Ugh... Whitespots!!

[Feline]

It's my first new tank and I bought the fishies (see my signature) on last Wednesday and Thursday. 2 days after, the Platy died and I found whitespots all over its body so my tank got infected! The pet shop compensated with a free medicine (WS3).

So they've been treated with WS3 (half dose as I have Clown loaches and neons) for 3 days, combined with salt treatment. Temperature's raised to 82F. Whitespots diminished but other complications arised

BUT One neon has gillrot and discoloration and I guess the most probable cause is the rise in algae. I also found some white deposit on the side of the corner next to the filter (I took out the carbon).

Question: Can someone please give me advice on how to get rid of algae / cure my fish apart from adding more chemicals in? I've already do a 50% change of water today. Thanks!!

ps. pH 7.2 - Ammonia 0.5 to 1 (I've put ammonia remover after)

 

[William]

Erm feline if this is a new tank you need to cycle it, I think the problems with the disease is due to the ammonia, putting the ammonia remover is good but will not help the cycle as if it removes ammonia then the bacteria will not grow and your tank will never cycle.

You mentioned taking out the carbon did you do this during the medication or afterwards? Carbon will remove the medications from the water

The growth of algae is unlikely to have caused your neons problems. How many fish do you actually have and how big is your tank? Keep treating with whitespot control 48 hours after the disappearance of the last symptoms if this applies to prevent any still residing in the tank. The white deposit is above the water? If so its probably a calcium deposit which has been left now that water has evaporated and just signifies that you have hard water.

For your neon the decolourisation sounds horribly like neon tetra disease, does it look like this:

?

 

[Feline]

Thanks for the reply William, I've left the tank for 10 days before putting the fishies in, and the manager in the petshop has tested the water for me, saying it's ok. So I guess my tank has cycled?

I took out the carbon after the medication, because like you said, it'll remove the medicine and I don't want that to happen.

Mine is a 72 litre (15.8 UK gallon) and I have 16 fishies inside, the longest one no more than 5cm. The white deposit is on the side of the tank, not the top, just like algae sticking on the glass of the tank.

The one Black Neon has one side of the gill reddened, like disappeared (?) and the whole body turned paler, not as black as before. And it stays on near the surface of water, gasping. Is it a fungal disease? (hopefully not the disease you mentioned. I heard it's hard to cure!)

After the water change, the male swordtail acts weird! He stays at the bottom of the filter, swinging his body left and right repeatedly (other than that, he's like sleeping), and one of his gills is becoming pinkish!

Are they having a osmotic stress (of salt) or fungal disease of the gills or others?

 

[Feline]

This is getting more serious!! I just came home from dinner and found 4 of my fishies start to develop red gills!! So my husband tested the water and the ammonia level is SKY HIGH! It's 6.0 ppm!! I don't know why?!?! There's a lot of particles floating in the water too, like dust. My husband suspected the WS3 killed all bacteria so they can't cycle the ammonia and stuff.

He's put in more ammonia remover just now. I don't know what should I do? Please help ...

 

[playfulalliecat]

Feline, your tank is just now starting its cycle. The best thing to do in my opinion right now is to keep the platy and maybe the two swords as they should be hardy enough but take everything else back to the lfs. The clowns definitely will not survive the cycle and its likely the others won't be hardy enough either. Most of us have made the same mistake in getting a new tank and putting lots of fish in but the bad bacteria builds up too quickly when we do this and stresses the fish and causes diseases.

Do a very small water change, no more than 2 gallons......too much will ruin the cycle and make it start over. This should make the ammonia level lower so less toxic.

As for already being cycled, no there is no way. For a tank to cycle it must have bacteria, in a tank with just water and no fish or food, the bacterias, good and bad aren't present. Cycling a tank normally takes anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks and there are fishless cycles as well as cycles using fish. If it were me in your case as small as the tank is, I would only keep the one platy and take the others back. Then after the ammonia spikes, then nitrites spike, and finally the nitrates spike, I would add fish slowly at the rate of one or two a week. This way the good bacteria, ie. nitrates, is able to keep up with the bad, ammonia and nitrites.

 

[Feline]

Oh no ... we just checked the ammonia level again after 2 hours of adding the ammonia remover and it fell to 2ppm now. Will this hinder the cycling?

I asked bcoz I did some more research on the "cycling" and it said it'll take 10 days for the ammonia to peak before consuming by the bacteria. The fishies has only spent 6 days in the tank so will the ammonia peak too early?

And more fishies have reddish gills (well, my Swordtails and most of Rasboras and that Black Neon) so should I add some anti-fungal treatment to the water?

 

[playfulalliecat]

With the amount of fish you added so quickly, it is not in the least unusual for the ammonia to spike that soon. In normal cycling, with only one or two fish this wouldn't have happened so fast.

