Ammonia Help Required

[BillD]

It appears that the problem here is the ammonia in the tap water, probably due to the use of chloramine. Since there are 0 nitrites and the nitrate isn't unreasonable at 20, I would suggest checking the ammonia when the water change has been done, and a few hours later and then again a few hours after that. The ammonia should drop with each test if the filters are working. Water conditioners such as Prime don't actually neutralize the ammonia, but rather convert it to a non toxic form (ammonium), which will show on an ammonia test even though there is no toxicity. As far as how often a water change should be done, the nitrate number will tell you that. The lower the better, and keeping it below 20 should be your goal. In most cases, stocking levels, as recommended, are a rule of thumb. If you were willing to do the work and have adequate filtration, higher than usually recommended stocking levels are possible. An example of where this would happen regularly are breeder's tanks where very high concentrations of fish are kept to grow out and the overcrowding is compensated by large frequent water changes. However, this isn't practical with a show tank, where you are basically keeping a few pets. The breeder situation is more like farming.

 

[Princess1982]

That's great thanks! I am certainly willing to put the work in until I get a larger tank. I knew that I would have to get a larger one at some point as I know how large goldfish and plecs can grow! Just thought I had a bit longer.

I will check the water again now as I changed the water yesterday and see if anything has changed. If ammonia is still present at 0.25ppm, is it a good idea to get something to turn ammonia into non toxic form or is there something else I need to do?

 

[jlk]

Let us know how things look today! As i suggested earlier, prime or amquel plus will help to detox the ammonia from your tap until it can be used by your bb. They dont eliminate the need for regular pwcs though! Once your tank is fully cycled, the bb will eliminate the amm in your tap in a few hours but a better water condit will help keep it from harming your fish.

 

[Princess1982]

OK... I have just tested the water and the results are as follows:

Ammonia - 0.25ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 20ppm
PH - 8

So no change at all and I changed about 45 litres (180 lite tank) yesterday morning.

I have also just ordered 500ml of prime as suggested.

So how far into the cycle am I? I am confused as to which spikes I should be expecting when. I have had this new tank since October 8th this year and used all the old media and water etc from the old tank. The water parameters haven't changed at all since I started this tank.

 

[jlk]

Well, using the old filter media etc really helped prevent any big spikes so thats a good thing! You may not get any after running this long but your bb is probably never going to zero out your amm because your so heavily stocked with goldies. This is where prime will help until you are able to get a much bigger tank or another tank. Just keep an eye on your water parameters & do pwcs as needed to keep everything under control until then. Make sure you dont let the nitrates go above 20ppm-moors eyes are very sensitive to nitrate levels & higher amounts can cause blindness & cataracts if they are exposed lengthy periods of time.

 

[librarygirl]

If you've used everything from another tank you may be already cycled. You probably would have seen at least nitrite by now otherwise, although it could just be slow to show up. But the fact that ammonia hasn't risen given all of the fish you have leads me to believe it's cycled and the ammonia is either a false reading and/or from your tap water.

Have you tried testing spring water and comparing it to the tank water? The ammonia 0 test can look a lot like the .25 color; it took me a while to learn to tell the difference (also if you hold the tube up against the white part of the card under a lamp usually you can tell then if the color is truly yellor or not). Testing against spring water is a good indicator as well.

 

[BigE94]

Red Cap help please

Hello I have 2 red cap orandas that I got in the spring that lived in my pond. They did great, grew to about 6 inches very happy and healthy. I decided to bring them in for the winter and have had nothing but headaches since. I have a 36 gallon tank with a fluval 205 filter. For about a month now, every time I feed one of them, he displays signs of swim bladder disease, floats on the top for about a day, I feed him a pea or 2 and it subsides and then hes fine. The other one has been fine from the time I brought him in. Anyway seems like all my levels are fatally high. Ammonia is up, nitrite is through the roof, ph is low. Ive tried every bottle of stuff they have for all this and nothing has worked. Is this fluval cannister filter a POS? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. The most recent thing I have tried is Melafix as Ive been told that it could be a bacterial infection in the 1 fish. If I had known it was going to be so much trouble, I would have left them in the pond with a heater and an aerator. Thought I was doing nice for them by bringing them in.

 

[librarygirl]

Hello I have 2 red cap orandas that I got in the spring that lived in my pond. They did great, grew to about 6 inches very happy and healthy. I decided to bring them in for the winter and have had nothing but headaches since. I have a 36 gallon tank with a fluval 205 filter. For about a month now, every time I feed one of them, he displays signs of swim bladder disease, floats on the top for about a day, I feed him a pea or 2 and it subsides and then hes fine. The other one has been fine from the time I brought him in. Anyway seems like all my levels are fatally high. Ammonia is up, nitrite is through the roof, ph is low. Ive tried every bottle of stuff they have for all this and nothing has worked. Is this fluval cannister filter a POS? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. The most recent thing I have tried is Melafix as Ive been told that it could be a bacterial infection in the 1 fish. If I had known it was going to be so much trouble, I would have left them in the pond with a heater and an aerator. Thought I was doing nice for them by bringing them in.

