Restocking Disaster

[denzil1nil]

done a 30% water change rinsing the filter sponges in the syphoned water switched the lights off and coverd the front glass so its nice and dark for them and plan to do another 30% water change tomorrow.

Ive noticed my tank is starting to get a build up of brown algae so I cleaned what I could like the heater and filters (also in the syphoned water). could this brown algae be an indication of something else???.

My plants are also struggling and are not looking very clever, there growing but im having to constantly take off dying leaves.

I really need some help plz all i want is a nice healthy tank.

 

[denzil1nil]

Bump help plz fish are getting worse

 

[CezzaXV]

How long ago was your last water change when you tested 0.25ppm in your tank? Although there is 0.25ppm in your tap water, a cycled filter should clear that in no time. If there is ammonia in your water, it certainly won't be helping the fish to heal.

 

[Gilli]

I dont think it can be fin rot as it wouldnt happen in a matter of hours when you added your new fish. I think there is a lot of fighting going on resulting in torn fins which in turn leads to stress, and wounds combined with the fishes immune systems going down because of stress is causing infection problems. Your best bet is to dose with a broad range med and do plenty of water changes as this will aid recovery (but dont forget to re-dose the water you are taking out).

Brown algae in an established tank is usally diatoms. Increased water changes or more thorough substrate cleaning may be necessary.

You need to have at least x 6 neons and really keep as many tetras as your tank will allow because they are nippy and there will be a lot of fighting to sort out the pecking order so the more you have the more the 'bashing' is spread about!

 

[5teady_2012]

when using salt in your tank, it does not reduce stress. when using medications, you put salt in with to enhance the meds, your problem sounds to me like You have something is nipping at thier fins i think.

pimafix and melafix (made by API) will sort out the damaged fins, but they aint cheap.
Another good medication is myxazin.

do a 40% waterc change, up the heat by a couple of degrees too.

 

[Prime Ordeal]

Bump help plz fish are getting worse

The brown stuff is most likely diatom algae which usually occurs at the end of a cycle when the nitrite and nitrate are at a very high level. So my first guess would be that your nitrite and/or nitrate kit may be giving a faulty reading. Is it an API kit and are you aware that you need to bang and shake the hell out of bottle number two of the nitrate test before using it?

Second I can't find the dechlorinator you mention, can you read the bottle again and post what it is? Yours may be one that doesn't detoxify the ammonia which leaves your fish sitting in 0.25ppm ammonia every time you do a water change.

Third remove all salt by making a massive water change.

Basically water changes with an ammonia detoxifying dechlorinator, like Seachem Prime, should solve the problem.

 

[denzil1nil]

last water change was 30% yesterday and will be doing another later my reading is allways 0.25ppm on amonia but after reading a subject about the api master kit colour charts on here i t may be that im getting a false reading and could well be at 0ppm ammonia i wont be able to test this out for my self until i can afford a better testing kit. Saying that though whenever i get the lfs to test using there kit they get a reading of 0ppm

When cleaning my tank i usually do 30-40% water changes weekley allways have done and i allways vacumn my gravel pretty well. I read in my fluval manual that the brown algae is down to poor lighting but ive recently upgraded my lighting from a single tube set up to a twin bulb set up (I replace bulbs every 6-8 months).

Im quiet cartain i have the beginnings of fin rot as ive recently had it . I medicated with Myxazin but this didnt really seem to help. So i ended up culling the infected fish and doing plenty of water changes and then when i had no finrot i rehomed my rainbow shark, female fighter and crabs.

I am unsure about adding anymore neons or anything else as i dont want to cause problems with the filter coping with extra bio loads and as i seem to have an outbreak of finrot would it not just be asking for trouble adding more stock at this time.

hope i dont sound like one of them people asking for help and then sounding like i dont want to be helped and know what im on about im just trying to make sense of it and do whats best for my fishys.

5teady have you had to treat for this before? If so which med did you use and how did you dose e.g. to the labels instructions or ive seen people advise that you do two courses of treatment.

 

[denzil1nil]

yeah using an api liquid kit and give the bottle a good bash and do plenty of arm acheing shaking.

I have added no salt to the tank at all ever.

