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Oct. 2nd, 2003 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydyWARNING: VERY LONG, BORING FISH POST, MOSTLY ABOUT WATER QUALITY MEASURES AND CRAP LIKE THAT. EVEN ENTHUSIASTIC AQUARISTS MAY FIND THIS TOO BORING TO READ.
My fish are still sick, and I still am not sure what to do next. I'm at another crossroads.
KeepersCompany,
Well, from what it sounds like is that it's an ammonia or PH kill off.
I wish it were, but it isn't. It's just barely possible that there's ammonia in the tank, but since the nitrites remain 0 and the nitrates rise normally, I infer that the bacteria is eating up the ammonia just like it's supposed to. There has been a significant pH fluctuation, but that's been steady for weeks, now, and the fish are still sick, and getting sicker. The tank is more than a year old, at this point, and has been absolutely no trouble until about July of this year.
The story is long and complicated, or maybe it isn't. I can't tell for sure which factors interlock. From my records, here's what's happened.
I added a loach to the 20 gallon on June 22nd. This would have raised the total loach population to two. I was desperate to get at least one more loach into the tank so that the first wouldn't pine away. I didn't run him through quarantine.
Mid-July, it got hot. I tried to keep the water from getting too hot by floating bags of ice in the water. It didn't seem to change the temp of the water very much, and the ice would melt within 30 minutes. (I treated each bag of water with de-chlorinator before I froze it.) This has been recommended in several places as a way to beat the heat. I'll have to look into it more. It got ridiculously hot agin mid-September.
The pH had been stable in the tank for almost a year at 6.8. I tested it on 7/17, and it was 8.5! Here are my test results from 7/17 through today:
7/17 pH 8.5 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 60 30% water change
7/19 pH 8.5
7/20 pH 7.5
7/21 pH 7.5
7/23 pH 7.3
7/26 pH 7.4
7/27 20% water change
8/2 pH 7.3
8/5 pH 7.4
8/10 pH 7.2 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 60 20% water change
8/12 pH 7.2
8/13 pH 7.4
8/17 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 30
8/27 25% water change
9/7 pH 7.3 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 30 20% water change
9/10 pH 7.3 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 30
9/15 pH7.5 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 60 20% water change
9/21 25% water change
9/27 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 30 15% water change
You see why I don't think it's ammonia. The spike in pH in July I can't judge, because I hadn't measured pH in that tank since April. I had become infuriated with the pH tests I had available to me, since each brand gave me a different, but consistent result. I felt like I wasn't learning anything from the tests.
Meanwhile, fish get sick, get treated, mostly don't get well. Well, they all recover from ich, but they come down with other things.
I added Aquarisol to the tank on June 22nd, when I added the clown loach.
On July 19th, right at the temperature and pH spike, one of the clown loaches and two of the green neons came down with loads 'o ick. I started treating the tank with Quickcure, at the dosage recommended for tetras (which is half what it is for other fish). I continued with the Quickcure until July 23rd, 5 days, and threw some Ammo Lock in on July 20th just to be safe. The loach with the worst case of ick also had shredded fins and red gills, and generally looked pretty miserable.
I treated the tank with Coppersafe on July 26th, and then from July 27th through August 2nd, 7 days.
Everybody looked ok for a couple of weeks, and then one morning I got up and found a neon had gotten caught between a decorative rock and the front of the aquarium. I don't know how he managed that, When I freed him, I discovered that he no longer had a caudal fin at all. I put him in the hospital tank right away. I put a dose of Melafix in the 20 gallon, and treated the poor neon with Melafix and Triple Sulfa. He was dead by the next evening.
Another couple three weeks, and then on September 7th, one of my glass fish is darting all over the tank, running into things, swimming in circles, clearly not well. I take him out of the main tank, put him in the hospital tank. Upset, I go hunting for the "other" loach. I'd only seen one loach for a while, and I wanted to know if I'd had another loach vanishing act, or if they'd just been taking turns being out and about. I took out absolutely everything in the tank. No loach. No skull. No naked spine, with or without gruesome bits of flesh attached. No spare fin. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. This has happened to me several times before with clown loaches, and it really weirds me out. I am not getting another clown loach until I feel like I've got a handle on why they've been dying and how I can keep them successfully.
I fed the hospitalized glass fish antibacterial food, and dosed him with Coppersafe on the 9th. He looked like he was doing a little better, but not enough better. He continued to swim in circles, rather than "hover". On the 21st, as I said, I decided that the parasites were too yucky and too visible, and I killed all three of them.
Meanwhile, back in the 20 gallon, the remaining loach was markedly emaciated, and one of the white clouds had a severely eroded caudal fin. Antibacterial food for them, too. 10 days of it (as recommended) starting on the 16th. I also ran a full course of Maracyn. Nobody looked any better afterwards. The white cloud has lumps and a red spot, now, and his tail is still shredded. The loach continued to be emaciated, and started swimming vertically, rather than horizontally, and hanging out at the surface, looking really really sick.
