Fishboy1988

Kia ora, I have a mature female (I think) X-Ray Tetra I would like to rehome asap. Her mate has recently died so I would like to rehome her instead of watching her slowly die from the stress of being alone. We could get more friends for her, but sadly they will be too immature to keep her company. Pick up in Brooklyn, Wellington, the sooner the better.

Thank you for the reply Caryl. I have a testing kit, parameters are all fine - no ammonia, no nitrite, nitrates are on about 10ppm but I add fertiliser once a week and have been assured this is ok. In terms of pH I’ve never been able to get an accurate reading - it’s always at the highest number of the regular pH check and at the lowest number of the high pH check, so I think it’s somewhere between 7.4 and 7.6. The tank is quite heavily planted but has a gravel substrate. The thing for me is that all the fish getting sick are the oldest ones that I got when I inherited the tank. The only issue I can see is that for the two recent ones they are in groups well under what the recommended amount is - I had 3 X-Ray tetras, one died randomly and now this one of the last two is having issues. With the barb we had two very mature ones, one was killed by the pleco (which has been rehomed) and then the other one got sick and I put her down on Friday. I had bought 5 more barbs to bring up the numbers but they were very juvenile and they stayed separate from the older barb. I mean it might just be legacy health issues for the fish that I inherited from the old owner - I’ve had the tank for a year and the more I’ve learned, the more I’ve realised that the previous owner wasn’t good at looking after the tank. The X-Ray is twitching a lot today and seems to be uncomfortable, so I’m going to give it an Epsom salt bath, but outside of that I don’t really know what else to do.

Kia ora, Me with yet again another fish issue. One of my X-Ray tetras has white spots on both its eyes and is acting a little odd. https://ibb.co/bNQzsQ6 I know that ich is white spots but usually that covers the body or starts on the gills right? From my post history you can see I lost another X-Ray a little while ago to a different illness, but it did not have white spots on its eyes. But while I’m here I’d like some more general advice: this is about the third or so illness in a few months and I’m not sure what’s going on. I do 30% water changes every week, I vacuum the gravel every few weeks, I have a high quality diet etc, I test the water regularly and have a planted tank. Is there anything I’m doing wrong? Yesterday I had to put a gold barb down because it had been manically swimming at the top of the tank for a month or so without eating, I can upload video if anyone is interested. It was not swim bladder, seemed to be something else? It feels like my fish get illnesses that don’t spread, all with different symptoms, so I’m a little stumped. I have run a praziquantel cycle and then a week after it finished and I did several water changes I ran a week course of Melafix. Any advice would be great because losing fish regularly is becoming quite upsetting. Sorry for the long post 😂

Hey yeah it is, that’s why I’m a bit worried. The barb had a bent spine and was laying on the same side and couldn’t right himself. This one seems to be able to swim and move around, and alternates between sides and being upside down.

Kia ora, Woke up this morning and my X-Ray Tetra has issues swimming and is spinning around as can be seen in the below video: Checked the water and nothing out of the ordinary: 0 Ammonia, 20ppm Nitrate, 0 Nitrite, 7.4 pH. We've had these X-Rays for about 14 months so they're not new. Only recent change to the tank has been adding 3 baby Gold Barbs from Hollywood Fish Farm about 2 weeks ago. I have Melafix on hand but I've never used it before and unsure if this is the right treatment. Any help would be appreciated.

Tracked some mature ones down at a fish store and rang in the morning to go pick them in the afternoon. I asked if they could reserve them for us and they said they couldn’t, but that they’d probably still be there. In the time between the call and us going in, they’d dosed the tank with copper and they were all messed up. If anyone knows anywhere else to get barbs in the Wellington area please let me know, they don’t have to be mature, I just desperately need some friends for my fish.

Ok yeah he died today. When we pulled him out he had a bend in his spine, so we think the pleco hurt him before we got rid of him. RIP Earl.

