shad0wfish11
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Hello! I really hope someone here can help me.
About 2 months ago I set up a 20g tall aquarium (the very tall kind, not the sort of tall kind) that my uncle gave me (otherwise I would have chosen a long aquarium since more fish prefer that set up). I cycled it with fish (4 platies). Three of those are still alive, but of course the lone male was the one that died. I replaced him with 2 more males (assuming one would probably die) because the biggest female was getting pushy and I thought I should get a male back in there. Everyone was doing fine and well and after my ammonia and nitrites went down (less than 0.25ppm) I added a clown pleco to the mix. That was about 2 weeks ago. *Something you should know about this tank is that I am having an impossible time getting the pH down. It has been stuck at 8.2 no matter what I do. Not even API Proper pH 7.0 is helping, although that did the trick in my 5g.*
A few days ago I noticed that my platies were acting a little odd. The bully female was hanging out near the top of the tank and the other 4 were all hanging out at the bottom. No one was swimming around much. I tested and my nitrites were up to .5ppm, so I thought it might just be a spike and they weren't handling it well. But, just to be safe, I decided to treat my tank for bacterial infection, just in case. Well, that was not the right thing to do. About 36 hours ago ALL of the platies began to act just plain bizarre and definitely sick. They all swim just fine for a few moments, then spaz out and seize up and get caught drifting around. Slowly the paralysis lets up and they get back to swimming...until it happens again. The smallest three (the two males and one of the females) are definitely doing the worst and I haven't actually seen the big bully female seize up at all so she seems in the best shape. The pleco, to my observation, seems unaffected. I also noticed yesterday morning that the bully female had long stringy white poo, so I have already started treating for parasitic infection but I'm thinking its probably too late.
Basically, I am expecting all the platies to die at this point and am considering just euthenizing them. However, the clown pleco is doing ok thus far. I mostly want to know what I should do with him and my tank once the platies die. I obviously can't just put new fish in this tank; it is diseased and deadly. And I can't just clean it out and plop the pleco back in because a)it won't be cycled anymore and b)he may still be carrying the disease. A friend of mine who has considerably more experience than me in fish keeping suggested purging the entire tank and starting over, but I'd really like to keep this pleco if I can.
Also just some other information: As I said, the pH is perpetually stuck at 8.2 no matter what I try. Because of this, I haven't been adding aquarium salt when I do my water changes, which right now have been happening every other day because of the nitrite spike. The ammonia and nitrites are back down under .5ppm, but still above zero. Also, I am not an inexperienced fish keeper, but this is my first time dealing with a situation like this. I've been blessed to have mostly healthy tanks (except for my last betta who was just a sickly little thing the entire time I had him) so I am just utterly lost here.
About 2 months ago I set up a 20g tall aquarium (the very tall kind, not the sort of tall kind) that my uncle gave me (otherwise I would have chosen a long aquarium since more fish prefer that set up). I cycled it with fish (4 platies). Three of those are still alive, but of course the lone male was the one that died. I replaced him with 2 more males (assuming one would probably die) because the biggest female was getting pushy and I thought I should get a male back in there. Everyone was doing fine and well and after my ammonia and nitrites went down (less than 0.25ppm) I added a clown pleco to the mix. That was about 2 weeks ago. *Something you should know about this tank is that I am having an impossible time getting the pH down. It has been stuck at 8.2 no matter what I do. Not even API Proper pH 7.0 is helping, although that did the trick in my 5g.*
A few days ago I noticed that my platies were acting a little odd. The bully female was hanging out near the top of the tank and the other 4 were all hanging out at the bottom. No one was swimming around much. I tested and my nitrites were up to .5ppm, so I thought it might just be a spike and they weren't handling it well. But, just to be safe, I decided to treat my tank for bacterial infection, just in case. Well, that was not the right thing to do. About 36 hours ago ALL of the platies began to act just plain bizarre and definitely sick. They all swim just fine for a few moments, then spaz out and seize up and get caught drifting around. Slowly the paralysis lets up and they get back to swimming...until it happens again. The smallest three (the two males and one of the females) are definitely doing the worst and I haven't actually seen the big bully female seize up at all so she seems in the best shape. The pleco, to my observation, seems unaffected. I also noticed yesterday morning that the bully female had long stringy white poo, so I have already started treating for parasitic infection but I'm thinking its probably too late.
Basically, I am expecting all the platies to die at this point and am considering just euthenizing them. However, the clown pleco is doing ok thus far. I mostly want to know what I should do with him and my tank once the platies die. I obviously can't just put new fish in this tank; it is diseased and deadly. And I can't just clean it out and plop the pleco back in because a)it won't be cycled anymore and b)he may still be carrying the disease. A friend of mine who has considerably more experience than me in fish keeping suggested purging the entire tank and starting over, but I'd really like to keep this pleco if I can.
Also just some other information: As I said, the pH is perpetually stuck at 8.2 no matter what I try. Because of this, I haven't been adding aquarium salt when I do my water changes, which right now have been happening every other day because of the nitrite spike. The ammonia and nitrites are back down under .5ppm, but still above zero. Also, I am not an inexperienced fish keeper, but this is my first time dealing with a situation like this. I've been blessed to have mostly healthy tanks (except for my last betta who was just a sickly little thing the entire time I had him) so I am just utterly lost here.