Kelsta

Because it was a new tank and not cycled properly and overstocked - long story but we were not told how to set up a new tank with a biological filter - just told we could put all our fish in straight away and do once fortnightly water changes... we found out too late that that was TOTALLY wrong. That's all on another very long thread... Ammonia and nitrite are nil now, but the effects must be irreversable as fish are still slowly getting sick and dying even 4 days after the water tested all clear.

How did you do it? I'm thinking I'll have to use baking soda (as per the method on Goldfish COnnection) because I can't figure out where you buy clove oil.

Hi, this is awfully ironic, but I posted the info from Goldfish COnnection about Oil f Cloves, and now I was wondering, does anybody know where to get some? I've never had to do this before, but we need to put our goldfish to sleep and really don't want it to be gory! Thanks.

Would the water test still show as having Nitrite present after having used Nitrazorb? Does it completely REMOVE the Nitrite, and therefore show up as nil on the test, or does it just DETOXIFY the Nitrite, and therefore still show up on the test, but it's not considered as harmful?? Thanks.

Oh believe me, there's been plenty of crying over sick fishies in our household! I totaly understand!

Hi We've had a hard time with our new 143 litre coldwater tank, and I'm just questioning whether we've got it set up correctly. It's an in-built trickle filter running accross the hood. Under the tube where the water flows out, we've got filter wool, then a plastic 'grate' and under that we have ceramic tubes. The water level in the filter gets high enough to cover the ceramic tubes. Does this sound right??

Both methods are probably equally as humane, but I think the fish owner performing the euthanising would feel much less traumatised using the anesthetic method than the blow-to-the-head method!

Yep, I'm certainly not taking any chances with our water - why risk it!

haha! Amusing picture... It's quite changable as some days you feel like you've just hopped out of the local swimming pool after your shower, and other days you don't notice a thing. Well, the conditionaer says it deals with chloramine too so that's good.

The best way is to use Oil of Cloves. It's kind and they don't suffer, and it's not grusome like whaking the fish (!?) This method is from Goldfish Connection: Pure clove oil can be purchased in a drug store, health food store and sometimes even a grocery store. In fact we had so many request for Oil of Cloves we now offer it on our Goldfish Connection store. Fill a half gallon container or smaller with tank water, add your sick goldfish. Half fill a small jar with tank water, add one full teaspoon of clove oil and shake well until the water turns white. Add the clove water to the container with your goldfish. Your goldfish should stop breathing and appear dead within minutes. If he doesn't, add more of the oil of cloves. Keep your goldfish in the solution for ten minutes, then place him in a baggie or food container and put him in your freezer. Note: the AVMA recommends 10 times the anesthetic dose, which is 5 drops per gallon for Oil of Cloves, a teaspoon full is many times this amount. Method Two: Baking Soda (carbon dioxide) If you don't have pure oil of gloves available and the pH of your water is between 6.5 and 8.5 you can use Baking Soda. Fill a half gallon container or smaller with tank water, add 4 ounces of baking soda, mix well until all the baking soda is dissolved and add your sick goldfish. The baking soda added to the water produces unconsciousness by increasing the carbon dioxide. Wait ten minutes after r espiration stops. Then place your goldfish in a baggie or food container and put him in your freezer. Everyone has their own ideas which is the most humane method, I prefer the Oil of Cloves. I know it's not easy to have to make the decision to put your goldfish to sleep, especially after you become attached to them. But after all the loving care you have given them and they still are very sick and you know they are suffering, the time must come when you must relieve them from their pain. The important thing is that you don't blame yourself for their death. You did your best and sometimes that's just not good enough to cure a terminal health problem. Good luck!

We always use it as the water actually smells of chlorine when it comes out of the tap sometimes... When we had a small tank, we'd just put the fresh tap water into a bucket and let it sit out for 24 hours before using it as that evaporates the chlorine, but with a big tank you can't really do that.

Thanks heaps jn. There are 5 live plants in there at the moment so that should be helping. And we're feeding very little, despite hubby's protests! I think we must be on the right track finally, so thanks heaps

Oh thanks HEAPS for that jn! Hubby was right then! We figured that there MUST be a source of the nasties because even straight after the 50% water change the levels were still sky high. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with your tank. We had lost all hope last night when hubby finally decided he would just go ahead and wash the wool (against the advice of many people) as it was the only logical thing we could think of! I suppose everyone's sick of hearing about our saga now but I'll update you with whether washing the filter wool helped. It might help others in the same situation. Thanks so much!! Thanks heaps also to tHEcONCH - your reply came through while I was typing!

Thanks Ian, we are doing the daily changes now, so that should help. I know there's never any left over food in the tank as there's never any debris coming up the syphon when we vacume the gravel, and we basically watch the fish eat all their food. But we've put them on a diet and are feeding them about a fifth of what we used to. That's about what they can consume in 1 minute once a day, as opposed to 5 minutes. I suppose less waste from the fish will help. Yes, the people at Animates were stumped about that too, and they said for a new tank it was way overstocked. We added: 4 Goldfish 4 Suckers 9 WCMM And all this only 1 day after setting it up and switching it on!! The people we bought the tank from knew how many fish were going in there and never said anything. There was no warning at all abot new tanks and the possible problems. Animates said we should have been advised to add only one or two, then SLOWLY add the rest once the cycling was complete. No one told us that and we wish they had of. Plus, the store told us just to do once fortnightly water changes, so we thought we were being really responsible by doing them once a week, but it turns out we should have been doing at least twice as many as that during cycling. All this information would have been helpful BEFORE we set up the tank - ie at the store. Oh well, I guess we'll put it down to experience. Thanks heaps for all your help

When you say the filter is where the bacteria live, which part of the filter, exactly? We have a trickle filter, and I thought the ceramic tubes (some people call them noodles) was where the bacteria built up and the foam on top was to stop the bigger debris from going through.

