of health. I would test regularly before each water change for ammonia and it always showed zero and had thought that the disease was therefore due to new fish that I introduced. However on one occassion, I tested the day after a water change and got a positive result (tap water shows zero). I tested the tank a day or two after the next couple water changes and a positive ammonia reading was always present.

I thought this might be due to two reasons,
1. Removing to many benificial bacteria during the water change
2. My reccomended dose of dechlorinator not being sufficient

Either way all fish have been disease free for a month since I have reduced my water changes to 10%, my tank is heavily planted and I have to add extra nitrates so keeping them low is easy. If you struggle to keep your nitrates down maybe you should try multiple smaller changes each week.....?

Hope this helps

Hi both

Thanks for your helpful replies - I have tested the tap water and this is def 0 so it looks like there is an increase in ammonia in the tank, probably the likely cause. The weird thing is that I have 2 filters running, one internal type and 1 external canister type (fluval) and I clean them out with tank water every other week on an alternate basis - do you think this is ok?

PH is strange - not really sure what is causing this to go up - there is 1 small piece of bog wood in the tank, some live and fake plants, a couple of ornaments which are designed for aquariums and some rocks/slate that again cme from the aquarium shop so I am not sure what could be causing this. The only thing I am not sure about the the rock with the whole in it - this came with the tank which I purchased as an up and running setup more than 1 year ago?

Can you see anything from the pics??

Once again thanks for your advice it is really appreciated.

I tried to take some pictures of the only marks I have seen on the fish - the tetra has 1 black growth thing near its mouth and the sev has some white blemishes on his side fins - any ideas?

I will continue to change water daily over the next week and continue with salt and see what happens.....

rainbow-a-holic said:

I would reccommend performing a water change of a lot less than 30%! Up until recently I was changing about 30% also on a weekly basis but was constantly having to deal will instances of ich and mild fungus. Didnt loose many fish but I could always see that they werent in the best of health. I would test regularly before each water change for ammonia and it always showed zero and had thought that the disease was therefore due to new fish that I introduced. However on one occassion, I tested the day after a water change and got a positive result (tap water shows zero). I tested the tank a day or two after the next couple water changes and a positive ammonia reading was always present.

I thought this might be due to two reasons,
1. Removing to many benificial bacteria during the water change
2. My reccomended dose of dechlorinator not being sufficient

Either way all fish have been disease free for a month since I have reduced my water changes to 10%, my tank is heavily planted and I have to add extra nitrates so keeping them low is easy. If you struggle to keep your nitrates down maybe you should try multiple smaller changes each week.....?

Hope this helps

Click to expand...

1. There are no beneficial bacteria living in the water column whatsoever.

2. Dechlorinating the water shouldn't be a problem, just follow the instructions!

She doesn't have a nitrate problem, 20/40 is ok.

more pics

more pics

more pics

Risso, that's good news about your tap water having zero ammonia and no chloramines. It's PH is fine too at 7.4 - but you need to stop it creeping up to 8+ once it's in your tank. I'm not sure if this could even be linked to your ammonia readings - I do know that the toxicity of ammonia increases with a higher PH. I think you should remove anything 'suspicious' from your tank that you think could be raising the PH - the fake ornaments sound like prime candidates, and replace suspect rocks too with ones that you know are ok. What sort of substrate do you have, by the way?

You can help your filters along in getting the ammonia reading closer to zero with LARGE water changes. Checking/cleaning your filters sounds a good idea - but make sure you clean any parts or media in water from your aquarium, i.e don't rinse anything in unchlorinated tap water as this would kill off a lot of your precious bacteria colony. However, I'm thinking maybe you shouldn't be rinsing the filter media itself out so often, it's best left untouched unless it becomes gunged up too much. I only disturb/clean my external filter media once every 3 months. Once every other week seems too much to me - take it a bit easier on them and try to let your bacteria colony establish itself - but do check for good water flow through the media and clean any gunged up parts - the better the flow the healthier your bacteria are.

I have no idea what the black area is on the fish in the pic, sorry - it looks quite healthy on the pic though

thanks I will keep a very close eye on things over the next few days/weeks - I am going to increase the water changes and reduce cleaning the filter to see if this helps. I will also test the water daily and see how this goes - I will try and remove some of the ornaments and see if this makes a difference.

Thanks for all your help - I will let you know how it goes...If anyone else has any ideas on the black growth on the tetra I would be interested to find out what it could be.

Just seen the extra pics - lovely tank

Looks like you have normal playsand which won't affect PH. Coral sand, for example, would be unsuitable. Your bogwood is fine, as are any plastic plants. The rocks are hard to identify from the pic but if it's something like lime, it'll affect the PH for sure - and god knows what some fake ornaments could be made of. Take out the suspects and the PH should hopefully stabilize within your next few planned water changes.

Note: Forgot to mention - If you have it, remove any carbon from your filters while using ich treatments - carbon will only serve to remove medicine from the water.

Hi again...

So now I am sure that something in the tank is definalty taking the PH up - I tested the water yesterday using the high range kit and, as previously posted, the tank water was at 8 with the tap water at 7.6, this was after I did the water change yesterday.

So today I thought I would do another 40/50% water change but decided to test the water before changing it - well the PH is now 8.8 again - in fact it could be higher than this for all I know as this is the maximum top range of the test kit. I know you said fluctuations in PH level are bad but I feel that I need to get these levels down a bit - is frequent water changes the answer for this?

I also purchased a different brand of ammonia testing kit and tested using this new kit and the old kit again and looked at the readings outside in the daylight - both kits are definalty reading 0 for ammonia now so I am sure that this is ok but will monitor.

The substrate in the tank is crushed coral I think - could this be the cause of the high PH? I will remove the big stone as I have no idea what this is, do the water change now and test for PH and ammonia tomorrow - will let you know how it goes...

On the plus side the fish seem a little happier and more active again so things appear to have improved - I will continue to add the salt as well to try and fight off any parasites.

Well done getting the ammonia under control and It's good to hear the fish are doing better

Yes, you should continue the full ich/salt course of treatment to make ensure breaking the parasite's life cycle. Ah, coral sand - this is what is making your PH rise for certain, and each time you perform a water change there will be a fluctuation. Coral sand is meant to buffer the water for marine set-ups and for some freshwater fish that demand high PH, such as African rift lake cichlids.

I would switch out the substrate to something inert, then your PH fluctuations would no longer be an issue. Big messy job I know, and short-term stress for your fish of course - but it's something to consider.

Ah I didnt realise - yes the person I got the tank from used to have marine fish, they then swapped to tropical then I bought the tank from them - I didnt realise!! I will look into changing the substrate asap and hopefully this will stablise things - I will contine with the regular water changes, salt and ich treatment and hope things settle down! Thanks for all your help.