Seriously worried...

[HappyLoner]

Hi All

Firstly, my details:

Level of Experience: Beginner with plenty theoretical knowledge, unfortunately read from vaious sites on the net, with many contradictory pieces of advice. So basically, Im not stupid, just misinformed. Hehe.

I have a 2 month old setup. Small tank - 25 litres of water.

2 Rams
5 Neons - 1 Died this morning
1 Angel (He/she killed the other Angel I also had)
1 Kissing Gourami
2 Male Dwarf Gouramis
3 Guppy Females - My Male died this morning
About 20 Guppy fry - One female popped last week in a trap, got them in breeding net at the moment.

Normal corner filter with air pump. Filter has charcoal and floss. About 1 inch of gravel with one live "potted plant" - ie not planted in gravel. Heater with temp set at 25-27 degrees celcius usually, but raised to 27-29 at the moment due to treatments as adviced.

First thing all of you are going to say is that this tank is overpopulated. I know that, Only too late unortunately. The pet shop where I bought everything from, should have warned me. They suggested every fish I have and had in this tank, and they sold me the tank! Needless to say, I already talked to them, explained hy I was unhappy, and I do not support them anymore.

My problem is my current situation. I will be getting a 2nd tank very soon, just finances does not allow me getting it as in NOW. So I have to do the best I can with what I have.

About 3 days ago, the female guppy that gave birth last week, got bad fungus over her body - a whitish cottonish appearance. I immediately did a 20% water change and added Anti-Ick as it was all I had access to. The next day (yesterday) I got a bottle of AQUADENE Nr 3 "General Aid Special" and added that as per bottle. (By the way, the bottle only states how much to add per gallon. They do not give any directions on what to do afterwards for example, water changes, treatment repeats etc. Please help here?).

This medication turned the water an UGLY green, but I suppose it should be like that, as it is green in color. The shop where I got the medicine (by the way, they also sell excellent fish there, breed themselves, and is a well-known Koi breeder in South Africa) said I should also add 1 gram of salt per litre of water. I got the salt from them and also did that. I previously had NO salt.

This morning, the guppy male was swimming upside down, and died a few hrs later. A neon tetra also died during the night.

The fungus on the female that was infected, is gone, however, look like "scars" still there. That must be a good sign??? I can also now see that her fins are damaged (wasnt sure before due to fugus), so could it be fin rot too?

After removing the dead male (and earlier the dead neon) (BTW, I sorta grew attached to this male - I hated loosing him SO much), I did about a 40% water change, ensuring I add the same temp water than what is in the tank, replaced 40% salt, and added medication the the 40% new water to the amount prescribed for that amount of water.

They all look happy now. What next? Have I done enough?

Oh yeah. A uninformed friend, gave me two of these yellow-orangish-decoraitve but alive snails thingies for the tank. OK, snails, ugly things, but it was a gift and I couldnt get rid of them. I read that their presence might be dtremential to my tank? Should I keep them? Get rid of them?

Thanks guys!

HappyLoner

 

[HappyLoner]

Oh yeah, my PH is neutral by the way, and I do regular (after every 3-4 days) a 20% water change. The water I remove by siphoning it through a gravel cleaner and that gets rid of most or all the waste at that time. I (think) that should be sufficient? Or too much maybe?

 

[ConanTheLibraia]

I actually had similar problems with my fish in a 10 gallon (i think its about the same size as yours) Anyways, my fish were looking really bad. They were just all around sick so i was advised to use melafix by another user on this site (forget who, ill have to check since they could probably give you good advice) I started feeding my fish every other day, and I took out my carbon insert in the filter, and started the melafix treatment
(1 teaspoon per 10 gal. every day for 7 days) on day 2 of the treatment i lost my black moor. He was in such bad condition i think it was too late by the time i got the medication but i was pissed since i raised him for awhile. Its now day 4 of the treatment and my fish are looking normal again. i think the melafix is a great all around treatment, because one of my fish had clumped tailfins, another had velvet, and 2 had ick! it was horrible, my tank was infested, and it was a sorry sight. But all i used was the melafix and followed the instructions that came with it and everything turned out fine. Melafix can treat fungi problems, tail rot, open wounds, i think ick, and is helpful for a bunch of other things too.

 

[fishfreek]

Small tank - 25 litres of water.

Thats equivlent to 5 1/2 US Gal of water. To me thats to many fish for that size tank. Not even counting the 20 baby fish u just got.

U already know that so no need to mention it again. You need to do some serous waterchanges because the medication you used is probably an antibotic and one of the side effectst of these medications is that they can damage your bio filter. Also when using these its good to remove the carbon from your filter as the carbon in your filter will acutally absorb your medication and make it less effective.

Until you can get the population lower perform reqular (ie at least twice a week) water changes of 50% to keep the water quality up and the ammonia and nitrite levels down.

 

[HappyLoner]

Hi Guys

Just feel that I have neglected u guys in updating what happened since the last post.

I lost another female guppy, the one that was worst infected

I then did the following:

Day1: Got a nitrite test kit. VERY expensive here. Nitrite level 0.4! Did 40% water change. Removed Carbon from filter (did not do that with initial medication - Thanks to my very informative LFS) and remedicated with PROPER medication. "Fungus Clear" By Tank Buddies.

Day2: Nitrite Level at 0.7! ALARMS! 40% water change! Added 50ml Bacteria (about 5 times the recommended dose on bottle, this was a breeders advice, and the bottle said its impossible to overdose).

Day3" Phew. FISH look HAPPY. Nitrite down to 0.2!

Now today is Day 4 and I will keep you posted as soon as Ive tested again tonight. Things are better and I think I learned a HELLUVA lots through all of this!

Thanks for your help!

hL