Few More Questions

[Hamsnacks]

Just had a few more Aquarium Questions.

1) Can you dose too much prime? I'm not saying the whole bottle, but is it more beneficial to try to be exact or can you triple dose with no side effects?

2) I have an Angelfish I believe may have mouth rot or cotton mouth, has something white on its mouth, small but noticeable. I currently have it and a Cardinal that had white fuzz on its tail in a quarantine tank. I am using API Fungus Cure, the total process should take about 4-5 days based on the instructions, have many been successful in getting rid of cotton mouth in 4-5 days? Should it be completely gone 100 percent by then?

3) If those 2 fish get cured, should I put them back in my main tank that is currently at 88 degrees fighting ick?

4) Initially, when I first started the tank I was injecting CO2, but now the tank is fully stocked, maybe even overstocked. For the guys with heavily stocked tanks, both fish and plants, do you inject CO2? I may stop after that one day my fish were breathing heavy, maybe now they will be producing enough CO2 on their own. Not using it now due to the ick but in about 2 weeks time.

5) Due to the heavy stock, I want to start doing 50 percent water changes per week, my issue is its currently being done manually with a 5-gallon bucket. I have attached 2 photos of the sinks nearby, has anyone been successful attaching a vaccum hose to one of these ends?

6) Last question, any tips on feeding bottom dwellers blood worms or brine shrimp? The food usually doesn't make it down due to all the other fish.

Thanks and sorry for the long post!

https://imgur.com/zilwfy9
https://imgur.com/u0Nrifa

 

[Colin_T]

You can double or triple dose with water conditioners and it won't harm the fish. However, a single dose is normally sufficient unless you have very high levels of chlorine/ chloramine in the water.

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Post a picture of the sick fish. Do not put them back in the main tank until the whitespot has been treated and the temperature brought back down.

Fish sometimes damage their mouth when they bump into things and their lips swell up and go white. This usually settles down after a few days to a week or so.

If the fish have mouth fungus (Columnaris) then the mouth will quickly erode away and within a few days the infection will spread across the jaw and over the face and head. Infected fish usually die within a couple of days of showing the swollen lips.

Columnaris is a flesh eating bacteria and needs antibiotics to treat it. However, it is uncommon in tanks and normally gets brought in with infected fish. This is why you should always quarantine new fish for at least 4 weeks before adding them to the main display tank.

If your fish only has puffy lips and has had it for a couple of days, then it is unlikely to be Columnaris.

Most bacterial and fungal infections in fish should improve within 24 hours of treatment and the fish should show no signs of infection after 3-4 days. However, you should continue treatment for a week to allow the damaged tissue to heal while there is medication in the water.

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Some people do add carbon dioxide (CO2) to tanks with lots of fish. The choice is yours but you only need to add a small amount of CO2 when the tank lights are on. If you have lots of plants, good light and regularly add aquarium plant fertiliser, then CO2 can help the plants grow faster. But if you add too much CO2, it can harm the fish.

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The images of the sinks did not work.

If you have a big tank then get a garden hose or a length of clear plastic hose. Get a 1.5 or 2 litre plastic drink bottle and cut the bottom off the bottle. Remove the lid. Put the garden hose in the top of the bottle and run the hose outside onto the lawn. Use the bottle as a gravel cleaner and syphon water straight out the door.

I used a clear hose that I bought from a hardware. It fitted over the top of the bottle and I could gravel clean and drain a 4ftx2ftx2ft aquarium in about 2 minutes. Garden hoses are narrower (small diameter) and won't drain the water as quickly so you might find it easier to handle.

You can get a couple of large plastic rubbish bins (new ones) and fill them with tap water and conditioner. Aerate the water and dechlorinator vigorously for 30 minutes or so. Then use a small water pump and some hose to pump the water from the buckets into the aquarium. You can make a U shape from some pvc pipe or black irrigation pipe and fittings and hang it over the edge of the tank. You have the pump in the bucket of water attached to some hose that is attached to one end of the U shape. The U shape hangs over the edge of the tank and the water goes up, through the U and back into the tank.

If you set up the buckets of water before you start cleaning the tank, it should have plenty of time to aerate while you remove coverglass and clean the gravel, filter, glass, etc.

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Feed the surface and mid dwelling fishes first. The smell of the food and fish moving about will alert the bottom dwellers of food. When the upper level fishes have eaten, then add a bit of food for the bottom dwellers.

Most fish food sinks pretty quickly so you can hold some food and push it down to the bottom and that might help. But normally I just feed the main fish and then add a bit more for the fish on the bottom.