The dechlorinator is - Nutrafin water conditioner, Aquaplus, the label reads Improves tap water quality by removing chlorine and chloramine, neutralises heavy metals, patented formula reduces stress,coats,protects,promotes healing, for fresh and saltwater, and i cant believe this but this is a new bottle i opened last night and used for my last water change and the bottles a year and 2 months out of date.

flippin marvelous lol one thing after another.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

http/www.aquacadabra.co.uk/Seachem-Pond-Prime-2lts.html (Pond Prime is exactly the same composition as standard Prime, but dose it at tank rather than pond levels i.e. 5ml per 200 litres standard dose, can be used at upto 5x dose safely to neutralise ammonia/nitrite/nitrate for upto 24 hours). Add another £12 worth of good to the order and then postage is free.

I swear by Aquacadabra for Pond Prime and other essentials, time after time I get rapid delivery and when things go wrong (eg. I broke my Aqua Medic Nanoprop 5000 powerhead installation kit while doing a dummy run), they very quickly helped me out and got a replacement installation kit sent to me for free.

 

[Prime Ordeal]

The dechlorinator is - Nutrafin water conditioner, Aquaplus, the label reads Improves tap water quality by removing chlorine and chloramine, neutralises heavy metals, patented formula reduces stress,coats,protects,promotes healing, for fresh and saltwater, and i cant believe this but this is a new bottle i opened last night and used for my last water change and the bottles a year and 2 months out of date.

flippin marvelous lol one thing after another.

From what I can gather on the internet Nutrafin aquaplus does not detoxify ammonia. It does deal with chloramine but that's not the same thing as that leaves ammonia which needs to be dealt with separately and this does not appear to. So even if your bottle was in date it still isn't detoxifying the 0.25ppm of ammonia you have in your tap water and your putting that in the tank!

Also I noted that you took one and a half hours to introduce the fish to the tank, does that mean they were in the bag for all of that time? If so there would have been a substantial build up of ammonia which would not have helped matters. As a matter of routine I always add a drop or two of ammonia-detoxifying dechlorinator to the bag straight away when I open it and a suitable amount to the tank and I've never have any issues with newly introduced fish.

 

[denzil1nil]

Thanks nobody of the goat prime on order and thanks prime ordeal for taking the time to look i couldnt really find anything helpfull. I am unsure if my test kit is giving a correct reading for ammonia after what i read on here about there being two different test chart colurs for the ammonia test and my lfs getting a reading of 0ppm ammonia also.

When i introduced the fish i opend the bag and left it for 30 mins in the water to get temp the equal and then added a small amount of tank water to the bag.
After another 30 min i added a good dose of tank water to the bag.
After another 30 min i released the fish into the water with care.

I did it this way for a change so that they would be less stressed as they are quiet skittish when first introduced. (I kept 5 for a year before i got finrot and 4 died.)

 

[denzil1nil]

Prime ordeal do you also use the prime dechlorinator in your set up(s)

 

[denzil1nil]

if my test kit is correct and I am at 0.25ppm ammonia and my filters are mature then why are they not eating the excess ammonia???

Im going to get the mrs to show me how to use one of them digitil camera thingys and put some pics up later to give you a better idea of the tank.

 

[Prime Ordeal]

Yes I do use Prime as my main dechlorinator, it's hard to beat in pure cost terms.

And Even though I usually recommend API test kits I only do so on the basis of reasonable performance against relatively low cost. They do have their problems though either through dodgy batches or just because the user is not using them properly.

The ammonia test is a point in case. There always seems to be confusion about the lowest level readings, i.e. between 0 and 0.25, but a true zero ammonia will (should) always be yellow without a hint of green tinge. The way to really tell is to stand the vial on the white of the card and look down from the top in good light. If it's yellow then it's zero, anything else and it's not.

Another check is to test some distilled water or other source known not to contain ammonia and stand that next to your tank test, that usually makes it clearer as to whether the tank is zero ammonia or not.

As to why your ammonia is not getting processed if it is actually 0.25, well it may be being processed but it won't be instant, so it depends when you test after adding new water.

 

[denzil1nil]

it stays at 0.25 from the tap and never goes up or down once in the tank and i change water at least every seven days no less.

Would yo know if bottled mineral water should read at 0ppm???