The salt is not good for either the neons or the clown loaches. Neither of them can take salt. We do have salt in our tank but our fish were slowly acclimated and we do not put in the suggested amount from the container.

MY guess is that the reddish gills are from the high ammonia levels in the tank...not sure how much salt you added but seems like it could also irritate. Like I posted earlier, you need to try and take some of those fish back to the LFS with the problems you are already having, it is likely you will lose most of them. I have been through this in the past and lost around 50 US Dollars in fish!

By neutralizing the ammonia, you have set your cycle back a bit, for your tank to cycle you must have the spike in ammonia, which is why I recommend so strongly that you take those fish back. If you wish to cycle with fish, you need something hardy such as a platy. I want to help you but since you have neutralized the ammonia, this is going to be harder. Sixteen fish is a huge bioload on a tank that size that hasn't cycled. I truly do not believe you will be able to successfully cycle your tank and save those fish.

 

[Feline]

My husband and I were debating on the ammonia level as he wanted to reduce the level to 0 whereas for me, I don't want to reduce it anyfurther (like you said). So now it stays at 2ppm measured an hour ago.

His theory being with no bacteria, the ammonia level won't reduce. And for my theory, with no ammonia, the bacteria won't grow and the ammonia level will stay. Which one's correct or what's the correct theory?

If I don't have enought bacteria (I guess it's my case) when the ammonia peaks, will the level stay in the peak level and won't drop down? Or the bacteria growth rate is the same as the ammonia accumulation rate? (Sorry for my ignorance!)

Hopfully my LFS will take back my fishies. So now I'll have to wait for the level to peak without changing water? I have another tank (in case of quarantining) so do I have to put fishies or plants in for cycling?


ps. I put in 1 rounded tablespoon of salt per 18.9 litres of water as suggested by a few articles I read, saying it's more effective than treatments. My Clowns are not showing signs of distress, but for the Neons.

 

[playfulalliecat]

All water contains nitrite (bad bacteria) and nitrates (good bacteria). When you put fish in a tank, they produce waste via poop and food not eaten. As that food breaks down, it becomes ammonia (also bad). The ammonia in turn, feeds the nitrite bacteria allowing it to flourish. As nitrite levels increase, ammonia levels will drop. As the nitrite flourishes, it will begin to feed the nitrate bacteria and the same process will be repeated as the nitrate increases, it will neutralize the nitrites. The whole process takes from 4-6 weeks sometimes longer if not allowed to run the full process. Plants help eliminate waste in the tank by using broken down waste and food materials as fertilizer. Ultimately, you want to achieve 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 0 nitrate, in reality, you will probably have anywhere from 20-40 nitrate as it is hard to achieve nitrate nirvana.

Unless your quarantine tank is already fully established and has cycled completely, moving your fish to it will really do no good as in a few days time you will be faced again with what you are going through now. I would call the lfs and explain to them that the tank isn't cycled properly and you wish to return the fish and will get them after it has cycled, a few at a time and furthermore, it is imperative that you leave the tank alone as much as possible once it starts its cycle to allow it to do its thing. The longer you prolong the ammonia spike, the longer it will take for a nitrite spike. Unless it reaches extremely dangerous levels, then leave it alone. With that fish load, cut back on feedings as this creates more waste both from the fish and decaying food matter. If absolutely necessary do SMALL water changes. Monitor the levels daily if not a couple of times a day and pay close attention to the nitrite levels as well. Also watch the fish for any sign of distress, rapid breathing, hovering at the top of the water is if they are breathing outside of the water. Don't add any more salt to the tank and as you are doing small water changes that will help dilute the salt out. Just a note, ammonia reducer is a chemical and the more chemicals in your tank, the more stress on your fish. You want to strive for as "natural" an environment as possible.

I hope this helps and I am not trying to be mean or anything, I don't want you to take it that way. Les and I made many mistakes with our fish, I am just trying to save you the heartache and frustrations that we and so many others have gone through as newbies.

Just today we lost our 3 clown loaches, due to injuries sustained from a piece of decorative wood they were hiding in so we know all too well how hard it is to lose these fish we love.

 

[Feline]

I'm sorry to hear about your Clowns How did it happen? Their skin got scarred by the wood?

And thanks for the advices. Luckily I joined in this forum or I'll be running like a headless chicken around the house for a situation like this!

