Platy's Dieing

[Richard22b]

Having issues with fish in my tank.
We are loseing platy's about 1 a month at the moment. They start swimming upright and upside down then just die.
I thought was swim bladder but done the treatment and has never cured any of them. Just setup a hospital tank now to start moving them out as soon as symptoms appear.

Can anyone give any suggestions on what to try.

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Richard and to TFF,

Can you give us some other details. It will make sorting it out a bit easier.

Tank size?
What fish do you have?
What do you add to your water?
Ammonia?
Nitrite?
Nitrate?
pH?
kH?
Feeding routine?
Water change routine?

Cheers

BTT

 

[Richard22b]

Thanks for coming back to me.

Tank size - 90 litres

What fish do you have - 5 hatchets, 2 plec, 1 siamese fighting fish, 5 Platy (was 8), 2 Neons, 2 cherry shrimp, 4 bamboo shrimp

What do you add to your water -
water change: Nutrafin aqua plus and nutrafine cycle.
Api aquariam salt in small amounts so not to hurt the shrimp

Before last water change on sunday:
Ammonia - 0.25
Nitrite - 1
Nitrate - 40
pH - 7.8
kH - unknown
Feeding routine - daily once
Water change routine - every other week.

Todays Test just now:
Ammonia - 0.25
Nitrite - 0.15
Nitrate - 40


We just had a spike of nitrite and nitrate and ammonia but I've put this down to the fact i just changed the white filter sponge in the external filter.

The fish have been dieing even when we were reading 0ppm

 

[Richard22b]

Having issues with fish in my tank.
We are loseing platy's about 1 a month at the moment. They start swimming upright and upside down then just die.
I thought was swim bladder but done the treatment and has never cured any of them. Just setup a hospital tank now to start moving them out as soon as symptoms appear.

Can anyone give any suggestions on what to try.

Anyone?

 

[LauraFrog]

The ammonia and nitrite is not a good thing, so doing some extra water changes to get it down won't hurt, but platys should be able to tolerate that much without dying on you. Besides, you said they were fine at 0ppm anyway.

Are the fish that die skinny, and how do they act in the week or so before the odd swimming starts?

 

[Richard22b]

The ammonia and nitrite is not a good thing, so doing some extra water changes to get it down won't hurt, but platys should be able to tolerate that much without dying on you. Besides, you said they were fine at 0ppm anyway.

Are the fish that die skinny, and how do they act in the week or so before the odd swimming starts?

The fish aren't usually skinny. they look as they did before. Just seem to start swimming upside down and upright. I treat with swim bladder but never resolves the issue.

 

[cooldude]

Your tank is not fully cycled. Do not add more fish. Ammonia/Nitrite should be 0. Nitrate close to 0. Fish can tolerate nitrate of about 20ppm, anything above stresses them out.

To prevent high nitrate buildup add plants. These consume the nitrate.

See how I cycled the tank:

http/aquarium-setup.blogspot.com/

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree that your tank is not cycled. You need to be much more aggressive about water changes as you are in what we call a "fish-in cycling situation." The members here can get you straightened out.

As an emergency thing when you read this, you need to do a 50 to 70% water change, using conditioner to remove the chlorine/chloramine and rough temperature matching. Wait a half hour or so and see how close this brought the ammonia and nitrite(NO2) down to zero. If either the ammonia or nitrite(NO2) are still at 0.25ppm or above then immediately do the same thing again. This is going to constitute the basics of your water change technique.

Meanwhile, take stats on your tap (source) water and post here the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH readings for that so that the members can judge whether there are any special problems that might arise from the water changes themselves. In cases where there is ammonia in the source water, for instance, its sometimes necessary to perform smaller but more frequent water changes.

Another thing you need to discuss are the details of the actual filter (make, model, size) and all the media types that are inside it. Its important that we determine that there is not zeolite (a chemical filtration media) and that there is enough media to constitute a workable biofilter. And it would be nice to confirm that the filter is sufficient for the stocking of the tank.

Also the salt will have to be discussed, but that can wait as its not as much of an emergency as the ammonia and nitrite poisoning of course. Nitrite(NO2), causes permanent nerve damage, via fish blood hemoglobin destruction and this could be involved in the upside-down swimming symptoms. Ammonia causes permanent gill damage and this could also be involved. I agree with the above that platies are among the hardiest fish at withstanding these poisons, but these basic problems are still the first things to attack and to eliminate.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. Welcome to TFF!

 

[Richard22b]

Updates Below:
Yes, agree that your tank is not cycled. You need to be much more aggressive about water changes as you are in what we call a "fish-in cycling situation." The members here can get you straightened out.

As an emergency thing when you read this, you need to do a 50 to 70% water change, using conditioner to remove the chlorine/chloramine and rough temperature matching. Wait a half hour or so and see how close this brought the ammonia and nitrite(NO2) down to zero. If either the ammonia or nitrite(NO2) are still at 0.25ppm or above then immediately do the same thing again. This is going to constitute the basics of your water change technique.
Performed 50% change

Meanwhile, take stats on your tap (source) water and post here the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH readings for that so that the members can judge whether there are any special problems that might arise from the water changes themselves. In cases where there is ammonia in the source water, for instance, its sometimes necessary to perform smaller but more frequent water changes.
Will test this asap.

