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I am looking for suggestions on a particular issue I am having with my Fluval 405 canister filter. I have a (now) lightly stocked planted 75 gallon freshwater tank. Over time, the canister seems to develop air pockets in it. As a result, the gph seems to be affected. If I rock the canister...

Tell that to the goldfish.

Five days does absolutely nothing for cycling a tank, especially a 55 gallon. Aside from that, the symptoms described point to poisoning. With what is anyone's guess.

So long as my water change is not exceeding 30%, I never use a dechlorinator. The water system here does use chloramine, too. There is nothing wrong with a low dose of chlorine or chloramine -- in fact, I promote its use to clear up some bacterial diseases in fish like gill disease.

The loach appears fine to me. My clown loaches always have stomachs like that after some good eatin'. I take it this is not the case here? For further help, if you were using the stickies I assume you would have seen this one: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=33947

May I recommend Kuhli loaches. They stay small, are unusual, fun to watch, and will eat leftover food as well as smaller snails. Keep more than one for maximum viewing pleasure. :) For a 10 gallon planted tank I would do about three of them.

Endlers have always reminded me of the feeder guppies you find in stores, but a good strain can be a beautiful fish.

Am I supposed to know what is going on? Are you cycling, or this an established tank? Do you have fish in it? Plants? Have you tested the water that comes out of the faucet itself before you put it in the tank?

Yes yes, there is always someone who shows up with the exception to the rule with an "I do fine" response. I do a 15% water change once per month and my fish thrive. So... ?

If you suspect some sort of infection or parasite, do not quarantine. Treat the entire tank. Even if some fish look healthy they could be harboring something. Keep us posted.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=33947

Just how high was your nitrate before the water change? I'll look through some of your older posts to see if I can catch up with your tank. Edit: I reviewed your posts back to May and could not find anything regarding high nitrates. However, I did find a lot of posts describing all kinds of...

Do nothing. That is what I am trying to emphasize. Let your tank stabilize (again) for a couple of weeks. Actually, your bio-load is low enough now that I would wait a month. If you are truly thinking your nitrate levels are the problem, (as indicated in your reason for doing the 80% water...

20ppm is an absolutely acceptable level for most all types of fish, including all you have listed thus far.

Correct -- even 50% is far too much. Anything more than 20% should be reserved for cases of poisoning either by contamination, ammonia, or in some situations nitrite. Around here, I see recommendations for voluminous water changes often for high nitrates. That is bad advice. It is more...

An 80% water change is way, way too much. Remember that water stability is more important than anything else, a rule which I have noticed seems to be largely ignored or unknown around here.

This is a practice that requires a special type of salt, and regardless is not suited for gouramis anyway, so I will not elaborate further.

Today I went to Fish Store and he had another four, so I picked those up, too. What a great week. :)

I went to Fish World, and he had three. I picked them all up. They were labeled as Flying Foxes, of course, but my trained eye outed them.

Anyone ever seen any true SAEs for sale anywhere in Nebraska? A few weeks ago I did see some fish labeled Flying Foxes that I thought could be, but did not purchase any and now they are out.

I see no signs of Ich.

It sounds like we have a lack of decent fish stores in Nebraska, eh? No one seems to be entirely impressed with any single store they go to.

Chloramine is fine as well. If you think you have not been adding enough dechlor, try using more. But the symptoms you describe seem to go beyond gill irritation. A salt bath could be mildly effective. Bacteria have defenses against such an exposure, so the treatment will take longer.

Reddened gills are generally a sign of bacterial infection. Try a simple solution: next time you do a water change, do NOT add dechlorinator. A low dose of chlorine can actually be beneficial for treating bacterial gill infections, believe it or not.

If money is no object, Zebra Plecos are incredibly beautiful and fun to watch. They have become exceedingly rare in recent years, both in the wild and in captivity, so expect to pay a fair amount for one.