Urgent, Wilder Or Similiar! Will Stay Online!

[Colin_T]

it's unlikely to be anchorworm. It takes several weeks for anchorworm to appear on fish. They don't just show up over night. If the new fish came in with anchorworm then it would still take several weeks before any appeared on the other fishes in the tank.
Anchorworm don't normally kill fish either. Certainly not quickly. I have seen fish covered in them and the fish still swam around happily.

 

[allgipan]

Fishy Update,

Had confirmation that the worms are either planaria or nemetones!!

Had started to do water changes and oddly the nitrate went up! Contacted the local fish specialists and they said we are doomed in the general area as the nitrate in the tap water is up and down on daily basis, he has clocked his recently from the tap at 180 mmol! He said of recent they have had to use treatment in the tanks and certainly the symptoms my fish show are identical to the symptoms his fish do when the nitrate goes up. He also added that because of something Anglian water add to the general supply, the lead in the pipes gets into our water supply and can cause poisoning. There is no doubt that I have defo over fed the fish and i have promptly rectified this but it seems I was on a loosing streak anyhow.
I have a 3 day course of Amquel to use to slowly reduce the nitrate and then just use this to treat the tap water before water changes. I asked about ro water and he said they have stopped recommending it for tropical fish and only use it for marine now due to it knocking valuable things out of the water!


Hope this may help someone else, since I added the treatment there have been no deaths, breathing has slowed slightly and the nitrate reading has dropped down slowly!!

thanks again for advice,
from the neurotic woman typing furiously last night ha ha!!!!

 

[WILDER]

Thanks for the update.
Good luck.

 

[Colin_T]

You can buy denitrating filters/ units and these break down the nitrates in the water leaving it better for the fish. Also if you grow lots of plants in the tank they will lower the nitrates too. Floating plants like Duckweed work well for this. They grow so rapidly they can strip nutrients out of the water in a matter of days. Then you simply scoop half of it out every week and throw it on the garden.

You can use reverse osmosis (R/O) units but you should add a conditioning salt (minerals) to it afterwards to increase the hardness and make it more stabile. I use a rift lake conditioner at about 1/3 strength. This increases the general hardness to about 150ppm and is great for most community fishes.

I would write to the government and complain about the high nitrates in the tap water. Who knows what sort of damage it is doing to people and animals drinking it.

 

[allgipan]

Hi again,


Yes its a worry isnt it!!

If its not that its prozac ha ha, so happy dead fish!?

 

[WILDER]

Whats your location as I would be surprised to see a tap nitrate reading that high in the uk.