I tried to get levamisole hydrochloride, which is what Loaches Online recommends for internal parasites in loaches. Nobody carries it, most people haven't ever heard of it. I'd have to go to a compounding pharmacy to obtain it. I may, anyway. Two fish stores suggested Hexamit, though, so I started a course of Hexamit on the 27th. When I do a water change this evening, it'll be completed. The loach is looking better, I swear he's put on a bit of weight and is swimming better. His gills are still a bit red, though. The cloud continues to look worse and worse. My delightful corydoras, who have been healthy through all of this, started acting oddly. Scaleless fish (such as corydoras and loaches) are especially sensitive to medications, so perhaps instead of being sick, they're just allergic.
I did get some fish drugs from a vet, a kill-or-cure cocktail. Metronidazole (same as Hexamit); Formalin, for which she included latex gloves and extremely dire warnings about touching it with my bare hands; and something I don't recognize at all...SWP? I forget. Any gate, it'll kill the parasites or the fish, possibly both. I'm thinking of putting the white cloud in the hospital tank and hitting him with this barrage and see if it helps or not. I'm reluctant to do that to the loach, though, especially since he's been looking up.
Way too many fish in the tank, by the way.
Well, with recent casualties, it's within rule of thumb. Right now, the 20 gallon has:
2 Neon Tetras
3 Green neon tetras
5 Cardinal tetras
1 pl*co (about 2")
1 clown pl*co (about 1")
1 clown loach (about 2")
1 Golden CAE (about 2")
3 white clouds (1.5" ea)
3 corydoras trilinatus
That is a total of 23" of fish. The rule of thumb I've been using is square inches of water surface, rather than volume, at an inch per square inch of surface, so by that measure I'm 1" under the max.
Over crowding might be some
of your problem also. Rule is one gallon to one inch of maximum fish
size. and two gallons to one inch for ciclids and other tall fish
(loachs, angles, discus, oscars).
2" per cichlid? Hmmm. A case for overcrowding can certainly be made for the 30 gallon, then. I'd better get that other one repaired pretty soon. I don't worry about over-crowding unless the nitrate level is building too quickly. If the nitrate level rises to 60 within less than a week of a water change, then I am very concerned. The biggest problem with blood parrots, in my opinion, is that they are very dirty fish, and require a lot more cleaning up after. I suspect that they are kind of like goldfish, although I've never kept goldfish.
The heat probably has hurt your fish, big time.
Yeah. Air conditioner next year, no matter what.
My fish are still sick, and I still am not sure what to do next. I'm at another crossroads.
KeepersCompany,
Well, from what it sounds like is that it's an ammonia or PH kill off.
I wish it were, but it isn't. It's just barely possible that there's ammonia in the tank, but since the nitrites remain 0 and the nitrates rise normally, I infer that the bacteria is eating up the ammonia just like it's supposed to. There has been a significant pH fluctuation, but that's been steady for weeks, now, and the fish are still sick, and getting sicker. The tank is more than a year old, at this point, and has been absolutely no trouble until about July of this year.
The story is long and complicated, or maybe it isn't. I can't tell for sure which factors interlock. From my records, here's what's happened.
I added a loach to the 20 gallon on June 22nd. This would have raised the total loach population to two. I was desperate to get at least one more loach into the tank so that the first wouldn't pine away. I didn't run him through quarantine.
Mid-July, it got hot. I tried to keep the water from getting too hot by floating bags of ice in the water. It didn't seem to change the temp of the water very much, and the ice would melt within 30 minutes. (I treated each bag of water with de-chlorinator before I froze it.) This has been recommended in several places as a way to beat the heat. I'll have to look into it more. It got ridiculously hot agin mid-September.
The pH had been stable in the tank for almost a year at 6.8. I tested it on 7/17, and it was 8.5! Here are my test results from 7/17 through today:
7/17 pH 8.5 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 60 30% water change
7/19 pH 8.5
7/20 pH 7.5
7/21 pH 7.5
7/23 pH 7.3
7/26 pH 7.4
7/27 20% water change
8/2 pH 7.3
8/5 pH 7.4
8/10 pH 7.2 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 60 20% water change
8/12 pH 7.2
8/13 pH 7.4
8/17 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 30
8/27 25% water change
9/7 pH 7.3 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 30 20% water change
9/10 pH 7.3 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 30
9/15 pH7.5 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 60 20% water change
9/21 25% water change
9/27 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 30 15% water change
You see why I don't think it's ammonia. The spike in pH in July I can't judge, because I hadn't measured pH in that tank since April. I had become infuriated with the pH tests I had available to me, since each brand gave me a different, but consistent result. I felt like I wasn't learning anything from the tests.
Meanwhile, fish get sick, get treated, mostly don't get well. Well, they all recover from ich, but they come down with other things.
I added Aquarisol to the tank on June 22nd, when I added the clown loach.
On July 19th, right at the temperature and pH spike, one of the clown loaches and two of the green neons came down with loads 'o ick. I started treating the tank with Quickcure, at the dosage recommended for tetras (which is half what it is for other fish). I continued with the Quickcure until July 23rd, 5 days, and threw some Ammo Lock in on July 20th just to be safe. The loach with the worst case of ick also had shredded fins and red gills, and generally looked pretty miserable.
