Need Ideas

[redfisher1139]

My 10g guppy tank is in horrible shape. I have an Ich problem that I started treatment with Ich-Attack about a week and a half ago. I removed the carbon from the filter as instructed, and now I have a horrific algea bloom, my guppies are not getting any better(not getting any worse either), and things just look disgusting in general. I am thinking at this point about euthanising the guppies, cleaning and recycling the tank, and QT'ing the cories, which show no signs of the ich. For the qt, I was planning on using the same filter, taking a bit of gravel from my established 30g, using water from my 30g, and utilizing the filter media from my secondary filter on my 30g. Is this a feasable game plan, or do you think my guppies will still recover even after all this time?

Just tested the water, and the readings are astronomically bad.
Nitrate:80ppm
Nitrite:way off the chart
GH:75
chlorine:0
KH:40
PH:6.5

I have never seen a nitrite reading that high, even when cycling my tanks. This is actually very embarrassing that it got this bad. I just did a PWC 2 days ago, and the readings were all good. The only changes we have had is a slight ambient temperature bump which raised that tank temp aprox. 2 degrees to 76 from 74.

 

[mudraker]

If your guppies have ich, all of the fish in the tank have ich, even your healthy looking corys. They just are not showing symptoms yet.

You have nitrite in your tank, so it is actively cycling anyway so all of the fish are being poisoned regardless.

You didn't post your ammonia reading.

Do a massive water change immediately. If your 30 gallon tank is truly problem free (no nitrites or ammonia or ich) use some of the filter media from that tank to seed the 10 gallon filter. You can even use substrate from the 30. Just scoop as much as will fit into the filter of the 10 gallon using pantyhose (or other aquarium safe sack) to contain the substrate. This will speed the cycling or even stop it, if you get -and keep - the nitrate level down.

Keep doing at least a 50% PWC daily until you test 0 for nitrites, ammonia and your nitrates come down to earth. Unless you have plants in your tank, you should strive to have 0 nitrates also.

Keep doing water changes daily and continue to treat the tank for ich.

If you can raise the temperature above the 86 degree mark, it will help kill the ich faster. But use care, and raise the temp by one degree every 12 hours. If you only raise it to 84 or 85 without salt or other meds (you say you are using Ich attack) it will only speed up the lifecycle of the parasite. At 86 it kills the ich.

Use extreme caution to not cross contaminate your 30 gallon tank with ich. Don't use the same nets, etc while the 10 is infected.

From your high nitrate reading, it sounds very likely that you overloaded the bio load of the tank. Overfeeding, overpoplating and not doing water changes on a regular basis can all cause this problem. Also, when you removed the carbon from the filter, did you remove a cartrige and leave no media in it? Or did you clean the filter itself out?

Any and all of these situations will cause the tank to cycle.

The algae, in and of itself, won't harm your fish at all. In fact, it is a healthy part of a guppy's diet. Clean it out with an undyed paper towel or appropriate aquarium scrubber if it's unsightly.

Imbalance of nutrients causes algae. Too much uneaten food in the tank and too much light will aggravate the problem no end. It is not the lack of carbon in the filter.

Whether you choose to euthanize your fish or not is up to you, but I personally find that a very distasteful solution.

Also, whatever guppys (or corys) survive the current tank conditions will be some very tough genetic stock.

In the future (you already know this) Keep your water clean with weekly water changes and quarantine new fish so they don't bring ich into your tanks.

 

[redfisher1139]

Well, I think I found the root of my problem for the spikes and algae.. When doing my PWC, I found a dead, heavily molded guppy on the back side of my filter intake and another one under a lava rock. I will post new tes results later today.

 

[dkpate]

When my nitrates get above 5 ppm, I clean the filter media in old tank water, and do a gravel vac.

 

[redfisher1139]

Well, Great News, folks!!!! The tank is testing beautiful and I have had no more deaths. I did figure out that the largest of the guppies was fin nipping everyone else (my beautiful Lyretails are no longer Lyretails ), and moved him to another tank, but everyone else is doing great!!!

 

[tyspot1000]

Glad everything went out alright!