Need advice

[SuCraM]

Update

Well you were all right I have lost 2 so far and maybe a third. The bubble eye passed away last night and the smallest fancy this morning. I think it is because the black moor and bubble eye were purchased from a not so good LFS. Their tanks were really dirty and dead fish floating in every 2nd tank. I should have clued into that. The bubble eye and black moor were purchased there. I have also noticed the black moor is growing a white fluff on his scales which I think is fungi. I am going to get a fungicide from a better LFS today and hopefully will save him. The rest of the fancies are doing well and I have been doing regular PWCs and the ammonia is 0ppm and nitrites are around 1-2ppm.

 

[warped1]

I am very sorry for the loss and truly feel your pain and frustrations with this whole situation and you local fish store. I am not very good with any fish diseases - but maybe if you can post a picture of the infected fish and the area infected, the ones better to assist you will be able to help you quicker. It takes a lot of the guess work out if they can see what they are up against.

 

[SuCraM]

I will see if i can take a picture tonight when i get home and post it.

 

[marchmaxima]

Sorry to hear that SuCram. I can understand your frustrations, and with everything you've said, I'd be strongly discouraging you from using that LFS again while it is being managed under those conditions.

I agree, a pic might help diagnose the problem. It could also be ich from all the stress. Not sure at this stage.

 

[SuCraM]

Here is a picture of the black moor that i took today. Sorry that the picture isnt so great but I am sure one of you guys or gals will be able to tell me what it is.

 

[jsoong]

I can't see the moor in the pic... however, this is likely disease from the stress of cycling. Fuzzy stuff over the fish is likely bacteria rather than true fungus ... the worse being columnaris, but can also be aeromonas, etc.

First off ... don't panic, and don't automatically dump meds into your tank! <Most meds are chemical dyes that stress fish, mess up your filter, and simply don't work>

You need to treat the root cause, which is poor water quality. Keep up the water changes. You want to keep your NO2 less than 1 at its peak (0.5 even better), so if the NO2 of 1 is after a pwc, you need to change more water.

Second, add salt to your tank. Salt at 0.05% will protect against nitrite posioning (that is about 1 table spoon per 10 <TEN> gal). Add the entire calculated amount to your tank, and the proper fraction with each water change ( eg. if you change 50% of the tank water, add 1/2 the original dose.)

Third, treat the presumed bacteria infection. For surface infection, I like to just use salt. If it is Columnaris, you need to use salt at over 1.0%. You would need to treat the sick fish in a seperate container with a salt bath. Alternatively, you can feed the fish antibacterial food (preferable one with Erythromycin). Don't bother with anti-biotics in the water ... they won't work with goldies. <At any rate, do NOT add antibiotics directly to your tank, you will kill your filter bacteria.>

This is a link on how to use salt with goldies:
GP :: View topic - Salt as a Treatment
Tells you how to add salt to your tank & how to do salt dips/baths <dose, how long, etc>. One warning, if youa re not used to salt dipping goldies, start with a lower concentration (say 0.3 or 0.5%) & work your way up to the full 1.2 or 1.6% needed over the next day or 2.

 

[pitt420dude]

SuCram, I've been keeping fish for years and have seen what happened to you, and suffered it personally, along with MANY others.

Perhaps one of the most important traits to have in this hobby is patience, and the time when you need it most is the time when it's most difficult to have: the very beginning.

As far as disease goes, I've never had better luck treating a sick fish than with doing nothing at all, or adding salt and turning up the heat (heat for ich anyway). I had more fish die that didn't even look sick to begin with when using medicated treatments.

Keep up with the PWC's and follow the advice that has been given and your tank will be cycled in no time.

I too, just this weekend, set up a 10 gal. It's a great tank size. I keep 4 dwarf puffers and one pleco in it, and even that is slightly overstocked. Goldfish are super messy too, so you super over-loaded your bioload (whose sig is that in? "Oh no! I overloaded my bioload!"

Anyway, thats exactly what happened and then all your params went all crazy. You added one heck of a bioload (a.k.a. fish/animal life) with NO biological filtration built up.

Out of the three kinds of filtration (mechanical, biological, chemical) I think that the biological filter (a.k.a. beneficial bacteria) is the most important. Once you've got a tank with lots of filter material, gravel, decor, etc. in it, you can start a new tank completely cycled using all the ben. bact from the cycled stuff. Which is what someone suggested. I've heard bio-spira instant cycle works well too, but it's pricey (but cheaper than lots of dead fish).

 

[SuCraM]

Thank you guys very much for all of the help. I am going to start adding salt to the tank for the nitrite poisoning and give the black moor a salt bath to kill the bacteria. I will keep you all updated with what turns out.

 

[SuCraM]

Update

Well I treated the black moor in a salt bath and he is already looking better. I also added a tablespoon of aqua salt to the 10 gallon to help the nitrite poisoning. Now I just bought a used 55 gallon that is in really good shape and was just emptied 2 days ago by the previous owner. He told me that it would be good to go if i just filled it with water. So seeing that he seemed very smart about fish and the used tank came with established gravel, and variuos ornaments I thought I would take his word for it. So I took it home and filled it up with treated water and started the new Aqua clear 70 filter with filter bags with premium charcoal and put in a couple of air stones. I tested for ammonia and nitrites and both tested 0ppm. Looks like i have a good 55 gallon cycled tank. I put the fish from the 10 gallon in and fed them and turned the lights out as it was late. In the morning the tank looked awesome and very clear. Tested for ammonia and nitrites and both were 0ppm again. What do you all think? I got the tank for 100 bucks with everything but filter and air pump. I will post a picture of it later today when I get home.

