West Aussie needs help with sand substrate.

[Karamin65]

Hi I will be up grading to a Aqua grande 285 litre 120 4 Foot tank to house my Albino shark & Bristle nose who are out growing their current tank. I would like to use sand as the substrate but do not know what is the best kind to use, I do not want to change the water parameters as all my fish are use to my tap water & ph, but I do want to have a few live plants in the new tank as well.

Here is a picture of my current tank. I have 3 Balloon Mollies, 6 Neons, 2 Red Eye Tetras, 2 Leopard Cory, 1 Bristle nose& 1very rapidly growing Albino Shark!.

Any advice would be most welcome.



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[Karamin65]

Hello, anyone have any advice.

Thanks.


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[ppo8820]

The sand shouldnt change the water quality at all. You will need to siphon a little differently when you do water changes, but that is about it. Also, when using sand, make sure its all settled before you turn your filters back on as any granules can make filters burn out or just cause an obnoxious noise for eternity. Nice tank btw.

 

[Karamin65]

Thank I will keep that in mind, I will probably go with Caribsea Torpedo Beach & Tahitian Moon mixed together to get a salt & pepper look, It is a medium grain sand so is a bit heavier than the finer beach type sand, & hopefully won't cloud up to much.

I am having trouble with 3 of my Neons at the moment, 1 has a small white patch on his tail and it look a bit rattie and 2 have white fungus on their mouths, I have been treating with Pimafix & Melafix together for the last 5 days and there has been no change, have 2 days to go with that treatment if it does not work I will try Blue Planets General cure which is a combination of Malachite Green & Methylene Blue, Hate putting strong chemicals in the tank. Can anyone recommend anything else?

All the fish seem fine still swimming around and eating like little horses, so that's a good sign, just hope they don't take a sudden turn for the worst.



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[Delapool]

I'm awfully sorry and hopefully wrong, but that looks like the columnaris I had on my neons. Is it like a white pimple or very fuzzy?

 

[Karamin65]

It's hard to tell they are so small, and my eyes aren't too good even with my glasses on lol. More smooth like a pimple I think


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[Delapool]

That sounds the same as mine and at around the same time last year.

Are you in West Australia? That will control the meds list for treatment.

Can you QT? I'd heavily recommend it. The infection wiped all of my neons out eventually.

 

[Karamin65]

Yes in Perth, WA, and yes I do have a small 30cm tank spare filter and heater, do I keep treating the main tank as well, and what do I use?

Thanks.


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[Delapool]

Stupid computer crashed so this is a bit shorter and will send some links tonight.

DT - continue with pima and mela.

QT - shift any infected fish to here as soon as noticed. Treat with general cure (MB, MG and acriflavine) plus tripple sulpha. If fungal, skip the tripple sulpha otherwise I would add it.

Keep water temperature at about 25C. Higher will encourage bacterial infection, lower fungal infection.

For columnaris you need furan2 and kanaplax antibitics which I have never seen in Perth. Will send link tonight. Tetracycline is stocked here but wrong type of med.

Edit - send through any questions.

 

[Karamin65]

Thanks so much for all your help, I am setting up QT tank tonight. The temp in my main tank was set to 26, so have started to drop it to 25. Still only the 3 Neons affected so far, they are still eating and very active so that's a good thing.
Will have to make another trip to City Farmer,s in my lunch break tomorrow to get the other meds, lucky it is just across the car park from where I work!

Thanks again, will keep you updated.?


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[Karamin65]

QT tank up! Now to get the fish in, That will have to wait till tomorrow, I'm absolutly buggard
still need to get another thermometer, don't have a spare one, I'll add it to my ever growing shopping list lol.

Is there anything else I need in there? Plastic plant for the to hide in maybe.

This fish keeping is hard work, This is my first tank in about twenty years!





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[Delapool]

Good luck! If you can keep us posted that would be really appreciated.

I've used the link below to get kanaplex and furan-2 from overseas. There is a cost and also I'm always surprised anything ships into WA so something to weigh up. It's also not quick unfortunately. To date the only major thing I've had stopped is API co2 booster - which was really annoying as you can buy it here in the shops.

kanaplex

The link below gives a good introduction of various meds and infections. The trouble with tetracycline is it mainly treats for gram-positive bacteria whereas columnaris is gram-negative. I never had any luck with using it but an option. You could always try the general cure for a few days (to see if fungal) and if not working, start dosing tripple sulpha as well.

