Sick Gourami

[summercgreen]

My 55g aquarium is going wonky right now. My nitrate is out of the roof. Nitrites are clear. I've been doing 20% water changes the last 3 days and adding "prime" which eliminates nitrates and nitrites and helps with stress of fish. I do regular water changes every 3 weeks. Also my ph is very low (6-5). I have a foam fluval background so I removed this and notice that it was filthy behind it. Even though it was siliconed to the tank. Now one of my gourami has a bump on its side. Today I noticed another one on his head. I know they are really sensitive to water that is not right. Is there anything I can do without messing around with the water any more. Or any ideas what this is. I'm worried my fish are getting stressed out due to poor water and me doing water changes every day.

 

[summercgreen]

Also I checked my tap water and the only thing that is a bit off is ph. 6.5-7

 

[Wiggles24]

Honestly you should be doing water changes more than once every three weeks, that's why your parameters are out if whack. You need to be doing bigger water changes daily to get your trates down. BTW Ph isn't a big deal unless it fluctuates.

 

[summercgreen]

3 weeks is the longest I've gone and I constantly check my levels. Everything was fine until recently.

 

[summercgreen]

Should I bump my water changes to 50% the next couple of days? Will it help?

 

[Wiggles24]

Bigger water changes needed until u get your parameters under control.

 

[summercgreen]

Thank you

 

[ktomminello]

I would suggest doing a 75% swap out over the course of a couple days, and instead of adding prime I would look into seachem stability, prime should be used as a water conditioner, change your water frequently, but don't be so quick to jump on the chemical train, imho, I think just getting your tank to stabilize (ph doesn't have to be at a perfect 7 as long as it's not fluctuating and your ammonia, nitrite and nitrates are in spec you should be ok with low ph). And I will stand by this- whenever I see my tanks are not staying stable replacing half of the water with distilled and conditioned water with a bottle of nutrafin cycle does wonders...

 

[summercgreen]

I would suggest doing a 75% swap out over the course of a couple days, and instead of adding prime I would look into seachem stability, prime should be used as a water conditioner, change your water frequently, but don't be so quick to jump on the chemical train, imho, I think just getting your tank to stabilize (ph doesn't have to be at a perfect 7 as long as it's not fluctuating and your ammonia, nitrite and nitrates are in spec you should be ok with low ph). And I will stand by this- whenever I see my tanks are not staying stable replacing half of the water with distilled and conditioned water with a bottle of nutrafin cycle does wonders...

Thank you for your help. I'm on it right now

 

[ktomminello]

hopefully you'll have some good pictures to post and good news to tell!! welcome to the wild world of aquaria!!

 

[summercgreen]

Well good news. My levels are coming down.

PH: 6.0. ( I'm guessing this is from my nitrate levels)
Ammonia : 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5

So I'm almost through this! I'm still going to do water changes but I'm thinking not as extreme. Maybe 25%?