The Clowns are my favourites but I'll have to do what I have to do ... Wish me luck in bringing them back to my LFS! And yet, I can't trust the quality of fishies in that pet shop. After gaining some experiences in fishies , I can finally tell which is not well, and I can say for the fishies I want to get, few of the tanks in my LFS are healthy fish. The whole tank of Clowns have whitespots, Swordtails have clamped fins, and Platies all have broken fins. Nonetheless, this pet shop is already better than my other LFS (at least the water is not murky and full of algae) *Sigh*

But before that, I'll have to "educate" my hubby on this. I'll have to explain to him or he'll kill me for returning the fishies (as he's the one who stock so many fishies in such short time as he listened to some advice from his friend saying he used to stock quite a lot of fish in one go).

 

[playfulalliecat]

I know its really rough having a tank with only a fish or two but believe me when I say its for the best! Clown loaches are very cute and interesting to watch but they are not really hardy fish. They are susceptible to white spot especially after a move like from the store to home. Ours seems to have gotten cut on their sides and we're pretty sure they got stuck in the piece of wood decor and damaged themselves. We had had them about a month and they were for my 3 yr old son. Also being scaleless fish, many treatments for ich, fungus, and the like can harm them as can salt.

As for the lfs having so many problems, you will definitely need that quarantine tank set up and cycled. Everytime you buy fish from there you will want to quarantine them in the other tank for a while to be sure they are healthy. It is best not to buy fish showing visible signs of disease in the store. You may want to ask some questions and find out when they get them in from the distributor as that is not a good day to buy them. Sounds to me like they don't know a lot about fish or they would have never let you buy so many at once to put in a new tank. Its hard to find a good lfs. We have the Walmarts over here and the last time we were in the fish section, my 9 yr old daughter was telling the girl that the goldfish had ich and how she should treat it. The girl working there had no clue. Sadly, they don't usually hire based on experience with fishkeeping.

Good luck and any questions be sure to ask, we'll all try to help you out.

Also on the platy, yes it does sound as if she is pregnant! Many of the ones you buy are already pregnant and the females can store sperm for up to 3 months with no male! We have about 30 babies, 12 of which are a bit over a month old and the others are less than a week! They came from the same mother as they can have them every 28 days.

 

[bigfish]

You could add a bacteria culture like Nutrafin Cycle most LFS stock it, it will give your filter media a kick start with some good bacteria but i would advise to take some of your fishies back to the LFS until your tank has cycled and then stock your tank slowly with a few fishies at a time and leave a gap of 2-3 weeks in between buying so that your filter has time to cope with the biological demand.

You just made a mistake like me couldnt wait to have all the nice fishies swimming in your tank and i had to learn the hard way.

How much salt are you putting in your tank? sounds like the red gills could be an over dose of salt.

Welcome to the fish keeping world.

 

[Angel Lady]

I read your post just a few minutes ago and I saw where you said you had added some salt that is a no no for the neons it will kill them those fish are scaless they cannot stand any salt at all. Also most of the livebearers are hardy enough to with stand the cycle it is a rough job keeping your fish alive threw the cycling peroid believe me I messed up both of my tanks not knowing what I was doing I had one tank that was cycled and I bought me another tank so I set up my tank and put all of my fish in the new tank and then I broke the other tank down and cleaned it from top to bottom and it cost me a lot of work but I managed to save all of my fish I changed the water 10 percent everyday on both tanks it took me 2 months just to get the tanks cycled but it also keep my fish alive so if you dont want a lot of work on your hands you need to take the fish back and go with the hardy fish until your cycle is complete.

 

[Feline]

Bad news everyone! I called in the LFS (its actually the BIG chain petstore in UK), and explained the situation to the manager and asking if they could take back the fishies. He said he didn't know if mine got any diseases that'll pass to the fishies they have so he can't risk taking them back. So I asked to put in a quarantine tank but he said there's no extra tank there. All he could offer me is a replacement or refund of any dead fishies

So now the fishies will have to stay with me in that horrible tank

My hubby has added Nutrafin Cycle to speed up the bacteria growth so hopefully makes the tank cycles faster. He bought another tank for quarantining purposes and it's been set up for a week (he added capsules to speed up bacteria growth too) and the filter has turned darkred/black. If I don't put any fish in, will the tank cycle itself?

I've added 3.5 tablespoonful of salt in the 70 litre tank. This is the salt treatment for whitespots. It's been the 3rd-4th day of this treatment. The fishies is still showing Ick, but fewer, smaller ones. So should I still seperate the Neons to the new tank bcoz I don't want to stop the treatment now that it's halfway?

Fingers crossed with my fishies.

 

[Angel Lady]

you are going to kill the neons with the salt they are scaless they have medicine for ich on scaless fish anyone here wil tell you the same thing as I am telling you salt is good for the fish that has scales and it is great for ich to.but not for the neons I think the clowns are scaless to you need to PM les or william and ask them if it ok but I am sure they will tell you not to use the salt on those fish it burns them.