 

[Hamsnacks]

Hi Colin, Happy New Year!

I have attached 2 photos of the Angelfish, it's at the bottom lip, I noticed it when she would open her mouth.
What do you think it may be?

I will look into your idea regarding the hose, I don't mind the removal of the water in 5 gallons, I actually prefer it, I am not a fan of the typical Python hoses that use water to remove the water, just a waste in my eyes. But I wanted a better system to put the water back in because the bucket pouring causes such a mess in the tank.
I think I have fixed the initial picture links of the sinks

Thanks for the other information as well.

 

[Hamsnacks]

Sorry @Colin_T one more question.

Do Angelfish, Pitcus Catfish, Rainbow Sharks or Cuckoo Catfish eat snails at all?
I have noticed a slight increase in them, I believe due to the Algae, which I will be working on but wondering if any of my fish can eat them?

Thanks

 

[Colin_T]

no.

loaches eat snails and some cichlids do, but the fish you listed do not eat snails unless you squish the snail and break the shell. Then the fish can eat the actual mollusc that lives inside the shell.

 

[NickAu]

Can you dose too much prime?

Prime is very safe and quite difficult to overdose to the point of harming tank inhabitants, but a large enough overdose can start to deplete the system of oxygen. The standard dose of 5 mL per 50 gallons of water is recommended for standard tank setups, and an overdose of up to 5x this amount can be done to detoxify ammonia and nitrite in the water. However, there are a few situations under which a larger dose of Prime may not be safe for your system.

https://seachem.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001450473-FAQ-Is-it-possible-to-overdose-Prime-

Also be aware

Prime only binds ammonia for 24 to 48 hours,
2 drops per 1 gallon of water will only detoxify up to 1ppm ammonia.

In my opinion Prime is very over rated

 

[Hamsnacks]

@NickAu

What do you use instead for your ammonia?

 

[NickAu]

I use water changes.

Do you have ammonia in your tap water?

 

[Hamsnacks]

Really, there's no need for Prime in your city? That's crazy.
On Average we have 1-2 ppm Ammonia, but the last few weeks it was ranging from 4 to 8ppm.
People weren't doing water changes at all lol

 

[NickAu]

On Average we have 1-2 ppm Ammonia, but the last few weeks it was ranging from 4 to 8ppm.

In your tap water?

PS

Are you using the API freshwater test kit?

The API test kit cant tell the difference between ammonia and ammonium.

 

[Hamsnacks]

Yeah in the tap but the City stated it was perfectly safe for human consumption and that it was the chlorine that was producing those results. They aren't concerned about hobbyist.

But yes everyone posting pictures was using the API kits, including myself.

Might look into a different kit then, it would be interesting to see if there's truly any Ammonia or if it's ammonium

 

[NickAu]

Try this.

https://www.seachem.com/multitest-ammonia.php

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Seachem...497405?hash=item468b1ac23d:g:wTkAAOSwvjdZQ4kD

 

[Colin_T]

Some countries like Australia use chlorine in their tap water. This means we don't have ammonia added to the water by the water company to allegedly make the it "safe for us to drink".

Other countries like the US and UK have chloramine in their water supply. Chloramine is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia. The ammonia keeps the chlorine active for longer so it kills more stuff in the water for a longer period. This is good when the drinking water has to travel long distances or is in a warm climate, or there is lots of harmful microscopic organisms in the water. The chlorine in chloramine has more time to kill everything in the water because it remains active for longer due to the ammonia that is bound to it.

When you add a dechlorinator to water with chloramine in, the dechlorinator breaks the chlorine ammonia bond and neutralises the chlorine. However, this process releases the ammonia into the water and you then need something to bind with the ammonia so it doesn't poison the fish.

Prime breaks the chlorine ammonia bond and neutralises the chlorine. And it binds with the remaining ammonia and traps it in a harmless form for about 24 hours. During this time most established biological filters will convert the ammonia to nitrite and then nitrate. The filter bacteria should be able to do this in a few hours, which is why Prime and similar products only bind with the ammonia for about 24 hours.

 

[Essjay]

Other countries like the US and UK have chloramine in their water supply

Just for clarification - not all areas of the UK have chloramine added to tap water. It depends on the water company, many still use chlorine. And some water companies use chlorine at one treatment plant and chloramine at another.

My tap water tests at zero for ammonia (I've just checked again ) so I use API Tap Water Conditioner.

 

[Colin_T]

Do you dechlorinate the water sample before testing for ammonia?
A lot of test kits won't read ammonia when it is bound to chlorine, so you have to break the chloramine bond and then test for ammonia.