 

[Purrbox]

Unless the gravel and ornaments were kept wet, most of the biological filtration is probably dieing or gone. In addition most of the Beneficial Bacteria lives in the filter. Since you had to add a new filter, you would have lost a larger portion there as well. Beneficial Bacteria has to be kept wet and have a food source (Ammonia) or it will start to die off. Unless there is an ammonia source in an aquarium, testing for Ammonia and Nitrites is meaningless.

 

[SuCraM]

Well I do have a source of ammonia in the 55 gallon as I transfered all of the goldies from my 10 gallon in there. As for the 10 gallon with no fish what is the best way to cycle the tank now? All I have now is the filter running and I did a 50% PWC after the transfer of the fish into the other tank.

 

[CatatonicBug]

What are the parameters of he 10g now? Is there still ammonia in the water? I would suggest running it with a filter, heater and air stone as thought there were fish in it. Test the parameters and add ammonia to keep the levels up to 4-5 ppm. Since it was already running, there is a good chance that it won't take long for the bacteria to grow and take care of the ammonia, and turn it into nitrites. Then, while continuing to add ammonia, you need to watch the nitrite levels until they drop to zero. Once that is done, add fish instead of ammonia, and you're all set. There is a great instruction manual here that will walk you through it. It assumes the tank was not already running, but you can work with the information as it applies to your situation.

 

[SuCraM]

What are the parameters of he 10g now? Is there still ammonia in the water? I would suggest running it with a filter, heater and air stone as thought there were fish in it. Test the parameters and add ammonia to keep the levels up to 4-5 ppm. Since it was already running, there is a good chance that it won't take long for the bacteria to grow and take care of the ammonia, and turn it into nitrites. Then, while continuing to add ammonia, you need to watch the nitrite levels until they drop to zero. Once that is done, add fish instead of ammonia, and you're all set. There is a great instruction manual here that will walk you through it. It assumes the tank was not already running, but you can work with the information as it applies to your situation.

I allready had fish in the 10 gallon for a total of 30 days. After I transfered them to the 55 gallon I did a large PWC and tested for ammonia and nitrites. Ammonia has tested 0ppm for about a week now and nitrite was at about 1ppm with the fish in there. I have now put a nylon sock with gravel and an ornament from the 55 gallon tank to help with the cycle. I will be adding fish food and doing PWC's and gravel vacum once a week and will keep an eye on the levels.

 

[CatatonicBug]

Remember that if there is no ammonia, the bacteria that eats the ammonia will die. To keep the cycle going, you will need to keep the ammonia supply going. With my 10g, which is halfway through it's cycle, it clears 5 ppm of ammonia overnight, so I have to keep adding more pure ammonia to the water every day.

 

[SuCraM]

Remember that if there is no ammonia, the bacteria that eats the ammonia will die. To keep the cycle going, you will need to keep the ammonia supply going. With my 10g, which is halfway through it's cycle, it clears 5 ppm of ammonia overnight, so I have to keep adding more pure ammonia to the water every day.

So what do you think I should use for an ammonia source? Raw shrimp? Pure ammonia? If so how do I add it to keep the cycle going?

 

[CatatonicBug]

I went to Ace Hardware (I don't know if that's available in Canada) and bought a $3 bottle of ammonia. I add about 1/16tsp daily to get it up to 4-5ppm, and it drops to almost 0 by the next day. I know raw shrimp is an option, but it just sounds gross to me, and might take a bit to get it to actually start rotting.

 

[SuCraM]

Well I did the shrimp thing and put a large king prawn in there thinking that would do the trick. I checked the levels annd ammonia went back up to 2ppm so the cycle has started all over again. I think tht happened because I took the air pump away to the 55 gallon tank and that killed the bacteria because of lack of oxygen. I am going to get another air pump, air stone and heater and change my filter from the cheap filter inserts to a mesh bag with premium charcoal like my other tank because the charcoal makes it nice and clean and really clear. I got that tip from the guy I bought the tank off of.

 

[jsoong]

There is much debate as to whether charcoal is really needed. However, charcoal is a good medium for bacteria growth, and once your cycle is establishd, will contain a lot of your good bacteria. <Don't change out your charcoal unless you need fresh ones to remove meds, etc.> You can then take that charcoal & put it into another tank & have a quick (or even instant) cycle (useful if you want to set up a hospital or QT tnk in a hurry).

Since you have already started fishless cycle in the 10, you may as well carry on. But you could have just concentrated on your 55, and when that is cycled, take some of the filter material/charcoal from that tank & seed the 10 with it. You could have the 10 cycled in just a day or 2.

 

[SuCraM]

Thanks for the advice Jsoong I will make sure the 55 gallon is cycled then add some filter media and substrate to the 10 gallon to get that cycle completed.