Ira

Ok, This is the way I'm seeing it What was killing the plants off: Lack of light in the center, I think. They'd grown into a thick clump about 9 inches wide by 9 inches tall. So there was very little light getting to the middle and the leaves there turned brown and died. The stems stayed green. Why were the fish dying: because the debris stuck in the plants and the rotting plants themselves made the nitrates go up to 100+ PPM while I had stopped keeping an eye on the nitrates after them being 0 for 3-4 months. What were the readings in the tank at the time: When the fish first started dying, Ammonia:0, Nitrates:100+, PH: 7ish What did you add to the tank over that period: A bit of flakes, a bit of frozen daphnia, brineshrimp and blood worms, and spirulina disks. About a mil or two of fertilizer mix each night What did you do different over that period... Add fish/plants/ etc: Trimmed the big clump of hyposperma Polysperma or whatever by about 1/3rd Just basically snipped off the top. Maybe I trimmed enough that the plants couldn't absorb the extra nitrates. I don't know. Are you using seperate equipment for each of your tanks (Nets etc): If I had a budget for 3 different sets of everything for each tank I might consider it. But at the moment I've got better things to spend my $.02 a day income on. I DO think trimming the plants would help. It would keep them from growing into a big ass ball and blocking all the light from the center. Keeping them more tidy would probably also help in cleaning debris from them. They had big globs of slimy decomposing...Stuff in them when I took all the plants out.

The male Bristlenose was dead this morning. Pegasus, I've read everyone's advice. What else is there left for me to do but start over and know this time to keep the plants trimmed more so they collect less garbage and to be quicker to tear everything out of a tank to clean it? Caryl, Killifish sound like an idea. Might do some research. I don't think I've ever seen any in fish stores. Though, if I did I probably didn't know what I was looking at. I've also thought maybe some dwarf gouramis, but they're a bit more common than I'd like. But, you're right, if they're uncommon, they won't be easy to breed, and I'd probably have a hard time getting two nymphomaniac fish to breed if they weren't guppies.

I don't know about it being a bad run...I think it's all just the consequences of nitrates getting too high because of dying plants and debris caught in the plants. I think that caused a lot of the guppies to die which just made it worse and last longer. It shouldn't have to re-cycle though. All the bacteria should be fine in the media in the filter. All I did was give them a rinse and there are only about a dozen guppies left in the tank, so now it's got a really low bio-load. I don't think the male bristlenose is going to make it. He's not doing much more than twitching his fins. A bit of trivia, did you know that they feel like sandpaper all over except for their nose where their bristles are and their bellies? Ok, let's be optimistic, any suggestions about what to put in the tank next? Something fairly small, maybe a max of 2-3 inches and maybe relatively easy to breed? Something a bit out of the ordinary would be nice.

Ok, I noticed the two bristlenoses in the tank were acting a bit out of it. So I've pretty much decided to cut my losses on that tank, I thought beforehand that the tank would be alright and they were doing ok. I've taken the bristlenoses out and they're now floating in nets in another tank. The male was so out of it that I could pick him up in my hand and carry him to the new tank. The female though, was much more active, I thought I'd try the same thing...And she pincushioned me with her cheek spikes! OUCH! Hopefully they'll come right. I've also removed everything except the replanted pots with plants in them. I KNOW they're clean. Under the rocks, which I stupidly decided not to move before because I thought they were flat against the bottom and garbage couldn't collect there, I found heaps of guppy corpses and fragments of corpses. That's all cleaned up now, I've also cleaned out the filter and put in new carbon. I added 6 tablespoons of salt for good measure. Next time, I think I'll go to a plumbing shop and buy a bunch of short plastic pipes for the fish to hide in. Easier to move and clean around than big rocks. Just not as nice looking, so they wouldn't do for something that has to look nice.

Possible, but she's one of the more agressive fish in the tank. More likely she did it chasing someone than being chased. Probably never know for sure. Best I can say is that it LOOKS like the wounds were caused by the fungus, not the other way around. Glad I don't often have my cichlids get sick. Don't like it.

It looked to me more like secondary wounds from an infection. That's what I thought at first, but there weren't any obvious wounds around the fluff and there was far too many of them. There were, I'd estimate, somewhere around 30 little tiny bits of fluff, probably more. The only fish in the same tank with a mouth that might have been small enough to make those tiny wounds would be the blue rams. I doubt the rams would have given the Electric Blue that bad of a thrashing.

Unfortunately, It gets extremely expensive to treat 200 liters. I bought bought a combination heater/filter...And busted the adjustment knob right off the heater when I was putting it in the tank. Damnit. Today she looks like most of the fluff is gone, but there are small wounds, some look a bit bloody. I bought a little bottle of spotoff, I'll give her a treatment with that and a bit more salt.

