Need Help

[Ambermmay]

I have a 10 gallon aquarium. About 5 months old.

Recently did ich x treatment.

Have tried a lot of different heaters (4) so temp has not been constant. (None would heat the tank to 80 and were returned one after another. Now have a 300 watt heater in the tank put in earlier today)

I'm just at a lost what to do. I have spent a lot of money and only have three fish left alive. One is clearly dying as it is swimming almost vertically its tail at the ground and head upwards. Their poop is clear which i have read could mean they have internal parasites.

I dont want to let them die I am just not sure what the next step is.

I just got the master test kit in today. I'm sure they need a water change because some of the things seem high but i have also been told all the water changes i did with the ich x(30% every day for 2 weeks) ruined any cycle i had.

I have a 15 gallon column tank that has just water in it. I dont have the money to buy another heater air bubble thing thermometer gravel etc for it right now though so not even sure if i should bother testing that water no live fish in it.

I kept guppies when i was a teenager. Little 10 gallon tank didnt do anything to it at all not even water changes i just replaced the water that evaporated out. None of my fish died. Now i am an adult doing every thing i can and all my fish are dying. Just seems messed up and weird. Maybe guppies are more hardy than platy but everywhere i read says platy are hardy fish.

 

[Colin_T]

A 300 watt heater is too big for a 10 gallon tank. A 100watt heater is normally fine and should have been able to get the temperature to 80F. If the aquarium is in a very cold room, then a higher wattage heater (150 or 200 watt) will be better to use. But in a normal house a 100 watt heater should be fine.

Most aquarium heaters are adjustable and have a dial at the top, which you turn clockwise or anti-clockwise to increase/ decrease the temperature. You should also have a thermometer in the water to tell you exactly what the temperature is.

What fish are you keeping?
Most fish don't need to be kept at 80F and will be fine at 75-79F.

--------------------------
Looking at the first 4 images you have high ammonia and high nitrite levels and a pH around 7.4. This will kill most fish very quickly. Your fish are dying from ammonia and nitrite poisoning. Anything that breaks down in the water (fish food, fish waste, dead fish, dead plant) produce ammonia. This is normally broken down by beneficial bacteria that live in the filter. If the bacteria have been killed then the ammonia builds up and poisons the fish. Ammonia is made worse when the pH is above 7.0.

You should reduce feeding to 2-3 times per week and do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate 4-8 hours after feeding. You should also do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate any day you have an ammonia or nitrite reading above 0, or a nitrate reading above 20ppm.

Once the ammonia and nitrite levels remain on 0, you can start feeding more often and do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate once a week.

Do not clean the filter until it has settled and you have not had any ammonia or nitrite readings for at least 2 weeks (preferably 4 weeks).

Do not get any more fish until things have settled down and you have had no ammonia or nitrite readings for at least 1 month, and no fish have died for at least 1 month.

 

[Ambermmay]

The 300 watt heater has been in there all day with me keeping an eye on the temperature. The heater keeps the temperature about 5 degrees warmer than I have it set to. I have it set to 83 degrees, the temp of the tank is 88 degrees. The pattern seems to be the tank cools to about 86 degrees before the heater turns on again then the little heater light turns off when it hits 88 degrees.

The house is a constant 70 degrees, now and then we turn the heat down to 69 or up to 71 if we are chilly/warm. The 50 watt heaters would get the temperature up to 68 degrees and no more(tried each out for at least a day). That was following the 5 watts/gallon rule I saw online. The 100 watt heater got the temp up to about 70 degrees but wouldn't go much higher than that before turning off. The bar went from thin to thick, with minus at the thin end and plus at the thick end, i had it turned all the way to the plus sign as far as it would go. It was in the tank for about two days and the highest i saw it go was almost 72.

There are three platy in the tank. I've read 90 degrees is the max temperature for platy. I want the heat up in case any ich survived and hoping the warm temperature may kill other parasites as well, thats the goal in having the tank so warm.