I treated the tank with Coppersafe on July 26th, and then from July 27th through August 2nd, 7 days.
Everybody looked ok for a couple of weeks, and then one morning I got up and found a neon had gotten caught between a decorative rock and the front of the aquarium. I don't know how he managed that, When I freed him, I discovered that he no longer had a caudal fin at all. I put him in the hospital tank right away. I put a dose of Melafix in the 20 gallon, and treated the poor neon with Melafix and Triple Sulfa. He was dead by the next evening.
Another couple three weeks, and then on September 7th, one of my glass fish is darting all over the tank, running into things, swimming in circles, clearly not well. I take him out of the main tank, put him in the hospital tank. Upset, I go hunting for the "other" loach. I'd only seen one loach for a while, and I wanted to know if I'd had another loach vanishing act, or if they'd just been taking turns being out and about. I took out absolutely everything in the tank. No loach. No skull. No naked spine, with or without gruesome bits of flesh attached. No spare fin. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. This has happened to me several times before with clown loaches, and it really weirds me out. I am not getting another clown loach until I feel like I've got a handle on why they've been dying and how I can keep them successfully.
I fed the hospitalized glass fish antibacterial food, and dosed him with Coppersafe on the 9th. He looked like he was doing a little better, but not enough better. He continued to swim in circles, rather than "hover". On the 21st, as I said, I decided that the parasites were too yucky and too visible, and I killed all three of them.
Meanwhile, back in the 20 gallon, the remaining loach was markedly emaciated, and one of the white clouds had a severely eroded caudal fin. Antibacterial food for them, too. 10 days of it (as recommended) starting on the 16th. I also ran a full course of Maracyn. Nobody looked any better afterwards. The white cloud has lumps and a red spot, now, and his tail is still shredded. The loach continued to be emaciated, and started swimming vertically, rather than horizontally, and hanging out at the surface, looking really really sick.
I tried to get levamisole hydrochloride, which is what Loaches Online recommends for internal parasites in loaches. Nobody carries it, most people haven't ever heard of it. I'd have to go to a compounding pharmacy to obtain it. I may, anyway. Two fish stores suggested Hexamit, though, so I started a course of Hexamit on the 27th. When I do a water change this evening, it'll be completed. The loach is looking better, I swear he's put on a bit of weight and is swimming better. His gills are still a bit red, though. The cloud continues to look worse and worse. My delightful corydoras, who have been healthy through all of this, started acting oddly. Scaleless fish (such as corydoras and loaches) are especially sensitive to medications, so perhaps instead of being sick, they're just allergic.
I did get some fish drugs from a vet, a kill-or-cure cocktail. Metronidazole (same as Hexamit); Formalin, for which she included latex gloves and extremely dire warnings about touching it with my bare hands; and something I don't recognize at all...SWP? I forget. Any gate, it'll kill the parasites or the fish, possibly both. I'm thinking of putting the white cloud in the hospital tank and hitting him with this barrage and see if it helps or not. I'm reluctant to do that to the loach, though, especially since he's been looking up.
Way too many fish in the tank, by the way.
Well, with recent casualties, it's within rule of thumb. Right now, the 20 gallon has:
2 Neon Tetras
3 Green neon tetras
5 Cardinal tetras
1 pl*co (about 2")
1 clown pl*co (about 1")
1 clown loach (about 2")
1 Golden CAE (about 2")
3 white clouds (1.5" ea)
3 corydoras trilinatus
That is a total of 23" of fish. The rule of thumb I've been using is square inches of water surface, rather than volume, at an inch per square inch of surface, so by that measure I'm 1" under the max.
Over crowding might be some
of your problem also. Rule is one gallon to one inch of maximum fish
size. and two gallons to one inch for ciclids and other tall fish
(loachs, angles, discus, oscars).
2" per cichlid? Hmmm. A case for overcrowding can certainly be made for the 30 gallon, then. I'd better get that other one repaired pretty soon. I don't worry about over-crowding unless the nitrate level is building too quickly. If the nitrate level rises to 60 within less than a week of a water change, then I am very concerned. The biggest problem with blood parrots, in my opinion, is that they are very dirty fish, and require a lot more cleaning up after. I suspect that they are kind of like goldfish, although I've never kept goldfish.
The heat probably has hurt your fish, big time.
Yeah. Air conditioner next year, no matter what.
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 06:36 am (UTC)Heat isn't that hard on most tropical fish if there's enough oxygen in the water. Ok, heat well below the boiling point. A cooked fish is still a cooked fish, and as the water gets warmer, it can hold less oxygen. Most of them will do OK into the lower 90s with adequate aeration. In fact, raising the tank to around 90 ustta be recommended as a cure. Often the fish can stand it better than the fish pests.
Tetras and other Amazon fish generally like soft, acid water. Less bacteria. I'd try to gradually pull the pH down below 7. You can buffer it. I'd go very easy on using formaldehyde (Formalin).
no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 03:02 pm (UTC)Oh, now, the resident feline is about to help me type this.
Good luck!
LONG BORING FISH POST SUPPOSEDLY!!
Date: 2003-10-26 07:41 am (UTC)