I need help ASAP!!! Cichlids exhibiting Weird Behavior

[kelbaker79]

You have been lucky!!!! Never change filter media until its falling apart. Then put the new one in with the old one so the BB clings to the new one..For a few days at least. Just wash them out in aquarium water. Remove the soild waste thats it. Also you may try adding some biomedia like sechem matrix not the black carbon stuff but the grey stuff. You can put in in a nylon bag and hang it in your filter. You dont have to change it out ever. Also you can get bioballs

Yes, I'm not thinking straight, a lot going on in my mind with this, I agree, I never just COMPLETELY change them out!! I use bioballs as well...

 

[kelbaker79]

Thank you all so much!!

I'm sorry I'm making this so confusing.

 

[kelbaker79]

So, ok, I need a plan...

Do a water change to help lower nitrAte level.

But what should I do about my tap water (really high ammo)? Is it ok to add that water from the tap??

 

[kelbaker79]

Also, I just tested my 125 gallon, my two 55 gallons and another 75 gallon that is currently empty (cycles, but empty) and all are reading exactly the same?!

Ammo somewhere between 0-0.25
NitrItes 0ppm
NitrAtes 40ppm

What am I going to do?!?!

 

[steez]

That small amount of ammonia isn't too bad for your fish. But doing small water changes instead of large will help from a spike of ammonia in the tanks.


Small amounts of ammonia from tap will just get eaten up by the BB before they do too much harm.

Your nitrAtes aren't really all that bad man, 40ppm is higher than what people want for a PERFECT tank, but it's about what my tanks run at too. I have pretty high nitrAtes in my tap water. As long as you're not at like 80-100+ nitrAtes I wouldn't worry too much.

For a SW tank that's a different story, but we're talking about a FW so it's all good.

 

[kelbaker79]

That small amount of ammonia isn't too bad for your fish. But doing small water changes instead of large will help from a spike of ammonia in the tanks.

Small amounts of ammonia from tap will just get eaten up by the BB before they do too much harm.

Your nitrAtes aren't really all that bad man, 40ppm is higher than what people want for a PERFECT tank, but it's about what my tanks run at too. I have pretty high nitrAtes in my tap water. As long as you're not at like 80-100+ nitrAtes I wouldn't worry too much.

For a SW tank that's a different story, but we're talking about a FW so it's all good.

Thanks so much for your help!

But now I'm back to the original problem, what's wrong with my fish?! Lol

 

[steez]

Could be many things. The ammonia, stress, aggression...

Best bet would just try to make sure to keep up on water changes.

How many of them have the white on the lips? Is it just their lips or anywhere else?

 

[Jmedic25]

Kel....And steelz can correct me if im wrong but if your other tanks are empty the BB will die off. If you dont have a steady supply of ammo the BB starves. However your are unique since your tap water has ammo so you may still have BB in the empty tanks.

 

[steez]

Kel....And steelz can correct me if im wrong but if your other tanks are empty the BB will die off. If you dont have a steady supply of ammo the BB starves. However your are unique since your tap water has ammo so you may still have BB in the empty tanks.

Correct. BB needs ammonia to feed off of. You can also buy pure ammonia at stores. For example the Ace Hardware brand of ammonia works great.

 

[kelbaker79]

Kel....And steelz can correct me if im wrong but if your other tanks are empty the BB will die off. If you dont have a steady supply of ammo the BB starves. However your are unique since your tap water has ammo so you may still have BB in the empty tanks.

Ok, makes sense Right now, its reading 0.25ppm

 

[kelbaker79]

Could be many things. The ammonia, stress, aggression...

Best bet would just try to make sure to keep up on water changes.

How many of them have the white on the lips? Is it just their lips or anywhere else?

3 of them, and it looked nothing like that yesterday...not fuzzy or anything, just white. No white anywhere else...

 

[steez]

Hopefully someone else can chime in for you. I'm not too fluent on all the diseases.

 

[Jmedic25]

Ive never seen that but if you google it I found where it can be contributed to lip locking. But you need to confirm that for sure.

 

[DragonFish71]

Have you had any rain or snow melt off in your area? Water plants will add extra chemicals to the water during run-off because of the higher chance of harmful bacterias and chemicals.

Do another water change, add extra dechlor. If you use Prime, use an extra capfull. I have to do this each time we have rain or snow melting. Figured this out after having many tank crashes and calling our water purification plant.

 

[kelbaker79]

Have you had any rain or snow melt off in your area? Water plants will add extra chemicals to the water during run-off because of the higher chance of harmful bacterias and chemicals.

Do another water change, add extra dechlor. If you use Prime, use an extra capfull. I have to do this each time we have rain or snow melting. Figured this out after having many tank crashes and calling our water purification plant.

Actually, yes. It rained for a good 4 days last week. Snowed lightly a few days ago. Interesting. Thank you for that info!

 

[mfdrookie516]

Nitrite poisoning wouldn't cause 'white lips'. The fish would probably be gasping for o2, since nitrite does some fancy chemical term to prevent oxygen from being taken in to the blood stream. Aquarium salt or prime is a good method to help reduce nitrite toxicity in emergencies. Water changes are probably better though.

The 'white lips' sound like columnaris, which I've had the unfortunate experience with before. It usually starts with the lips, then moves to patches on the fish. Google it and see if that may be what you're working with. If so, lowering your temp 6 degrees and adding aquarium salt are a good idea, as well as treating with a med that targets gram negative bacteria.

 

[D-vanhorn90]

My tank always has .25 ppm of ammonia, my take is there always has to be a small amount that bb eat that wont do harm to your fish because your bb can keep up with it.

 

[steez]

Have you had any rain or snow melt off in your area? Water plants will add extra chemicals to the water during run-off because of the higher chance of harmful bacterias and chemicals.

Do another water change, add extra dechlor. If you use Prime, use an extra capfull. I have to do this each time we have rain or snow melting. Figured this out after having many tank crashes and calling our water purification plant.

I never even thought about this...

Man this makes me want an RO/DI system even more.

 

[Gboy66]

I never even thought about this...

Man this makes me want an RO/DI system even more.

65 bucks on ebay

 

[aqua_chem]

Nitrite poisoning wouldn't cause 'white lips'. The fish would probably be gasping for o2, since nitrite does some fancy chemical term to prevent oxygen from being taken in to the blood stream. Aquarium salt or prime is a good method to help reduce nitrite toxicity in emergencies. Water changes are probably better though.

Methemoglobinemia

The addition of aquarium salt, especially if your water is hard (high calcium content) can significantly increase your fish's resistance to nitrite poisoning.