sandaz

Thanks for advice. Just trying to understand why pumping more water per hour would help keep nitrates down? And so is the recommended turnover 3-4 times per hour?

Divers mask is a plastic ornament you get from the pet shop. Is that possible? Probably, but in my desperation I try everything. Keeping them where they were didn't help either. The fish currently in quarentine is in the big tank but in one of those breeding boxes

I have plants and drift wood. And one divers mask ornament that have anubas growing all over it. Heater is Yinsheng brand.

Just checked the nitrates of the tap water. It's zero. Had somewhat pinned my hopes on this! :-?

Specs say it will pump 1000 litres per hour and for tanks up to 300 litres. I am covering that basis, have bought a Fluval 406 over the weekend so I can exclude something else. The new one will cover tanks up to 400 litres. Will read up on Prazi but am holding off on the meds until I can speak to the fish expert at the local pet shop. Fortunately no more fish looking unwell. Thank goodness!

Just noticed the danio has a lump by his throat

And another dwarf loach this morning. Last night he barely moved with his belly seeming overly enlarged, and couldn't really swim even when the net was by him. Have a danio gasping for air this morning...have isolated him too. Fish keeping not such a nice hobby at the moment. :fshi:

Yeah maybe. The things that makes me doubt that most is that the rummy noses and dwarf loaches were introduced after I stopped the double dosing, and they are also dropping like flies. Found another 2 rummy noses dead today. Nitrates back up to 10-20 (more 20) today. Did another 50% water change. Still don't understand the quick changes in Nitrates given I did a 50% only 3 days ago. When staring at my fish today I saw that one of the glass cats had white spots on it. Have isolated it, photo below. None of the other fish in the tank have any signs of this, but can't say that I've ever noticed it before on this fish either. I bought the glass cats 2 weeks ago...timing is interesting. From what I've read of ick it doesn't quite look like this, as the spots are much bigger than grains of salt. Glass cat is about 8cm long. What do you think?

We've been spraying flies with the long hot summer we've had. Put in one of those automatic spraying things buy switched it off at the start of the week week since it gave me such bad hay fever

I'm trying to keep the tank snail free but have noticed some snail shells lying around when cleaning. Must have come in with some plants I bought but the Excel must have killed them off. Have a small 20 litre tank which I call my maternity ward with lots of babies in at the moment. Transferred sime rummy noses in there last night for a while but put them back when I went to bed. No deaths overnight and water test results same as last night. Rummy noses seem to have better colour this morning too. No other fish have lost colour. I will just have to play the waiting game and continue the water changes every second day for now.

UPDATE: Got home to find my pictus catfish dead. So 3 pictus in 5 days. Sat and watched the fish for quite a while, and no one else is gasping, flashing, rubbing themselves against anything and no one have visible spots of disease. Also inspected the catfish well (well as much as you can see with the naked eye) and he has no signs of open or clamped gills, no redness around the gills, no spots, no fin rot. Nothing, in fact if he wasn't dead I would have said he looks just the way he should. Then also took water readings: Ammonia = 0 Nitrite = 0 Nitrate = 5-10 PH=7.2 So nothing too alarming there. I noticed the rummy nose tetras noses have almost no colour and have heard is often an indication of something being wrong. And the dwarf loaches not dancing up and down the tank like they usually do. Beats me

Thanks will do. Will also sit and observe all of them for a while and see if any other fish shows symptoms. I remember my tbar cichlid doing this the other night but only once. How do you treat it? Recommended best stuff to buy?

What's flukes?

I have 2 concerns really about Nitrate which makes me want to get it down and keep it at 5: 1. My fish started dying when it was between 10 and 20, and last night I transferred my last pictus catfish to my my holding tank as it showed exactly same behaviour as other 2 before they died being swimming at mid to top level against the glass all the time, and breathing really fast and laboured. 2. The rate the Nitrate level seems to jump. Currently it jumps 5ppm a day with no water changes, and with reading still at 10ppm this morning, water changes only seems to keep it there I've got 6 SAE but they seem completely disinterested in the BBA. Chinese Algae eaters and mollies more interested than them!

Nitrates down to 5 yesterday but back up to 10 again today so have done another 50% water change tonight. Didn't do any water change yesterday but have started using using stabilizer to help things along. Thinking of upgrading my Fluval 305 to 406 as specs for 305 says up to 300 litres. My tank is ~350 litres though and heavily planted so thinking pump may not be coping? Anyone have an opinion on this?

I'm following instructions closely so definitely faulty test. BBA is back (just starting on plants) so will have to start dosing again once everything has settled down

Yes filter has good flow. Going to buy some stabilizer today. It can't hurt can it?

Just a quick update. Nitrate down to between 5 and 10 this morning. Dwarf loaches swimming around again and no further fish deaths. Will do another 50% water change tonight. Very interesting that discus seems unaffected by all of this.

Yeah will do that tomorrow. Think it is elevated though as it was previously down to 5ppm

No town water

Did a 50% water change, good syphon of gravel and cleared the filter out. Nitrate reading 4 hours later is 10ppm. A definite 10 as before it was kind of between 10 and 20ppm. Will do another 50% water change tomorrow again. The salts had been used the entire time the tank has been up and running (18 months) so doubt that's what made the change, but will give that a break too.

Another cat fish dead...sigh! :cry1: Doing another 50% change today, and am going to check filter is working okay and clean it out with tank water while I'm at it.

Well fish shop tested the water this morning Ammonia = 0 Nitrite = 0 Nitrate between 10 and 20 Air pump and airline is always going, got that when I started double dosing with Excel. So maybe it has been just a coincidence. Will do another 50% change in a couple of days time and see how we go. It's all very strange as I've got fish breeding in between all of this happening...

I've had goldfish for 5 years but have only switched to tropical and a much larger tank two months ago. So some inexperience you could say. Certainly don't claim to know it all! Filter is not cleaned out each time as the guy I bought it off said to clean it once every 3 months. Will check that today. Have done a 50% water change this morning and am taking some water into the shop to be tested. I'm at the end of a cycle of treating my BBA (which started as soon as I took over the tank) so just starting to taper off the Excel, hence the higher dosage. So have been doing twice weekly changes up until a couple of weeks ago. I can see some sort of connection between the timings here, but I've never lost any fish during the BBA treatment cycle and no fish ever seemed to be gasping for air, not even the ones that's been dying off. Open to suggestions though.

So the water changes will correct this? Should I do changes more than once a week for a while?