I think I'll stop stuffing around with that tank for a while and let it settle, same for my other tanks since I just noticed my electric blue is covered in some type of fungus or something. http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?p=2798#2798

I know, you guys are probably thinking I'm going to kill off all my fish soon, but...Last night my electric blue was just fine, today she's covered in dozens of little white tufts around a millimeter long. What's the treatment? I'd take her out and put her in a quarantine tank, but I don't have a heater at the moment. I've added some salt to the tank, maybe that will help keep it from spreading or getting worse until I can get a heater tomorrow after w*rk. What medicine would you suggest? so i can try and buy it? Hopefully someone will answer soon. If noone does I'll use the Furan-2 I have. I'm guessing maybe stress from the frequent water changes I've been doing to get the nitrate levels down might have caused it. It's the only real sickness I've had in that tank for about 6 months. But at least the nitrates are down to around 20ish PPM.

Shouldn't have been any fertilizer in the dirt. It was just dirt, dug up from the ground. Might have been enough organic debris in it though to do something, but I'd have thought that would have showed up in the first few months.

Actually, the tank never had gravel in it at all. Right now I'm thinking the problem is a combination of a bit of overfeeding(They're getting barely any now) and since the polysperma had grown into a massive clump the outer leaves were happy and green, but the inside wasn't getting any light and was rotting. There was also a huge amount of garbage and sludge trapped in the plants that wasn't visible from the outside. The tank was fine for about 6 months until this problem started, by the way. Caryl, Yeah, the plants were in pots, I'd tried using a little bit of dirt in little plastic plant pots covered with gravel to keep it from making a mess. I don't know if that actually might have been a contributing factor or not. I think the plants loved it though, because they were so heavily rooted that when I yanked on them all the dirt in the pot came out in a clump. I haven't found the 404 to be too much filtration IF I point the outlet at the side of the tank. Otherwise it makes quite a storm inside. I decided on the 404 because I've already got another one but it had started making a loud buzzing noise. So the old one's head is on the pump in the bird room on the guppy tank, and the new one is in the dining room on the cichlid tank.

The tank is a 100ish liter(I'd have to go measure it to be more exact) and the filter is a Fluval 404. No substrate, found that the gravel collected way too much debris. Yeah, Hygrophila polysperma and a also a bit of hygrophila something AKA wisteria...A few fragments of indian fern too, but they're just tiny fragments so far.

I'm still having trouble with my tank full of guppies. I've been doing 50% twice weekly changes and the nitrates are still around 50ppm and the guppies are dropping like flies. Today I took everything out of the tank and have removed most of the plants and replanted most of them. The plants, Hyposperma? Something were in a big clump and most of the center ones had turned brown. The tank shouldn't be making that many nitrates without any plants or anything, I'd think. Really messy too, in a couple days there are big clumps of garbage drifting around the bottom of the tank. Yuck. Ther are only maybe 2 dozen guppies and 2 bristlenoses.

Wow...I wanna see your tank, Warren!

Same here, AJ. Can't really say anything probably until a month before.

I meant to make it to the last one. I really did, but for some reason I was thinking it was the third thursday of the month instead of 2nd and only realized it when it was too late. Next one!

Ugh...I've had more than enough shoveling.

Hey, that's an idea. I wouldn't have a clue where to drive and I kinda doubt my wife would want to go.

here's a slightly better picture. From what I've read about them there are 3-4 slightly different fish that are sold as geophagus surinamensis. One of them is this, Geophagus altifrons. They only really differ in coloring, pattern and body shap stay the same. Don't know about the US if there are different strains or not.

How long of a drive is that from Wellington? October is still a long way off, but I'd definitely like to go.

I would!

Here's a picture of one. Not a very good picture but seems to be the best I could find. Doesn't show their green glitter at all.

From that picture I'd have to say I prefer Geo. Surinamensis. I don't like the shape of the brasiliensis's head. Looks like the elephant man or something. Still, I wouldn't mind a pair.

I think he meant they have to go in a seperate tank from the males. The fighter I used to have was always pretty agressive towards guppies, but I never let him have a chance to get them. I decided it might be a bad idea to put him together when he started attacking them against the side of a cup I was floating the guppies in.

AAAAHHH! My made it through the power outage fine, but after making a post Wednesday mentioning the time I forgot to reconnect the filter's hoses, guess who forgot it again? Noticed it last night. Oh, and last night I also went and defrosted the food for the birds, left it in the microwave and forgot to feed them. I honestly think I'm getting stupider.