Another thing you need to discuss are the details of the actual filter (make, model, size) and all the media types that are inside it. Its important that we determine that there is not zeolite (a chemical filtration media) and that there is enough media to constitute a workable biofilter. And it would be nice to confirm that the filter is sufficient for the stocking of the tank.
Eheim Ecco Filter. 3 levels of substrate and 2 filter medias.
- product type: 2034020
- for aquariua from 100 up to 200 litres
- Power consumption: 230 V/ 50 Hz 5 W
- Pump output: 600 l/h
- Pump head: 1,4 m
- Filter volume 2.0 l + 0.3 l (prefilter)
- Canister volume: 4.0 l
- Dimesnions: 205x355 mm ( diameter x height)


Also the salt will have to be discussed, but that can wait as its not as much of an emergency as the ammonia and nitrite poisoning of course. Nitrite(NO2), causes permanent nerve damage, via fish blood hemoglobin destruction and this could be involved in the upside-down swimming symptoms. Ammonia causes permanent gill damage and this could also be involved. I agree with the above that platies are among the hardiest fish at withstanding these poisons, but these basic problems are still the first things to attack and to eliminate.
Have to be slightly careful with salt due to shrimps. Were advised not to use it much.

Plant wise I have a number of plants and moss balls. Plus Co2 kit. A fairly green tank.

Thank you for all the help so far.

 

[waterdrop]

OK, good, I like how clear your communication is. Bold typeface is pretty handy!

But Richard(!), gotta say your rhythm and timing are a bit slow compared to what I was thinking..

By emergency water changes and testing, I was thinking... ah... two sets of tests per day and possibly multiple water changes per day if necessary! But that's ok, we'll get there.

You've given one good piece of data: The filter flow rate of 600lph on your 90L tank will be giving you more than 5x turnover... very good!

Did you put the standard eheim media types in there? We want to know about kinds of media you've got in there ehfi substrat?, coarse blue sponge?, fine white filter pad?, ceramic gravel, ceramic rings, carbon etc.???

What's the make/model of your test kit? Are you going to be able to test more often?

When you've changed the water every other week, how much do you change?

Do you use a gravel vac siphon to clean the gravel whenever you do a water change?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Richard22b]

Here's a quicker reply.
Water changes are currently weekly, 2-3 buckets which is around a 3rd. And yes always do a full gravel clean with that.

Yes to standard eheim filter media being white filter, blue filter and the ceramic gravel.

Test kit: API freshwater master test kit. I can test as often as you recommend

did a KH GH test today and completely lost with the results. 8 KH drops and 16 GH drops. the instructions completely bafling on how to convert that to a reading. any help with that?

Cheers
Richard

 

[cooldude]

Here's a quicker reply.
Water changes are currently weekly, 2-3 buckets which is around a 3rd. And yes always do a full gravel clean with that.
Cheers
Richard

Do not do a full gravel clean. The beneficial bacteria build up on the gravel, decorations, and mainly filter.
Use a python gravel cleaner to do gravel cleaning.

http/aquarium-setup.blogspot.com/

 

[waterdrop]

did a KH GH test today and completely lost with the results. 8 KH drops and 16 GH drops. the instructions completely bafling on how to convert that to a reading. any help with that?

Usually its easy: One drop is one german degree (which is the scale we use in the aquarium hobby all the time) so you've probably got KH=8 and GH=16, which means you haven't got any soft water problems. You have a nice high pH=7.8 and your water hardness will buffer this nice pH and keep it up there even when the cycling process adds acids to the water and tries to drive the pH down, which can result in the bacteria not being able to reproduce. Double check your instructions, but I think you should find the "one drop per" to be the case.

Well, the important thing is that you're probably still in a fish-in cycling situation, regardless of what's causing it. So the important thing is to always take action when this is the case. Begin testing twice a day, preferably at a morning and evening time that allows you to be pretty much 12 hours apart, usually a convenient morning and evening time when you'll likely be home. Test ammonia, nitrite(NO2) and pH and log them for yourself.

The goal is to be a detective and figure out a percentage and frequency of water changes such that when you next come back and test 12 hours later, you find that neither ammonia nor nitrite(NO2) has managed to rise above 0.25ppm. If it has then you need to increase the percentage or frequency of your water changes, if its staying closer to zero then you might be able to ease downward on changes, you just have to be the judge.

Anyway, just wanted to get you started on that and next up, once you've got that under control, the members will probably be able to keep interacting to figure out perhaps why this is happening to you so far from when the tank was started.

Not sure there about cooldude's comment. Even if you were showing double-zeros on ammonia and nitrite, your tank would benefit from very thorough gravel cleans each weekend, with whatever percentage of water comes out to accomplish that, up to 60% or so. Unless there is some problem with tap water I'm forgetting, large ones for maintenance should be fine. Although beneficial bacteria does form on all tank surfaces, including gravel, it is an insignificant contribution compared to the filter, because only in the filter is fresh oxygenated water with some ammonia flowing past all the bacteria on a regular basis. Getting organic debris out of the tank prior to it being converted to ammonia will lower the overall ammonia/nitrite load the struggling filter is trying to handle.

~~waterdrop~~