HI and welcome to AA. You may get more help if you started your own thread. I'm not too familiar with goldfish but I know they can be large and messy. Have you done water changes? Adding chemicals isn't going to help. Clean fresh water is going to help your fish. Adding them to a smaller environment like a tank allows toxins to build up quickly, particularly with messy fish like goldfish. What are you using for your dechlorinator? A good dechlorinator like Prime will help detoxify the ammonia in between water changes (but not to be used in place of water changes). if you put them into a new uncycled tank the toxins are building up which are hurting the fish. First do a large 60% water change with a good dechlorinator like Prime if you can get it but whatever you have on-hand now is fine. After 30 minutes test the water; if ammonia and/or nitrite are over .25 do another large water change. Keep doing this until ammonia is under .25. Then test 1-2x daily and do water changes as needed. There's a link in my signature called:new tank with fish that will help. Good luck.

 

[Princess1982]

Hi all.

Sorry for delay in follow up. Have now tested some spring water as suggested and the result is the same colour as the tank water. I don't know whether it is a false positive or whether I am not reading it correctly but the fish certainly seem happier then they were. I forgot to mention I used the tetra parasite guard a few weeks ago and the fish stopped flicking after just one treatment so there was obviously some sort of parasite in there. Highly recommended if anyone suspects they have parasites.

I do still have one fish that isn't swimming correctly. Always seems to be fighting to stay horizontal otherwise will end to tail up/nose down. Swimming looks like a lot of work and I feel really sorry for him. He is a calico ryukin which I don't know much about so I don't know if his body shape is normal. He seems to have quite a rounded belly but he definitely isn't constipated as he poos regularly and I have fed shelled peas just in case. It doesnt get worse after feeding. If there is some treatment that will cure him I will happily buy it but I don't like to medicate for no reason. I'm hoping he isn't in any pain even though he looks so awkward. I don't know how his swimbladder would have got damaged. He seemed normal when I bought him. Any advice would be much appreciated! thanks

 

[jlk]

Ryunkins do have a very round body shape-like a big egg in proper condition. It sounds like he has some swim bladder issues going on here. What type of food are you feeding them? Does it seem to get worse after eating or is he this bad all the time?

 

[Princess1982]

No it doesn't get worse after feeding, it always stayed the same. It developed about a week after bringing him home from the pet store. The fish have a varied diet, flakes soaked in vitamins to sink them, sinking pellets, frozen bloodworm and fresh green veggies that have been boiled so they sink. I know floating food can cause issues if they take in to much air when the feed so I make sure everything sinks. He has the egg shaped body like you mentioned so I didn't know if it is common with this type of fish or whether it is a swimbladder problem.

 

[jlk]

The egg shape is perfectly normal! Swim bladder is thought to be either caused by foods or possibily an internal infection. Make sure he gets lots of green veggies daily. Cooked broccoli florets are a fav of mine because they can pick on them all day long & they wont affect water quality. Your second option would be to try treating him with a medicated food (metromeds/metronizadole food) which will address both any parasites or bacterial infections. Some people feed goldfish with difficult swim bladder issues (related to food) homemade gel foods. But, im not too sure if this is what you are dealing with because food seems to not affect him. Give the meds a try with lots green veggies though you should seperate him from the others when feeding this med food (a sheet of plastic, plastic lid/something similar to divide him from the others will work). Lets see if this helps!

 

[Princess1982]

Hi

I have been feeding lots of green veggies only for the last week and there has been no improvement. I am starting to worry that he is becoming less active now too. Trying to seperate him from others isn't possible as he is quite slow and the others just find their way around a lid to get to the food. Is it bad for the other fish to eat the medicated food? Should I move him to a hospital tank whilst I am feeding him the medicated food or will this stress him more?

 

[jlk]

If your other fish are healthy, i wouldnt feed them med food. It may create antibiotic resistance & will create problems if you have to treat them in the future. If you are unable to seperate him from the others during feeding, you may have to consider qt him. Yes, it will probably stress him but as long as he is still eating & you maintain pristine water conditions for him, he should be ok. Keep offering him greens to pick at as well. You can also try combining the metro food with a goldfish-specific med food called 'medi-gold'. Alot of people have had success using the combo. You can find medi-gold on the 'Goldfish Connection' site. Good luck & keep us posted!!

 

[Princess1982]

I am having major issues getting mediated food containing metronizadole in the UK. I have seen a few other people posting the same problem on forums and they weren't able to get some. I was looking for things like Jungle anti-parasite food. There is a treatment called Interpret swim bladder treatment. Do you have any experience with this?

 

[jlk]

I have no experience with Interpret & i dont even know what its ingredients are but i you have no other options, i would give it a try rather than doing nothing.