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For the past few months I have been dealing with a deadly brown matter formation in my filtration system. It first formed during a fishless cycle in which the only thing entering the tank was pure ammonia on a daily basis (this was not ammonia derived from fish waste; it was bottled pure...

  The white spot has spread to some degree on the affected Corydoras and the gill movement is still very rapid. I think the white spot has permanently damaged it's gills so they can't function properly.   The treatment has stopped it from spreading to all the other fish thankfully.   I'm adding...

Were you following the dosage instructions to remove the ich or over-dosing? I'm currently dealing with ich; I think the fishes have contracted it from plants which I recently introduced as my water quality is excellent (ammonia 0ppm, nitrite 0ppm, nitrate 20ppm) and no new inhabitants have...

You would have to put extremely small pieces of food in to take into account that risk. As the white mark doesn't appear to be getting any worse, you could perhaps get away with putting no treatment into the water on the presumption that the white mark is it's underlying skin colour underneath...

Great to hear that Protozin is effective. How long did it take for you to defeat the white spot disease using Protozin?

Removal of the thing causing the PH rise. I can't help you with finding the source unless you list the entire contents of the tank and everything connected to it.

From experience, a buffering agent only has any effect in demineralised/RO water. If your DIY set is causing changes in the PH, this is acting has a buffer in itself by leaching things like magnesium/calcium into the water. To add another buffering agent to lower the PH wouldn't have that much...

It goes without saying that the OP needs to get an internal filter if she does not currently have one. The fish will most certainly die if this is not done.

Is the CO2 getting into your tank properly? If so, how many bubbles per second do you have? I have 3 BPS go into my 120 litre tank and obtain a PH of around 5.5. As your tank is half the volume of my tank and you have 1-2 BPS going in, you ought to be looking at the mineral content of your...

I'm continuing to treat the water. It's mouth and gills are still going are still moving 6-7 times per second. It occasionally stops doing this. It is responding to food. Can a chattering mouth be a sign of breeding behaviour?

There is much debate over the toxicity of nitrate. Some people keep sensitive fish like Discus in 200ppm of nitrate and, apparently, don't come up against any problems. I think the only thing for to worry about with regards to the high nitrate are these things: 1. High nitrate water holds less...

There is no need for you to be using a heater in any of your aquariums that contain goldfish. If the fish was behaving more normal when you first placed it in the smaller 20 gallon tank, this would be because the PH and temperature of your tap water may have been lower. The lower the...

I've had a qualified Vet around to the house before to treat a bacterial infection on a GBR. He said that putting anti-bacterial products into the water is no use at all since a bacterial infection circulates in the fishes body. To stop a bacterial/fungal growth, it would be better if you...

Hi there, One of my white coloured Corydoras cat fish has developed whitespot disease as he has several sugar lump sized white marks on his body. It would appear these marks are causing it to go into shock because the gill movement is going at a rate of 6 to 7 movements per second (he still has...

Generally, when you do a large water change it will stress the fish because the replacement water may have a difference in: hardness, PH, temperature etc. However, where the water of the tank is unsuitable (i.e. where it has a high ammonia concentration) my advise is to remove as much of it has...

If the output of the filter is not pointing towards the surface to allow the o2 gas (produced by the air stone) to escape, I'm 99% certain that could be the cause of gas bubble disease. Gas bubble disease can only occur where the water that it is contained in is of a relatively low temperature...

Update: 15th January 2013 I am now in the process of doing a fishless cycle on this aquarium. I intend to make the tank a low-light, low CO2 and low-nitrate environment exclusively for a German Blue Ram pair. I have repositioned all of the rocks. I will be adding CO2 but as GBR's are fussy...

Sorry but since when did having a test kit actually allow a person to diagnose an illness in a fish? It allows a person to determine their aquarium water parameters, but it doesn't make it anymore possible to diagnose a specific illness as all the spectrum of fish diseases are all usually...

To me it looks like the Ram just has some scales missing where the mark is. The mark is too far back on the body for it to be hole-in-the-head disease in my opinion.

You might want to consider gas bubble disease. If O2 is super saturated in water, it may enter the fish in gas form which causes small tiny gas bubbles to become visible under the fishes skin. This can be fatal and be simply remedied by ensuring that water is not super saturated with oxygen...