I thought the ph was 8.0 i have never used the kit before though so may be matching the colors wrong. But 6.8-8.0 is the range i read was good for platy.

I wonder if the plant in the tank, java moss, is dying, it is still green, i have it tied to a small piece of wood with acrylic yarn(I read was safe in aquarium and identified the yarn with a burn test plus its label, people use them for spawn mops).

I have a sponge filter on its way. Should be here thursday. The filter currently in the tank is a carbon filter and it absorbed the ich medicine so i felt leaving it in there would be unsafe, as i have read carbon can break down and actually become toxic to fish. i haven't removed the filter yet but that was my next step, plus thinking that the medicine might leak out of the carbon somehow(idk if it will that was just something i was worried about)

The fish that is swimming horribly is also really skinny, he has been slender since i got him but has lost weight since. Probably another sign of internal worms or something, would reducing the feeding kill him faster? Maybe i should put him in the column tank alone so i can offer him more food without messing up the 10 gallon? Can boil and toss in some acrylic yarn to give him hiding place

I've done a 25% water change today. I can go ahead and change out more of the water now.

 

[Guppylover3x]

The 300 watt heater has been in there all day with me keeping an eye on the temperature. The heater keeps the temperature about 5 degrees warmer than I have it set to. I have it set to 83 degrees, the temp of the tank is 88 degrees. The pattern seems to be the tank cools to about 86 degrees before the heater turns on again then the little heater light turns off when it hits 88 degrees.

The house is a constant 70 degrees, now and then we turn the heat down to 69 or up to 71 if we are chilly/warm. The 50 watt heaters would get the temperature up to 68 degrees and no more(tried each out for at least a day). That was following the 5 watts/gallon rule I saw online. The 100 watt heater got the temp up to about 70 degrees but wouldn't go much higher than that before turning off. The bar went from thin to thick, with minus at the thin end and plus at the thick end, i had it turned all the way to the plus sign as far as it would go. It was in the tank for about two days and the highest i saw it go was almost 72.

There are three platy in the tank. I've read 90 degrees is the max temperature for platy. I want the heat up in case any ich survived and hoping the warm temperature may kill other parasites as well, thats the goal in having the tank so warm.

I thought the ph was 8.0 i have never used the kit before though so may be matching the colors wrong. But 6.8-8.0 is the range i read was good for platy.

I wonder if the plant in the tank, java moss, is dying, it is still green, i have it tied to a small piece of wood with acrylic yarn(I read was safe in aquarium and identified the yarn with a burn test plus its label, people use them for spawn mops).

I have a sponge filter on its way. Should be here thursday. The filter currently in the tank is a carbon filter and it absorbed the ich medicine so i felt leaving it in there would be unsafe, as i have read carbon can break down and actually become toxic to fish. i haven't removed the filter yet but that was my next step, plus thinking that the medicine might leak out of the carbon somehow(idk if it will that was just something i was worried about)

The fish that is swimming horribly is also really skinny, he has been slender since i got him but has lost weight since. Probably another sign of internal worms or something, would reducing the feeding kill him faster? Maybe i should put him in the column tank alone so i can offer him more food without messing up the 10 gallon? Can boil and toss in some acrylic yarn to give him hiding place

I've done a 25% water change today. I can go ahead and change out more of the water now.

Welcome to the forum. I am sorry to hear about the problems you are experiencing. Guppies tend to do well with a a temperature of around 24-27c. I agree with Colin that a 100w is the very maximum size that should be in a 10 gallon tank. When you can, it would be useful to look into getting an air pump. There really easy to set up and you can get all sorts of little ornaments. Other options are available too such as blocks of bubble walls. I’d personally only have one of these in a big tank though. Unfortunately guppies don’t have the ability to breathe air. An air pump provides the correct amount of oxygen in the water and prevents your fish from gulping at the surface. Best of luck.

