Newbie With Some Weird Problems, But Not The Normal Ones :-)

[AlexHaden]

Ok then,

Just started with this whole tropical fish lark, and somethings gone Fishy!

We bought a 120l tank, cycled it, and went ahead and bought 4 marble molly's and 3 sunset platty's (i think thats what they were)

Everything was fine - doing all of the normal water changes, weekly checks on water quality and everything has been perfect - however yesterday one of the platty's started sittinga round, and struggling at the bottom of the tank. We thought it could have been swim bladder infection so ran out and got some traetment and dosed the tank.


Next morning the platty was dead. After removing it, one of the other 2 platty's (dont laugh) seems to be depressed. He/She just sits around, (used to swim around) _ untill its feeding time, and then he/she truns into the fastest fish around and races to the food.

Now another weird thing - the molly's who have all be getting on brialliantly for the past week - one of the little bugger's has started to attack the other three - It seems to be hanging around the sad looking platty and keeping the others away.

Can someone please tell me that im not going mad? Is there anything that could be casuing this sudden change in behaviour, and do i need to worry about the depressed platty?

Also - we have so many people advising us on feeding - ranging from feed them as much as they can eat - to a tiny amount each day, to two or three small amounts daily.


We were feeding 2 small flakes crushed up in the morning and then again in the evening...is that too much? There doesnt seem to be any information on how much is really enough - as we dont want to starve them, but we dont want to overfeed them either. Could we have killed the platty by overfeeding

Thanks in advance!

 

[modaz]

how long has your tank been set up before putting in the fish?
what are your stats?
they should only be fed once a day but starving wouldnt be an issue, if you have over fed them then your stats will be high so take a look

 

[rdd1952]

I have been fortunate to have my tanks remain disease free so I'm certainly no expert on diseases. And since I don't keep livebearers, I don't know much about them either. I will say that knowing your water stats would help. You say they have been perfect but it still helps to know exactly what the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH are. How long had the tank been running when you added the fish and how did you cycle it?

Generally, swim bladder isn't curable. The symptoms for constipation are very similar and that is curable. The best remedy for that is simply feeding a cooked pea with the skin removed. I usually try to isolate the fish, withhold food for 2 days and then feed him the pea but it's fine to feed the whole tank as fish generally love them.

I don't think you're over feeding. general concensus is to feed them what they can eat in 3 to 5 minutes. If there is food left after that time, it was probably too much.

 

[AlexHaden]

Hi,

Ph is 7
Ammonia is at 0
Nitrate is around 15,
Niterite is 0.1

Tank was cycled for 3 weeks before i added any fish.

If it was constipation, can they die from that?

 

[modaz]

Hi,

Ph is 7
Ammonia is at 0
Nitrate is around 15,
Niterite is 0.1

Tank was cycled for 3 weeks before i added any fish.

If it was constipation, can they die from that?

a water change is required to bring your nitrates down, thats prob the cause, i know that its below 50 but some fish react different to others to nitrates

ideally a 120L should be cycled for 5-8 weeks before fish added and then the fish should be hardy fish....hope this helps you out

 

[rdd1952]

Constipation will eventually turn into swim bladder and yes it is usually fatal.

Your stats do look ok although a reading on ammonia or nitrite other than 0 means the tank isnt completely cycled. When you say you cycled it, do you mean you set it up and added ammonia to build a bacteria colony or that you just added the water and let it run for 3 weeks? There is a difference and unless there is an ammonia source, the tank isn't cycling.

In any case, it looks like you are close to being cycled. Be careful of antibiotics though as quite a few of them will not only kill the bacteria causing the disease but also your nitrifying bacteria so you tank will be uncycled. That is why it is better to treat only the sick fish in a hospital tank.

a water change is required to bring your nitrates down, thats prob the cause, i know that its below 50 but some fish react different to others to nitrates

I don't think that's an issue. It really takes a nitrate reading of over 100 to become an issue. I'm sure all my tanks will test out at over 15 ppm on nitrate if I tested them. Nitrate at 15 to 30 is pretty much normal. And a 33% water change (larger than normal for most people) would only lower them from 15 to 10.

 

[AlexHaden]

Hi,

We added the bacterial stuff to the water while we were cycling.

Ta

 

[rdd1952]

The bacterial starters don't really work. Even if there were bacteria in the bottle, if you didn't add an ammonia source after putting it in, they would have died from lack of food. I found this thread yesterday and thought the following from it was interesting:

"It is important to know what bacteria are really responsible for nitrification because, in order to mimic nature, we have to understand what we are trying to copy," Hovanec wrote. "There are many brands of bacterial mixtures for jump starting or accelerating the break-in period of newly set-up aquariums on the market. On what basis were they formulated? From research that has been done thus far we know that just putting some N. europæa and Nitrobacter winogradskyi in a bottle does not work."

This article also had the following statement:

"Most liquid type bacterial products available in the pet industry contain little or no true nitrifying bacteria. Instead, they rely on their ability to maintain tolerable levels of ammonia until naturally occurring Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter bacteria can become established."

As I said, it sounds like you are almost cycled now.

 

[AlexHaden]

Hi,

Thanks for the info, we are trying to be good - dont want to cause any unsessecary upset to the the little things...

Just had a look at the agressive mollie, and she looks all bloated. Theres no males in the tank after checking for those fin things, so she hopefully not pregnant...could she be consipated and should i try feeding a pea?

Thanks again, its really appreciated

 

[rdd1952]

She could very well be prgenant. Livebearers can store sperm for several months (have heard conjecture of 2 to 6 months but don't know which is correct) so they can easily have fry several times despite the lack of a male.