dramafreak21
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- Jun 13, 2012
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I'm a new poster and desperately looking for some help with our new fish tank. Background: 29 gallon tank, ran for a week without fish, added 5 bleeding heart tetras, 2 days later added 2 peppered cory catfish. Waited over another week before adding 5 black phantom tetras. Our bleeding hearts and corys were doing great, we had a stable tank in terms of pH, etc. It all started going downhill 3 days after we added the black phantoms. The bleeding hearts started turning grey and their fins have a shredded appearance. Our smallest one looks very sickly, worse than the photo below shows which was 2 days ago. One black phantom appeared to have some nips taken out of his top flowing fin but the other 4 looked okay. We thought maybe they were picking on each other as 1 bleeding heart (sometimes 2) was very "big man on campus" about the section of the tank they were in all the time. We tested for ammonia and it was 0.5. So we did a water change and added in Stress Coat (which we did not do when we added in the BP tetras). We also added a filter media bag with Ammo Chips to help. We have Ammo Lock but have not used it as multiple people on other forums were talking about how it is a bad idea. We did another water change the next day and added more Stress Coat with it. My husband tested yesterday and ammonia was down to 0.25 so we're at least getting somewhere it would seem.
All their fins (except the corys, who seem perfectly fine) are shredding so we suspect ammonia poisoning. But the BPs are not changing any color, only the bleeding hearts. And the smallest one has more spots on him (that don't appear to be ich). We noticed another one today has a couple white strings, very small, coming from the end of the tail and the top fin (photo in new post). We talked to someone at PetSmart and she said to treat for bacterial infection (this was a few days ago before we noticed the white strings). We showed her a picture of the smallest one and she recommended Melafix. We have treated the water 3 days now with Melafix, didn't feed them yesterday and only fed this morning, hoping to help with the ammonia level. We did pull the carbon filter as we didn't want the Melafix to be sucked into that without helping. She told us to treat for 3 days, probably didnt need to treat for 7, but there's no improvement.
We haven't noticed any improvement and in fact, that one fish with the white strings is the new development. We really want to save our fishies! We realize we added the BPs too quickly but what's done is done in that regard. So now we're looking for help as to what else could be wrong with them, if we're seemingly on the right track, etc. Someone please help! We can't find a definitive answer searching forums and the web for what's happening to the Spice Girls (bleeding hearts) and New Kids on the Block (BPs). I have a feeling we're going to lose Baby and Posh!
Here is the photo of the other bleeding heart with the 2 white strings. There is one off the back of the top fin and one off the top of the back of the tail fin.
All their fins (except the corys, who seem perfectly fine) are shredding so we suspect ammonia poisoning. But the BPs are not changing any color, only the bleeding hearts. And the smallest one has more spots on him (that don't appear to be ich). We noticed another one today has a couple white strings, very small, coming from the end of the tail and the top fin (photo in new post). We talked to someone at PetSmart and she said to treat for bacterial infection (this was a few days ago before we noticed the white strings). We showed her a picture of the smallest one and she recommended Melafix. We have treated the water 3 days now with Melafix, didn't feed them yesterday and only fed this morning, hoping to help with the ammonia level. We did pull the carbon filter as we didn't want the Melafix to be sucked into that without helping. She told us to treat for 3 days, probably didnt need to treat for 7, but there's no improvement.
We haven't noticed any improvement and in fact, that one fish with the white strings is the new development. We really want to save our fishies! We realize we added the BPs too quickly but what's done is done in that regard. So now we're looking for help as to what else could be wrong with them, if we're seemingly on the right track, etc. Someone please help! We can't find a definitive answer searching forums and the web for what's happening to the Spice Girls (bleeding hearts) and New Kids on the Block (BPs). I have a feeling we're going to lose Baby and Posh!
Here is the photo of the other bleeding heart with the 2 white strings. There is one off the back of the top fin and one off the top of the back of the tail fin.
