What Is Wrong With My Platty?

[doraemon213]

Hi, very new fish owner here. Please forgive me for my ignorance when I started my tank a week ago, but I have 6 fish in the 10 gallon tank while it is now still cycling. (I should have done my research before trusting the LFS staff

 )
 
I have been battling with very bad water conditions over the past week since I have started up the tank. I have lost one fish and the ammonia level has gone up to 1 ppm at one point. So starting a few days ago I did 10% water change everyday, and yesterday I did a 35% water change and brought it down to around 0.5 ppm. Since I was really paranoid I went to buy Seachem Prime and added 1 dose of it into the water a few hours after the water change.
 
So this morning I found that one of my platties is having something white on one of its gills, and a white "line" hanging loosely around its bottom fin. After researching online, I am guessing it is fungus, but I am really not sure. I would love to get your help in identifying it and what can I do to fix it 

.
 
Sorry for the blurry picture but this is the best I could manage:

 
Please, any help will be appreciated!
 
 

 

[SarahMarie]

Hi. I was totally new to fish keeping too and I made the exact same mistake! The LFS just don't give you enough information to go by. I had no idea about cycling or anything when I got my tank. I get most of my info from this forum and a better LFS which I've found. One of my fish ended up with fungus too. I bought a treatment from my LFS and have been adding aquarium salt and the fungus has cleared up now.
I bought myself an API testing kit so I could test the water daily (or more). Also I'm using API quick start as it supposedly c
contains live bacteria which started my cycle. I also did around 50% water changes each day to keep the ammonia down. The bacteria live in the filter, not the water. So big water changes are better.
I hope this has helped a little bit. I'm still new to fish keeping so other people on this forum will know more but I thought I'd try to help anyway since I had the same problems

 

[the_lock_man]

I can;t see anything untoward on the photo, to be honest.
 
Have a read of the green link in my signature - it'll tell you what to do, and why to do it. Any more questions, fire away!

 

[doraemon213]

Thank you for the replies, really appreciate it! I asked a staff from the LCS and he said it looked like an infection probably due to high ammonia in the water. The platy looked a little better today, and I hope it will heal up over time.
 
The staff also gave me API Quick Start to put into the water and told me to add that in and wait for a few days without changing water. I did add it in yesterday but I am still concerned -- today my gourami keeps gulping at the surface of the water, and after reading articles online it seems to be caused by the high ammonia (test still shows at least 1.0 ppm).
 
I am really confused by whether I should do water changes 

 . I decided to not listen to the staff and change 30% water today because I don't want my fish to die.
 
So should I keep doing water changes everyday? If so, how often and how much should I change? Would that stop the cycling?

 

[SarahMarie]

I'd keep doing water changes daily to keep the ammonia down. When I was doing mine I was doing around 50% or more. It's my understanding that the beneficial bacteria that get rid of ammonia love in the filter rather than the water. So keep up with the water changes it won't make anything worse. It will help the fish and help bring the ammonia down
I hope this helps a bit. As I said I'm still new to fish keeping myself but I've been told all this myself by other members of this forum

 

[snazy]

You have to do enough water changes to keep the levels of ammonia and possible nitrites at 0 at all times, which means way more than 10% or 30%.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

Also, look into finding some mature media to put in your filter (that is the sponge or filter floss inside the filter)... if you can get some mature (used and still wet) media it will bring in the right bacteria to help your tank handle waste better... but you will still need to continue with large water changes until test readings confirm your filter is handling the waste.

 

[the_lock_man]

If you are showing an ammonia reading of 1ppm, then a 30% water change will reduce that ammonia reading to 0.7ppm - which is still highly toxic. Your target is to keep ammonia and nitrite down below 0.25ppm at all times.
 
So with your reading of 1ppm, doing a 75% water change will reduce the reading to 0.25ppm - but then very soon the fish will have produced more ammonia, so your reading, within an hour or two, will be back above that 0.25ppm target. What you need to do, then, is to do a 90-95% change, to reduce the reading to as close to 0ppm as you can - this will then give you some time to spare before you need to do another water change.
 
 

You have to do enough water changes to keep the levels of ammonia and possible nitrites at 0 at all times, which means way more than 10% or 30%.

 
What Snazy says here is theoretically correct, it is the ideal situation. In practical terms, many people have to go to work, or school, they need to eat and sleep. They aren't available 24 hours per day to be monitoring ammonia and nitrite levels, so the 0.25ppm is what is offered as a semi-safe buffer.

 

[snazy]

Yes, lock man is right,  its practically impossible to have 0 at all times in an uncycled tank. I was just being too pedantic.

 

[doraemon213]

Thank you for all the advice. Unfortunately the gourami I mentioned did not make it through today 

 .
 
I will keep doing the water changes, I hope the rest of my fish can make it through this tough period.
 
I am sure I will have more questions to come! Thanks for your help!

 

[the_lock_man]

I'm sorry to hear that.
 
Keep testing your water every day, and if it means you have to do 90% water changes every day, or maybe more than that, then so be it - that's the consequences of a fish-in cycle. It looks like you've still got quite a high bioload in your tank, and given that it's quite small, at 10gallons, the ammonia and nitrite will build up quickly.
 
Over time you'll find that the number and size of water changes will decrease, as the bacteria colonies build up and do the job for you. Like PrairieSunflower said, if you can find a LFS or a friend who is willing to give you even a small piece of filter media (which you can offer to replace with your own immature media), it will help you immensely.

 

[doraemon213]

When you say small piece of filter media, what exactly does that mean? Is that the filter cartridge that I insert into the filter?

 

[the_lock_man]

Filter media is the actual stuff that does the filtration - I have plastic sponge, a finer wool strip and lots of ceramics. If you have enclosed cartridges, that may make life awkward, but if there is anywhere at all that you can stuff a bit of old sponge from someone else's tank, it would help you greatly.