Hmm... well, Ian, our goldfish do have a habit of gulping in all their food real fast and then 'burping' some back out. After feeding they always hoover up the gravel looking for letovers, but it could be that the food they 'burped' out is causing problems in the top layers of gravel. Maybe we should vacume the stones but just not too deep. Hubby has just decided to syphon out some tank water and wash out the filter foam. He's convinced the gunge and sludge in the foam can't be good - I have no idea myself and no better ideas so I'm not objecting. We also thought it might be a good idea to take out our ornament - it's a big rock with holes all over like caves. We thought the water in there may not be circulating properly or something... once again, just a guess!?

Oh dear... the lady at Animates who tested our water again today told us to NOT stir up the gravel at all until the levels of N/N had gone down. She said just to skim over it lightly enough to pick up the poo, ut not to disturb it. She said giving the gravel a good vacume is good for established and fully cycled tanks, but that we should hold off until ours has come right. Don't know what to do now, really...

Hubby has just raised a good point... We did a 50% water change on Sunday, and the Nirtrite/Nitrate levels in the water on Monday were at the top of the danger zone. Shouldn't that huge water change have helped bring the levels down, even a little bit? If the Nitrite/Nitrate is from the fish waste, and the waste all gets deposited into the foam in the trickle filter (on top of the tube things), would that foam be holding Nitrite/Nitrate? Should we wash it? Or just leave it?

OK great! Thanks heaps everyone! We're so please to hear that - we'll keep doing them daily and hope not to lose any more fish. Thanks so much - once again, don't know where we'd be without you!

Hi, I'm SO sorry to still be asking for help on the same topic, but we've just discovered our tank is suffering 'new tank' syndrome and has very high levels of Nitrite and Nitrate, and we are treating with BioZorb. Thanks to all who helped Will it do the fish any harm to do daily 25% water changes until the Nitrite/Nitrate levels come down? I mean, right now, they're REALLY high - in the deadly range. We've already lost 5 fish. The BioZorb takes like a week to work properly and we thought doing daily water changes would help it along. Can anyone tell me if this is OK? I can't see any harm in daily water changes but we're new to this. Thanks.

Hi Ian, I wanted to ask you about the use of Prime, which you suggested before. Please bear with me as I'm really confused.... :oops: We already have some, and have been using it to treat the new water when we do water changes, but now I'm reading the instructions again and I think we may have been under-dosing...? Do you know whether the Prime STAYS in the water, and therefore you only treat the NEW water each change, or are you supposed to treat the WHOLE TANK VOLUME each time??? We can't figure it out. Last night, after reading on the bottle that you can "use up to 5 times the normal dose in a Nitrite emergency", we put in twice the normal dose, but we're still unsure how to treat under normal circumstances and the store doesn't seem to know!? It says on the bottle it's better to add it to the new water first, but then it goes on to say "if adding directly to aquarium, base dose on aquarium volume". Does that mean you're supposed to dose the whole tank volume with each water change? We don't want to over dose in case it harms the fish, but perhaps we've been too cautious, and have been under dosing, which may have contributed to our half-cycled tank having such high Nitrite/Nitrate. We have ONLY been treating the NEW water each time, assuming that the existing tank water still has the Prime in it. Is this right??? THANKS!!

Hi, I'm no expert, but it sounds like a description I've read of DROPSY. I haven't seen the real thing, but perhaps you should Google it, or ask a LFS?? I think (!) the main cause is usually a bacterial infection...? Check it out with someone more experienced than me but I've been reading up, and that sprung to memory from your description of Olly. I think you need to act fast once you can see the pine cone thing happening as the internal infection is quite bad by then. Seek help from someone who knows what they're doing, quick. Good luck keep us posted!

Yep, jn a handout is a great idea and I think Animates has them but that's not where we got our tank. But I am really greatful to Animates for testing my water for free, and putting us on the right track towards healing our tank. They've been really helpful

Thank you very much - I don't know where we would be without you guys! I think sometimes the stores could be a little more informative when you're buying a new tank, so that you *start out* right, rather than have things go drastically wrong, lose your little scaly friends, and THEN they tell you what ya need to know. I think hubby is permanently traumatised now and is saying no more fish - ever. And it was his idea in the first place! But I guess it's up to the fish keeper to do their homework aye. Well, Thanks again

THANKS SO MUCH EVERYONE Animates tested the water for me and the Nitrate and Nitrite levels were WAY too high. Ammonia was low, so not unsafe but there was some. They gave me a pouch of Nitrazorb (or something) to put in the filter that will correct this, and they've said to keep doing twice weekly water changes and continue to add the Prime and Cycle with each change. If anyone would like to put their 2 cents worth in as well, please do! But I'm pleased we've found the source of the problem - now we can fix it. I guess we just added the fish too early. Lesson learned. I wish someone had told us that, but there you go, it's just something we learned the hard way. RIP Streak, Alfalfa, and the 3 nameless minnow