Aquarium Medications Part 2 | Antibiotic & Antimicrobial Treatments

Heat was the main issue I found. Spikes in temp made the infection worse.

Salt I did try with neons and catfish. Limited effectiveness I found.

Waterlife myxazin I also tried. I like the product and that you can steadily increase the dose over a few days (so the fish gets used to the med) but also no luck. Below are the ingredients from the waterlife rep.

([FONT=&quot]Myxazin Contains: Malachite green 1632mg/l , Acriflavine Hydrochloride

Edit - yes, I've used plastic plumbers pipe so they have somewhere to hide.

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[Karamin65]

Thanks so much for all your help it's been great, I will get the fish in the QT tank tomorrow night after work, and get going on the general cure, will keep you up dated on their progress.

Thanks again.


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[Delapool]

This fish keeping is hard work, This is my first tank in about twenty years!

View attachment 256566



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Lol - the old days were good when the only thing I had to remember was the catfish probably hadn't died but got lost in the underground filter. Everything I had ran on air pumps.

 

[Karamin65]

Yes and if a fish got sick we would take it out of the tank dab on some mercurochrome and chuck him back in, funnily enough most of them survived!


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[Karamin65]

It's been 3 days since the first dose or Multi Cure and no change in the fish that I can see, did 25%water change,added 2nd Dose of Multi Cure plus 1st dose of Triple Sulpha will see if that works.

Apart from the White spot on their mouths & tail they don't seem sick at all still very active and eating well. Hope this works if not will have to try something else.




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[Delapool]

Fingers crossed! No change in the size of the white spot at all?

Darn it - was hoping that would work.

 

[Karamin65]

Hi, no, no change that I can see, but It is very hard to see through the green haze!, they also have a friend joining them one of the Balloon Mollies was just sitting in the Tank not really moving has her mouth open all the time, it looks like her top lip is curled backwards, really weird, no fungus or spots on her, put her in QT last night she is moving around and eating this morning, and her mouth is looking a little more normal.

I think I will continue with the Melafix & Pimafix in my DT tank for a bit longer, does not seem to be bothering the fish in there too much.

I have some Myxazin & Protozin on the the way I guess I will try them next.

Do you think putting a small dose of salt will do any good in my DT tank, I don't want to upset the Bristle nose & Shark too much not sure how they would tolerate it.

I'll be devastated if I loose my Shark!


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[Delapool]

I've preferred to salt the QT so if there are any problems, the fish can be taken out. My DT is planted as well. My thought is you could easily salt the DT but not sure it will help. 1 teaspoon per 5 gals shouldn't cause any issues though.

I tried 2 or 3 tablespoons of salt per 5 gals for infected neons without much luck. 1 tablespoon per 1 gals would be the max I've seen suggested to try.

Not sure on sharks but b/n I've found can handle several tablespoons per 5 gals. I've tried a teaspoon of salt per 5 gals and increased this over several nights.

Tetracycline could be worth a try in QT.

You could skip the pima and mela as they don't seem to be doing much(?), and add triple sulpha to main tank.


I found that the pimples got larger and the flesh around these was eaten away (plus other lesions, colour loss, bent body) although it did vary. In the end I put the fish down.

 

[Karamin65]

That sounds awful!

So far the spots on mine have not got any bigger and there are no other lesions, the other three Neons are still clear, I ended up putting all six in QT, it took me over an hour to catch them all, could not see which were the sick one so just caught them all.
Today is the second day of Tri Sulpha will re-asses on Monday night, they will be ready for more meds on Tuesday if no change, hopefully the new ones I have ordered will have arrived by then, will pick up some Aqua salt tomorrow, can use it my mum,s tank all live bearers in her tank and could use some salt.

Will put a dose of Tri Sulpha in my DT tank tonight instead of the Pima & Melafix, did a PwC on it today and water tests, all ok there Nitrite & Amonia 0 Nitrate 20. Will keep up with twice weekly pwc's for a while till thing settle down again.

It's keeping me busy!

Thank again for all the advice it is very much appreciated.?


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