When to Discharge from Hospital

[Saltair]

My Tank is just getting started. It has been running for 15 days and started with three Platies and two corys to get things going. One of the Platies started showing signs of fin rot so I removed her to a six gallon Eclipse hospital tank and have been treating for seven days with Melafix. Today is day eight and I changed 20% of the water. She is doing much better, you can still see the fin damage, but things are healing. Current tank parameters are .25ppm ammonia and 0ppm Nitrite and Nitrate. The main tank is heavy into its cycling with .25 - .5ppm ammonia and aprox 5ppm Nitrite and 10ppm nitrate. Not great water conditions. Should I leave the single fish in the hospital tank for a bit longer? That water will get steadily worse of course. Should I keep treating with Melafix until there is no evidence of fin damage?

 

[bluerose]

Clean water is the best thing for sick fish. Get RID of that ammonia (via water changes) in the hospital tank.

If your main tank is that close to being finished with cycling, I'd leave the fish in the hospital tank, altho I'd stop dosing melafix after the treatment week or whatever the bottle says.

You'll want to do a hefty PWC in your main tank, though, as 5ppm nitrite will probably kill your other fish and stall your cycle.

 

[Saltair]

yeah the Nitrite level spiked out of nowhere. I didn't check it yesterday, was a hectic day, checked when I got home from work today and it had gone from .5ppm two days ago to so dark it is at least as dark as the darkest square on the card. Changed 20% after will go for 50% tomorrow I guess.

 

[bluerose]

Change at least 50% ASAP.