Help - Ammonia Poisening Vs Fungus

[Imke]

Hi all,

I am new to fish keeping. We had some when I was little and now we decided to buy some for my daughters 6th birthday 2 weeks ago.

After having the fish for a week we noticed they were not swimming, just 'hanging' at the bottom of the 12ltr tank and they started having 'bloodshot' fins. We also noticed 1 fish (by now both) started having a fluffy substance on her face- like cotton wool.

After initial internet research and questions at the pet shop we established high (dark green on the chart) ammonia levels and Cotton Wool Disease.

We have now started treating the ammonia poisening with regular 20% water changes, using small amounts of anti ammonia fluid and salt. I also bought some Anti fungus treatment, which I started using today. However, it says on there that you have to remove the 'carbon and Zeolite filter'.

This is where I need your help!

We bought our daughter a Marina Aquarium Kit with 'Power cartridge' in the filter. It does not say anywhere on the guide whether this includes a Carbon and Zeolite filter, and if so; how it can be removed. It does say that the filter should operate constantly.

Now, I assume (possibly wrongly) that this filter includes carbon and Zeolite filter, in which case the Anti fungus treatment won't work

If I remove the cartridge for a week whilst the fish go through their fungus treatment, this will be at the detriment to the ammonia treatment.

What do I do? Any tips? Thank you!

 

[fluttermoth]

Hi there, welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear about all your problems; I'm afraid I'm only going to make things even worse for you, but there we go....

The reason your fish are sick and have the fungus is because of the high ammonia, and thats because your filter isn't 'cycled', that means it doesn't have any of the good bacteria living in it to eat the ammonia for you. Until those bacteria grow, which will take six to eight weeks, you have to get rid of the ammonia yourself, through water changes.

You'll probably need to be doing much larger water changes than 20%; you want to get it to as near zero as possible, as soon as possible; any level of ammonia (or nitrite) higher than 0.25ppm is harmful, potentially lethal, to fish. Start by draining the tank down so there's just enough water for the fish to swim upright before refilling, making sure the new water is temperature matched and dechlorinated. If there's still ammonia present, you'll have to do another water change, and carry on doing them until it is all gone.

You'll probably be having to do at least one, possibly two, water changes every day, without fail (that's my first piece of bad news!), to stop the ammonia building back up, as fish produce it constantly.

Have a look inside your filter. It'll probably have a plastic cartridge with some floss (stuff like cotton wool) attached, and inside that will be the carbon; it'll look like little black pellets, probably. Open up the cartridge and tip all the carbon out, as it will absorb the medication, and put everything else back in the filter.

Once you've got the ammonia down, you can redose with the fungus med; you'll have to do that every time you water change, so you're going to get through a lot of medication, I'm afraid.

Now for my worst news for you; you can't keep any coldwater fish in a 12l tank. If these are 'fancy' goldfish (fantails, moors, orandas or the like, with a 'double' tail) you need a tank at least three feet long and 100l. If they're plain 'common goldfish, with a single tail, then they really need to go to a pond, although you could, with plenty of water changes, keep them in a three foot tank until the spring, but that would be it.

If they're zebra danios or platies, they would need at least a two foot tank.

 

[Imke]

Sadly they have now both died over the past days. I haev sterelised the tank etc, and will try again in a few weeks time. We ai to collect rain water this time, rather than using tap water, hoping this will give them a better start in life.

 

[fluttermoth]

Sorry for your loss

The water won't make any difference, as long as it's dechlorinated; it's the bacteria in the filter you need.

There are good instructions and information on cycling (which just means growing those good bacteria) in our beginner's resource centre; the link for that is in my sig.

I would suggest that you try and get a bigger tank, 12l really isn't big enough, and small tanks are much harder to look after than larger ones.

if you really want to keep the 12l, you're going to be very limited as to what you can keep; one male betta, or three male guppies would fully stock a tank of that size.