Panda Worries

[Curiosity101]

Well the offer is there if you do want it Izzy.

But Miss Wiggle has put up a good explanation of pro's and cons.

 

[IzzysGuppies]

Thanks very much for the offer Curiostity, and I'll have a look at the media donation link.
If there is no one nearby I may well take you up on the offer and give it a go.

Another thought, is it worth taking out a very small amount of the zeolite at a time so maybe the spongy stuff gets more of a chance to grow the bacteria whilst not taking away the zeolite altogether? I guess this is why the instructions say to replace it every month!

I have just made it back down from my first water change. I'm hoping it gets easier the more youdo it, I was using a hand pumped gravel thingy (see it was quite draining on the old brain matter) and I was paranoid I was going to suck up a panda. After I started spot and dot had a bit of a flurry near to where I was working, then they hid. I did move the two smaller ornaments and one piece of bog wood where they spend alot of their time and ruffled the gravel around plants and the other piece of bog wood. I hope this was right! Should I have moved the other bit of bog wood too? I was starting to struggle to see the pandas.

Afterwards however the 2 new pandas had a good old time and spot had a good go at some algae on the bog wood. Plop did move when encouraged to so I could move the gravel tube around but hasn't done anything since. I've still got everything crossed for him, I'm almost certain now it was him with the spot. The water taken out was a good old tea colour, I just want to get the hang of the syphon better to get more of the grot out. I also only added the conditioner and cycle to the new water going in rahter than to the tank as a whole. SO only treated the new 10l not the 50l tank, so I hope this was right too.

I don't think we'll feed them tonight, not that they have really had much at night, some nights we have tried some food after lights out but without much joy, unless you think we should.

Also should I test the water again now I have done the water change or is there a guide length of time to leave it first?

Lisa.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

leave it half an hr or o after the change before testing.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

leave it half an hr or o after the change before testing.

 

[IzzysGuppies]

Hi,
Sad news I'm afraid, Plop was fished out after being found belly up in one of his favourite haunts around 7pm. I have had a look at him and there is redness behind his armpits as it were. The other two seem ok so far.

Do panda corys like sitting up high on things? Plop did it alot and I have noticed that dot likes to sit on things, not trying to get as high up in the tank as plop did though.

I finally managed to do the water testing around 7.30ish.
pH 7.8, Nitrate 10, Nitrite 0, Ammonia 0. Now I wasn't quite so convinced about the ammonia reading as I have been, mainly due to the strenght of the sunlight comming in the window, so as I held it up, in most lights it looked 0, but facing one way I wasn't convinced, so I added 2.5ml of the cycle to possibly capture any ammonia if there was any, and if this was enought ot actually make any kind of difference in 50l of water, but then I tested again around 8.30 and was much happeir with the 0ppm reading, though that really bright sunlight had gone by then, but I did wander around with it for a bit!!

When would you recommend I do my next water change? Normally I presume it would be in a week, but should I do one before this?

I have had a quick look at possible donors locations for media, and there are possibly three on there that could be easy to get to, so I may well investigate this route a bit further. I take it this means that I could possibly take out the zeolite part and replace it with the donated media, or would it be taking the whole lot out?

night all
Lisa

 

[Curiosity101]

There is no need to remove anything other than the zeolite if you get some mature media. Unless of course the mature media wont fit into the zeolite box. In which case remove the zeo-lite anyways (as otherwise it will starve the bacteria on the mature media), and replace some of your existing filter media with the donated stuff.

Also, cycle wont be doing anything. Please google it and see some reviews. It wont be hurting to add it, but I very much doubt that there are any live bacteria in that bottle. Therefore you're literally just pouring dead bacteria into the water.

 

[IzzysGuppies]

Hi, thanks again for your help.
The fish have all been really happy today especially the panda corys, who've been swimming around this afternoon and hovering up what they can find, Spot especially has been having great feasts on the bog wood's algae. No one's touched the slice of cucumber I weighted down for them though, not even the uninvited snails!!! I'll fish it back out tomorrow if no one's started to eat it. Have just thought it is on it's edge and not flat - does this make a difference?
I do now have a new problem.... if you can still help me out.
Spot (pretty sure it is spot this time) has part of his pectoral fin on his left hand side missing. I've been trying to get a good look all day as I originally thought it may be ripped, but there is definately some missing. Theonly other difference is that Spot looks to be slightly paler than dot, but he is also the most active out of the two - quite the little show off, and the biggest eater. Do you think this could be down to the poor water - that they were subjected to? or something bacterial? and how would I tell?

Water this evening was all ok. Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10, pH 7.8

Your opinions would be greatly recieved.
Thanks,
Lisa

 

[mark1979]

ive have had 2 panda's die on me in a week and i have a fully cycled tank.

