bad water and not well fish

[peaceablegarden]

Hi folks,
Had taken some advice from another forum and here's where I'm at. I started TANK 1 a month ago with three platies. On the first day, a female had babies, I rescued 12 and then overfed over a week's time. My nitrites and everything else went through the roof.

Three days ago I seeded both TANK 1 and TANK 2 (I'll get to that one) with month old gravel from a cycled, established tank. Here's ammonia and nitrite values for both tanks for the past several days.

TANK 1
8/31 (did a 50% water change after checking)
Ammonia 1
Nitrite 1

9/1
Ammonia 1
Nitrite .25

9/2 (added gravel after checking)
Ammonia 1
Nitrite 0

9/3 No change

9/4 No change

TANK 2
8/31 (50% water change)
Ammonia .25-.50
Nitirite .25 - .50

9/1
Ammonia .25-.50
Nitrite 0

9/2 No change
9/3 No change
9/4 No change

TANK 2 is two weeks old with one Neon Tetra. Yes, I'm cycling the tanks with fish. I know some folks here don't agree with that. I got advice from some one locally. I have the fish and am trying to nurse them through this mess. One of my platies was sick but got well. Now is hiding again. And another platy has a white thick line on his tail. All fry are alive and seemingly well. I'm not sure what to do now. The seeding doesn't seem to be doing anything. Thanks for the help!
Karen.

 

[FishEggs]

Depending on how much seeded gravel you used you might not see much difference. It's better if you can get some of the old filter media and use that in your filter. keep doing pwc's to keep the ammonia and nitrite down so it doesnt harm the fish. you can also put lots of fast growing stem plants in the tank to help as long as you have enough light, otherwise they start to rot and add to the problem.

 

[peaceablegarden]

There was about a 1 cup in TANK 1 and 1/2 cup in TANK 2. Wasn't able to the media. She had just changed her filter unfortunately. Nitrite is 0, can't seem to get the Ammonia down even with pwcs. Haven't done any since last week when I did the 50% but even that didn't budge it. And still wondering what might be up with thick white line in the platy tail. Any ideas?

 

[peaceablegarden]

Oh, and yea, not enough light for the plants.

 

[happygirl65]

It is hard to say wha the line may be without a picture....can you post one?

Try to keep the ammonia below .5 if at all possible......and test your tap water. You mentioned you are having a hard time getting the ammonia down, it might be good to find out if your water source has ammonia.

 

[peaceablegarden]

Yes, there is ammonia in my tap water. Here's an okay photo of the fish in question. The 'line' in his tail is white and thick. You can sort of see it up by Mickey's top ear.

 

[peaceablegarden]

You got me thinking. My tap water is about .25-.50 ammonia, but I also have a gravity fed water filtration system that uses ceramic filters. I tested that water and found 0ppm ammonia. So, I had about 1 gal of water. I just did a very small pwc. I refilled the filter and will have another two gallons for tomorrow, so I can do another pwc. Hopefully that will help bring down the ammonia. Wow, what a great realization! Thanks!

 

[happygirl65]

Well the line is hard to see but it could be an injury that may just heal up on it's own with plenty of clean water. Just watch it and look for any changes to it and pay attention to whether the fish is eating and acting like normal.

 

[peaceablegarden]

Has gotten worse. See new post..http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f17/possible-fin-rot-and-one-dead-106149.html