You might want to buy a O2 testing kit. The filter bacteria gunk you have described can form in response to neglecting to lightly dunk the filter media in tank water on a regular basis to rid it of rotting waste. I've had this 'gunk' grow in a Fluval 404 filter and it had reduced the O2 levels...

This wouldn't be HITH, it doesn't occur to that extent over night. It was most likely the result of a bite. Very sorry for your loss.

The tetra probably has a genetic defect. If something had bitten it's eye out it would quickly die of shock. I know from experience that this would be the case as my German Blue Ram bit one of my tetra's eyes out when it got too close to a spawning area.

Remove the fish from the water gently with a net and place it in a bowl full of dechlorinated water. Perform a 100% W/C on it's home aquarium once or continually until the water has 0 ppm of ammonia and nitrite. The replacement water should of course be dechlorinated each time you are required...

I like the hair grass too as co2 bubbles can get passed it easier. Thank you! If you need any help/advice with any aspect of planted aquariums, be sure to ask here and I'll definitely help.

Brilliant! I've managed to get the ram to eat a few 1mm Nutrafin pellets. It only just fits in the mouth so I've ordered some 0.5mm Nutrafin pellets.

I have just bought a juvenile Bolivian Ram, and have noticed that it's mouth is so small it is not going to eat conventional pellet food and has no interest in flake food at present. I have given the Corydoras fish some Tetra Tabimin and a similar Tetra food which contains vegetable matter. The...

I would highly recommend a GBR for your set-up providing it is a female. Male GBR's can become very aggressive towards Corydoras and other bottom-dwellers, in addition to Tetras. You should take into account that unlike your present stock, GBR's require a higher water temperature of 27-28...

From 2 years of experience of keeping GBR's I'd say the change of colour was brought about voluntarily by each Ram to show each other that the conditions are right for spawning. The conditions that induce spawning are usually low nitrates, depression in temperature and feeding them lots of live...

Update: 30th December 2012 -The marsilea (four leaf clover) has been removed from the centre fore-ground and placed to the left and right of the tank. - Bog wood with attached moss added to left side; - Small branched wood added to centre with moss; - New grass carpet planted; - Added 1x...

Update: 30th December 2012 - Added fresh sand and filled the aquarium with tap water (not dechlorinated) to hopefully kill off any remaining bacteria. - Now using new Fluval heater, intake strainer, intake pipe, output nozzle and external filter hoses as others were infected with yellow/orange...

Keep to dosing Formalin or Malachite Green to counteract Ich. As a GBR is infected, ensure you are not using methylene blue as it totally eradicates the filter bacteria which consume ammonia and nitrite. If your ammonia/nitrite was to rise the fish would die fairly quickly as they are very picky...

Yes it sounds really good to me too lol. When I start afresh with new sand/plants, hopefully this predicament won't come about again if I keep up with filter maintenance and water changes!

I think the white surface film is excess protein build up even though I am not adding food to the aquarium. The formation of yellow gunk in the filter is a result of me doing a fishless cycle for 5 months without cleaning the filter media; I think some sort of bacteria colony other than...

Just a quick update to say that, as the white film on the water surface keeps recurring and their is a yellow gunk in the input/output tubes, on the substrate and in the filter, I have opted to remove everything from the tank (plants, substrate, rocks etc). I have put the filter media, tubes...

Looks to be 'bouncing back' as predicted :). There is a white film covering the water surface after I added anti-bacterial med to stop the growth of yellow solids within the water column and filter media. I'm guessing this surface film is an indication it is dying in response to the med? While...

It is spreading quite well and rooting itself as it does so; seems like I've got luck on my side atm. Some of begun to turn yellow because I've now had an issue with the bubble counter for this tank (the bubble-counter for my other tank exploded if you remember) involving it leaking and gas...

The lights for this tank have been off since yesterday when the external bubble-counter exploded. The pressure reducer showed 3 bars as it always does but for some reason the bubble-counter decided it explode. I am lucky that I wasn't blinded by the flying plastic!

Hemanthius plant is growing well although it's not quite formed a carpet yet. Do the new leaves/runners always look really small initially?

I'm just posting a quickly reply to indicate that I've reduced my nitrate level down to 28 ppm (from approximately 45 ppm). I haven't tested the phosphate yet; the API phosphate kit that I have for this isn't unequivocal in providing me with a definitive answer as many of you will be able to...