 

[Colin_T]

The aquarium heater dropping 2 degrees before coming back on is due to the heater size (300w) and the water volume (10g). A 300w heater is designed for 60+ gallons so in the smaller volume of water it isn't working as hard, or as accurately.

If your house is 70F then the tank water should be 70F too. If the thermometer in the tank water was reading lower than 70F, then either the thermometer in the tank is dodgy or the thermostat on the heater in the house is dodgy.

-------------------------
90F is the maximum temperature for most tropical fish and will kill most fish if there isn't sufficient aeration/ surface turbulence to keep the oxygen levels in the water at high enough levels.

86F will kill whitespot parasites within a few days and 90F will definitely kill any that are left over. If you are using heat to kill whitespot, you raise the temperature to 86F and keep it there for 2 weeks, then lower it back down. You must increase aeration and keep the water clean during this time otherwise the fish suffocate.

If you did a full course of whitespot treatment there shouldn't be any parasites left in the tank. If the fish show white dots on their body or fins then they still have it and the medication didn't work.

If you have high ammonia and nitrite levels in warm water and low oxygen levels, the fish will be suffering.

-------------------------
Livebearers (platies, swordtails, guppies, mollies) need a pH above 7.0. Your pH is fine for them, however any ammonia produced in water with a pH above 7.0 will be more toxic and do more damage to the fish. Having said this, do not try to lower the pH, just do big (75%) water changes to dilute the ammonia and nitrite.

I had another look at your pictures of the pH and your pH is at the point where the high range test starts and low range test finishes and is fine for livebearers.

-------------------------
As long as the Java Moss remains green it is alive and well. If it turns brown and mushy it is dead.

If you add some more live plants to the tank, they will use some of the ammonia and help reduce the level. Floating plants are the best for this and Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides/ cornuta) is probably the best plant for the job. It grows rapidly on the surface and provides plenty of places for livebearers to hang out, and if the fish breed, the babies can hide in them. The plant can also be planted in the gravel where it grows into a lovely light green shrub.

-------------------------
Carbon does not break down but sudden changes in temperature or water chemistry can cause it to release whatever it has adsorbed.
eg: you have the carbon in a cold water tank and stick it straight into hot water, it can release whatever it adsorbed.

eg: you have carbon in a freshwater aquarium and put it into a saltwater aquarium it can release whatever it has adsorbed.

Having said this, you should remove carbon after it has been used to remove chemicals from water because it will not adsorb anything else when it is full.

When you remove the carbon you can replace it with a sponge. If you have a filter pad with carbon inside the pad, you can cut a small opening in the pad and tip the carbon out and throw the carbon away. Then squeeze the pad in a bucket of tank water until it is clean and put it back in the filter.

When cleaning sponges and other filter media, squeeze them out in a bucket of tank water until they are clean, then put them in the tank. Wash the filter under tap water and then reassemble the filter with the media that is in the tank, and get the filter going.

-------------------------
If the skinny fish has intestinal worms or gill flukes, and you reduce the amount of food it gets, then its condition will worsen much quicker than if it was fed well. If you treat the tank with Praziquantel, it will kill any tapeworms and gill flukes and the fish won't suffer as badly if you reduce the food.

Intestinal worms and gill flukes suck the blood out of the fish. The less food the fish gets, the less blood it can make and the faster it dies from low blood pressure or lack of blood.

If you move him into the other tank you can feed him more often but you will need to do water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrite levels at 0.

Personally, I would do a 75% water change and gravel clean the main tank, and then treat the tank with Praziquantel, then do another 75% water change 24 hours after treating it. Make sure you remove the carbon before treating the fish. The big water changes will dilute the ammonia and nitrite much more effectively than a 25% water change, and deworming the tank will kill any flukes and worms infecting the fish so they won't be losing as much blood to the parasites. Re-treat the tank once a week for 3-4 weeks and the fish should have regained some weight during that time. The filter should also have recovered and you will be able to feed them more often.