Newbie, with sick fishes and now bad no2 and no3 levels...

[Tasha]

ok I admit im one of those who thaught you could just dump water, rocks, fish, plants in a tank it would all be aok!! We have 2 20 gallon tanks, both tanks had fish with cloudy eye. So I frantically searched onlione to find the best thing to treat the tanks with was tetracycline. At this time both tanks were tesing perfect (other than GH levels of zero, which I keep getting conflicting advice about and will post on its own topic) So I drive a hour away to buy antibiotics for my fish, and while im there oh they have the cutest chocolate chip mollie, and we dont have one like that so I buy her as well.

OH and BTW both tanks are housing mollies and temperature is set to 78. I follow the instructions on the tetracycline, I take out the charchol filters, give a dose, As im watching them swim around in the orangish water I see the new fish with a larger vent opening with red fibers hangning out, I freak out and call the pet store back she says it has worms, and is horrified she has never seen that and was off to check the rest of her tank.... I ask if the tetracycline will also fix the worms and she says oh yes ....... well im not so sure so I quickly go onine and from what I can tell it needs a anti parasite not an antibiotic so sadly I get rid of my new fish in fear of it infecting the rest of my already sick tank.... which is probably too late and already has..andways back to the antibiotics..by the time day 5 rolls around, following the instructions exactly neither tank looks so great, I cant wait to do that final 25% water change and put the filter back in, the one tank is testing normal for all levels but again zero on the GH. It however has a reddish/copper color to the water, im hoping itll go away in time with the filter and weekly water changes???

The other tank however looks better, (other than the yellow/purple foam the filter was building up on day 4-5) but the nitites and nitrates are at the top of my test strip no2 at 10 and no3 at 200... So I freak out, those things kill fish. I do another 25% water change and add some nite-out.

I just called the pet store and she assures me to just keep doing 25% water changes only adding the water condition that makes tap water safe and ride it out......

Please someone help me out.... ive made so many mistakes already, I lost my 6 newborn 5day old babies in my tank during the tetracycline dosages, .... what should I do???

 

[fort384]

It sounds as if your tanks are not cycled. The nitrites at that level especially will have an extremely detrimental effect on your fish, and make them susceptible to many other illnesses and infections. At 10+ppm nitrite, I doubt your fish will live more than a few more days or a week.

You need to get your water clean. This will help with all the other problems as well. It will not hurt to do much larger water changes more often while the tank is cycling. I would do a 50% change on each tank, wait an hour, and then do another 50% PWC. By messing with your filter, it is also going to effect your cycle, as will medicating the tank. It will take a lot of work on your part over the next several weeks to keep the tanks healthy. It might mean daily 50% water changes... you need to get the nitrates down below 20ppm and keep the nitrite down below 0.25ppm.

 

[Tasha]

what is PWC?? Ok duing these 50% water changes should I add anything else, like the salt and water conditioner....

 

[fort384]

PWC=partial water change

What kind of salt are you using? What makes you think you need it? A lot of people keep mollies without adding salt. Adding salt will actually encourage them to breed faster... and I am guessing since you have a 20 gal tank, you are not after a bunch more baby fish

Yes to water conditioner... any time you change the water you should be adding prime (or something similar) to remove chlorine and chloramines.

 

[Tasha]

ive been adding 1 tbsp of aquarium salt for every 5 gallons of water during changes. I was told mollies had to have a little salt for better gill function and disease recovery.... oh man this is all so confusing, I thaught having kids was hard, LOL. I dont mind some babies, it was so fun to watch the little 5 I had grow and play/and hide each day until the antibiotics got them but no I dont want a ton. .......

eeeek, what to do?!

 

[Tasha]

Ok yesterday I did two pwc 50% on both tanks about 2 hrs apart. The one tank is looking good, the other tank is still reading a bit high on nitrates and nitrites, should I continue with 50%PWC of less?

Thanks...

 

[fort384]

Yes, continue 50% pwcs until nitrites are below 0.25 ppm.

The salt isn't required. It won't hurt to add it though.

 

[Tasha]

thanks so much for your advice... how will these large water changes effect my "cycling" process?..... sorry but im new at this, feeling complete lost, im a type A personallity who normally does everything by the book, and this I seem to have just jumped into not realizing theres more too it than, fish and water

Should I occasionally take the whole pump out (that holds the carbon filter) and clean it? or is that a no no? if so how often?

 

[fort384]

Pwcs will not effect your cycle.

It is ok to clean out your filter pads by rinsing them in a bucket of old tank water that you take out during a pwc. Don't use water out of the tap for this or the chlorine will kill your good bacteria.

You don't need to run carbon in a filter unless you are removing med treatment from the water or something. Only replace the filter pads when you rinse them in old tank water and they fall apart. Replacing them causes you to lose a good amount of the biofilter (bacteria) that you want in your tank.

 

[Tasha]

Thank-you I didnt know that, I many times have ran my filter under the tap water to rinse it off!! I have a aquarium filters so the carbon chunks are built in a wrapped around the filter coating, then there are blue rubbery pieces thg filter itself slides into. Can those blue rubbery pieces be cleaned or should they.... im assuming same as the filter as little as possible and in old tank water??

 

[fort384]

Yup you are correct!

 

[Tasha]

Thanks so much for all your help. Its getting much better, ill just keep at it!