1 had a fungus infection that just come on and even with 2 different meds,didnt pull through

the 2nd just sat there like you said and i noticed that some of his barbels were realy realy short,i remoed him to my hospital tank and treated with internal bac med and he didnt make the night.

i originaly got 3 together,1 remains and is twice the size he was,he now zooms arond the tank with the other new corys i got

panda's are very strange,like said before all is ok,then suddenly they seem to just give up

 

[Miss Wiggle]

they're just quite a sensitive fish, what you need to remember is that we only test for and try to control a minute amount of the chemical levels in the water. for sure pH, ammonia and nitrite are the most important but there are all sorts of other chemical and biological processes going on in a new tank. just about anything that goes into a tank new like the substrate, decor etc will leech something into the water and eventually go inert. in a brand new tank there are all sorts of fluctuations that we can't test for as everything stabilises. particularly sensitive fish like panda's need stable conditions and therefore need a mature tank to really thrive. They also need the security of being in a group of 6 or more, in a small group like you have they feel less secure and are consequently more stressed. this combination of sensitive fish, a small group number and fluctuating water conditions as it's a new tank is not good, as I said in my first post to you I'd be surprised if any of them make it through a cycle. The fish shop should never have sold you panda cories for a new tank.

I know that doesn't help you fix things but hopefully it'll at least help you to understand the situation you are in.

where there are bits missing of the fins does it look white, red or black around the edges of the fins? if it's black it can be ammonia poisoning, if it's white or red it can be fin rot. I'd suggest even though ammonia and nitrite are fine you start doing water changes every 2 days or something like that, keep the water as clean as possible for them. But I have to be honest with you - it's not fair to give you false hope, I don't hold out much hope of the panda's making it.

 

[IzzysGuppies]

Thanks for the replies.
I did think it may have been too much to hope for, for the original pandas to survive, but I would still like to think the is hope for the other 2, I guess only time will tell.

As for Spot's fin, there is no colouration around the missing bit of fin, it is just missing. Barbels are all ok on both of them too, wheras plop's had shortened, and as such I was even more concerned, but I now think that both original pandas main problems probably stemmed from the chlorine.

It is just such a shame that its not until you've seached these forums that you realise they are so sensitive, as books, lfs and the sort of stats pages related to them all point to them being easy to look after. I'm hoping we can get it all sorted enough to be able to keep pandas on the long term as they really are super.

This leads to a general question though as to introducing fish in the first place if you want showling fish.... you can't get many at a time, but they are not happy until they are in some sort of number. Now originally, going back to when I first got the fish the lfs said leave it a week and come back to get more, now, I obviously haven't done that and won't be for a while, until I am sure the current occupants are all ok, but when I do go back, I'll probably be getting a couple more guppies, as they are less sensitive, but that leaves the pour pandas without their mates for even longer, putting more strain on them! We probably only want the two breeds in there, unless there is a really good tank mate for them as a kind of specimin fish, but although it is a 60l tank with substrate and decor there is only 50l of water, so I'm not sure if we could have anything else if we have 6/7 guppies and 6/7 pandas.

Lisa.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Well in an ideal world you'd have fishless cycled and you could have then added your full stock of guppies straight away and then a few months later when the tank had stabilised you coud add 3 pandas and another 3 a fortnight later.

What I'd suggest now is you stick it out with just the two until you've got the zeolite replaced and the tank cycled and stable then add a couple more guppies, if that goes ok then a month laterr try for some more pandas

 

[IzzysGuppies]

Hi,
So far so good.
Did another 20% water change this afternoon, and did have a really good look inside the filter.

When I looked the other day I thought I could see just black through the slits in the plastic box, well hubby prised open the box to make sure, and there is no white stuff at all, just cylindrical black chips, of what I suppose is the activated carbon rather than zeolite which the instructions said it may be, well it says in one sentance about activated carbon, zeolite.

On the presumption that this is not actually zeolite and is just activated carbon, does this mean that the panic is over in this regard, although I am presuming more sponge type filter media would be better than carbon?

I will get sorted one day, promise!

Many thanks,
Lisa.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

good stuff, assuming that the black stuff is carbon not zeolite if ammonia and nitrite are both holding steady at 0 then the tank s cycled..... don't ask me how as you don't seem to have gone through a cycle but it speaks for itself.

i'd suggest maybe taking a trip to your lfs and looking at some carbon and zeolite on the shelves there just to make sure that you are correct.

 

[IzzysGuppies]

Hi,
Thanks for your reply.
I didn't get to check the water yesterday after the water change, more than a normal hectic monday evening! but did do one however tonight.
Unfortunately I got an ammonia reading of what I think was 0.25 definately wasn't 0, Nitrite was still 0, Nitrate looked to be just under 10 and the pH had gone back up to 8.
I am wondering if this may in part be down to a fairly vigarous gravel clean yesterday? I did take out a piece of the bog wood, and although the water doesn't smell the bog wood did.
I know you don't rate cycle for its 'biological' properties, as it is supposed to help ammonia/nitrite, I did add some tonight in the hope it may do something.
Oh the snails went at this water change - they'd made a home inside one of the ornaments, and went for a wander in the container I'd put the ornament in for the duration of the clean.
I'm hoping you can offer something about this
Oh and should I be trying to get the pH back down? or is 7.8/8 ok?
Many thanks once again,
Lisa

 

[Miss Wiggle]

the pH is fine, it's fairly normal for it to fluctuate a bit in new tanks.


the ammonia reading makes a bit more sense although it's not good news, just keep up the water changes, do as many large water changes as you need every day to keep it below 0.25ppm, the fish you have are low waste producers so it may not rise very high but just keep monitoring it for now and let us know how you get on.

although it doesn't necessarily mean anything major, sometimes when you clean you actually stir up a load of waste into the water column and consequently get a little blip of ammonia for a day or two, this might be all it is, just have to wait and see how the results develop over a few days.