Penicillin and foul smell.

[christ6.regan]

Help. The tank is an eighty gallon freshwater running on a bio-wheel for approximately three years. Instead of doing our old routine of a hospital tank we have dosed the full tank with penicillin. The smell is very, very bad. Two thirty percent water changes along with carbon filter replacement don't seem to be improving the smell but the fish have come back from extreme lethargy to normal activity. Have I killed the bio-wheel?

 

[bluerose]

Why did you dose the full tank instead of using a hospital tank? Infection that affected all the fish? The general reason for using a hospital tank is to avoid destroying your biofilter... so by using penicillin you may have.

Don't know about the smell, but your water parameters will reflect what your biofilter is doing... need ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate measures please.

 

[christ6.regan]

back to the store

Dosing the full tank was the advice of the salesman, darn..
I guess it's back to the store get test kits for ammonia and nitrites(?)
and go from there. But will the wheel come back over time I wonder?

 

[bluerose]

If you don't have any kits, get a full test kit (pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate). The API Master Freshwater kit is a good one.

If your fish start looking stressed at all before you've tested, do a 25-50% PWC (dechlorinating and matching temperature of course!).

The bio-wheel (and filter media) should recolonize with bacteria eventually... but it will take some time I am guessing.

Familiarize yourself with the process of the nitrogen cycle so you know what you're looking for. You need to keep your ammonia and nitrite levels below .5ppm to be safe, preferably more like 0ppm (a cycled tank has 0ppm ammonia and nitrite and 10-40ppm nitrate; nitrate is removed through PWCs).

 

[CaptainAhab]

If you test positive for either ammonia and nitrites dose with Prime, Amquel or some other product that will neutralize the ammonia and nitrites. PWC's are going to be a way of life for some time till the new cycle completes.

Any chance you over dosed? I've used amoxicillin and penicillin over the years with no issues.

 

[2cvbloke]

If you need to restore the bacteria colonies in the filter, then get hold of some BioSpira or Tetra SafeStart, both of these contain the bacteria needed for filtration and ammonia conversion, this will help speed up the process of cycling and will keep the fish happy...