Kelsta

Thank you so much for your help Gosh I feel really stupid - seems so obvious now. The old tank is empty so that won't be any use. I guess we'll just keep doing a water cahge each day, and I'll go get some ammonia neutraliser today to use until the tank is properly cycled. How long do you suggest we keep doing the water changes? I'm going to buy the ammonia test this morning - is there anything else I should be testing? I'd like to get everything I need now. Thanks

Sorry, I forgot: yes we use a gravel vacume for the water changes and we didn't clean the fileter at all this time, but we have washed the foam in the dirty water from the tank twice. I see that was the wrog thing to do.

Right, we'll do water changes every other day, and buy an ammonia neutraliser. I've just added more cycle to the water too. I hope that prevents any more fish from getting sick! Me and hubby are pretty traumatised at this point. I just find it wierd that we did the 50% water change yesterday, which should have helped, but then straight away 2 more fish got sick? Question: We used to use Aqua Plus water ager with our last tank, but now we have the "latest and greated" and it's called Prime. Trouble is, it's SO concentrated, and we can't really treat each bucket of water individually before we put it in the tank, so we've been addingthe whole entire dose to the first bucket of water, adn then just following with he rest of the tap water until the tank is full again. Is this OK? Couldthat have caused them problems? Why are our 4 fantails OK? Are they hardier?

Would the cycle have not sped up the cycling process? What do we do now? Do we leave the fish in there and keep doing the water changes, or set up the old tank and ut them back or what? How often do we do water changes - every day, every second day? Can we save the sick ones? We have 1 sucker and 1 minnow this morning who are sick with red gills and looking real bad - can we do anything? As for the others - HOW do you reduce ammonia? Is there a product or what?

Well, I guess the next step is to test the water but we'll have to buy a testing kit tomorrow. We'd still apreciate any ideas from anyone out there - we never had any problems at all in our little 30 litre tank with 2 fantails... this is pretty scary. Do youthink parasites or gill flukes could be eliminated then? They haven't been flashing apart from VERY rarely - like once every few days - not like a constat itch. Geez, not knowing is awful...

We did a 50% water change today, adding Prime (ager) and Cycle. Will we need a testing kit to test the ammonia levels? Wouldn't have a clue what they are. The tank is only 4 weeks (or 5?) old. Has a trickle filter with foam, ceramic tubes, activated carbon (Bio Chem Zorb). We had to treat with Wunder Tonic recently for fungal infection due to food getting stuck and going bad. Other than that - can't think what's wrong. Perhaps the ammonia? Would that mean they have been stressed in some way???

The tank is 140 litres. Trickle filter. Four Fantail Goldfish Three Borneo Suckers Five Minnow In the last two weeks we have lost three Minnow and one sucker. We do water changes once a week and add conditioner and cycle.

I hope someone can help... Hubby and I have lost 3 WCMM and 1 Borneo sucker fish now and we don't know what's killing them. They don't seem to have many symptoms, but we've noticed the minnows sometimes 'shivering' before they die, and they SEEM to have red, inflamed gills. Even the sucker who died today had red, inflamed gills, and one was more swollen than the other. What could it be?

I actually contacted the SPCA this week about a pet store whose goldfish were in rather appalling condition - severe fin rot, tumours, parasites, decomposing ones in the tanks, etc. They were great - they visited, made sure the fish were receiving treatment, told how to humanely put them down when needed, and the guy said he will check on them again in2 weeks to make sure everything was being done! I was so pleased - hooray for the SPCA!!

Thanks for that jn. Yes, it is a learning curve having a new species and someone wise on this site said to me "If you have livestock, you'll have dead stock"! I guess you have to be prepared for that. I suspect you may have been right about the Wunder Tonic but I'm afraid it's a bit late for them - 2 more died yesterday and the rest look like they're going to as well. We have them in our 'hospital' tank and they stay close to the bottom and keep rather still and seem to be shivering a lot. OH well, we'll just see what happens and if they die I think we've done everything we can.

Yep, we used Wunder Tonic too. We added the whole entire recommended dose as instructed by the pet store. They told us to do a 25% water change after 7 days, but we actually put our carbon back in the filter after only 3 days, so effectively I guess that would've removed the Wunder Tonic aye? (We did the water change as advised as well though). Perhaps it was that, because they only stared suffering AFTER we treated.

It's funny you should say that because ours looked pale when we got them too, and after a few days in our tank their fins started turning bright red and yellow and their bodies looked darker etc. We thought they must've liked our water conditions, but they're dying off, so obviously not. Bit of a mystery.

Oh thanks heaps, but I think hubby is too traumatised from these deaths to have another go!

Oh ok so it obviously wasn't the temperature - geez, maybe I'll just write that one off as a failed venture and stick to goldfish from now on...

Oh, so did you put them outside to keep them cooler? Perhaps it was too warm for them in my tank? It's unheated, but still gets quite warm - often it feels much warmer than the room temp in there. I am just totally out of ideas and I've sworn off ever buying them again!

Really?! How did they die? Any other symptoms apart from just becoming lethargic and depressed and then dying?? Which Animates? The one in Kaiwharawhara near Spotlight?

Hey Guys, We had 9 white cloud mountain minnow we bought about a month ago from Animates. We already had 4 goldfish that were very happy and healthy. Well, since we had these darn WCMM they have been nothing but trouble and we don't know what we're doing wrong! One died a few days ago for no apparent reason - just got slower and slower and slower and then died. Now, two more are looking liike they'll go the same way! Our goldfish are perfectly happy, so I don't know what's wrong! Temp can get up to around 20 degrees at times, but is that a problem? Could they just be old? We have an established tank with a trickle filter. We had to treat the tank for fungal infection as single piece of food was left inside a rick, which grew fungus, and when we disturbed it, it spread in the water - we used Wunder Tonic which cleared it up. That was a week ago and is the only unusual thing I can think of that might have caused this??????!! I am threatening to take them all back to Animates!!

Thanks! Let us know how you go

Hey Shadowfax - glad you got your hands on some Prazi - it sounds like that's what they need as flashing and twitching are signs of parasites and gill parasites like flukes. Can you please tell me - does the Prazi affect the water in colour/cloudiness? How much did it cost you from the vet? Thanks, and good luck!

OK will do - I guess keeping them in the shade and the good old air con should do the trick!

Oh the cooler bag is a great idea! I will drive and have hubby make sure the fish are stable. Did you use larger bags than usual? I guess the store will do that for us. I guess that's how they get shipped to stores etc so they must be able to survive it if we do it right aye.

Thanks heaps - that's exactly what we're doing, so that's good. Cheers!

Hi I just read a post that said not to clean the filter when you do your water changes. What does that mean? We sometimes wash the foam in the dirty water that we've taken out of the tank, and hubby takes out the filter (plastic bits and the trickle tube) and cleans them too, with a brush. Is this right? I thought the bacteria colonies were in the filter media (we have ceramic tubes) and the foam - is it OK to wash the plastic bits? Sorry to sound dumb :oops:

Hi We're thinking of buying goldfish at Wet Pets in Palmerston North and bringing them home to Wellington. What would be the best way to transport them with the least amount of stress on the fish? It will be either one or two fish. (The fish I've got came from a pet store about 5 minutes away from my house, so I've never had to drive them so far before).

Oh OK, thanks for the advice about the pellets - will cut down on those then. Thanks you guys have been so helpful