I’ve put him in the below DIY hospital tank: It’s smooth bottomed and he has a heater and I’ve covered it to reduce stress. Do you think this will be ok? I was thinking I could switch out his water everyday since I don’t have another filter. Would this work? He seems more active so far.

Ok thank, we'll try moving him and see if that helps. I think he's a bit stressed, his mouth is constantly opening and closing. I'm not entirely sure if he's eating but i'll move him and see if he's ok.

Ok well it’s a week on and he’s still on his side. He now has a small wound on the side where he’s been lying, I assume that’s from that side scraping on the substrate. He seems a bit more active today and is moving around the tank a little but I don’t know if that’s him getting better or him getting desperate. I guess I’m trying to figure out what a realistic time for him healing would be, or whether I need to bite the bullet and euthanise him?

Yeah he can eat when I drop food near him, but he’s generally staying pretty still. The other fish are all peaceful and leave him alone. I’ll keep an eye on him, thanks.

Yeah he’s very pretty. I’m going to check in on how he’s doing in his new home tomorrow.

Video below. This was not at feeding time or anything, just the snail was in the middle area. On my Vimeo I’ve got the start of this, which is him starting to push it from the other side of the tank. I feel like people will say he’s hungry, but he had a ton of food available all the time. Content vegetables we’d put pleco logs in his cave etc.

Hi Caryl thank you for your reply. Video posted below: He tilts to the same side each time he swims and doesn’t seem to be able to balance. I’ve been feeding him peas and I’ve increased the water temperature as per instructions for constipation on the internet. He’s been like this for about 4 days. Water parameters are all fine. He was being extensively bullied by my Bristlenose as you’ve probably seen in my other post. He had flukes or worms about 6 weeks ago, but I treated them with Praziquantel.

I have a fish that’s essentially lying and swimming on it’s side that looks slightly bent, making me think it’s an air bubble pulling it up, so it sounds like swim bladder issues? It still swims around when it has to, but it’s generally just lying there. I’ve fed it peas the last two days but I was wondering if anybody has experienced this or if there’s anything else I could do to help it apart from feeding the peas? Thanks in advance. I can post videos if anyone needs a look.

Well no it’s more that now the Bristlenose is gone I feel like I should up the numbers in the group, because we only have two. I’m quite new to fishkeeping and I’ve found they’re quite low maintenance.

@Caryl yes I did have driftwood, also cuttlefish for him and the snails to rasp on. Plus a constant stream of vegetables, pellets etc. I actually managed to find a home for him in Newlands yesterday, so hopefully he’s happy there. We cleaned out his cave yesterday and there quite a few empty trumpet snail shells there and the shells looked super deteriorated. I never got footage of him attacking the barbs, but I have a few videos of him smacking around some snails if anyone wants to see them? Thank you for your help everyone.

Thanks for this, can confirm he’s a male. I’ve googled Bristlenose aggression and it seems to be pretty rare. The person we inherited the tank off didn’t know much about looking after him so I think he may have grown up hungry and learned some bad habits or something - that’s my theory but I don’t actually know a lot about fish. I’ve tried buying him a cave, tried every food under the sun, building a barrier in the middle of the tank so he can’t see them etc. It actually really sucks to see him go, but I’m thinking maybe he’s not happy either if he’s acting like this. I’ve tried every fish store in town but nobody will take him.

Thanks a lot both!

I had him in isolation but he escaped this morning back into the tank. I have video of him roughing up my mystery snails, but that’s slowed down. I’ll try to get some footage of him with the barbs.

Ok right. I’ve heard you need to soak the new one a bit so it gets the bacteria in it?

It’s only two barbs. They used to steal his food when he was young but as he got older he started hitting back at one of the barbs and that’s escalated to both of them. One is now in shock and barely moving. He would start charging them at meal times and that’s escalated to him roaming the tank and attacking them in their territory. Not much online about Bristlenose aggression but it’s localised entirely to these two barbs, I have a bunch of other fish that he doesn’t seem to care about. Internet said he’s probably hungry but he eats well and I give him a constant stream of food.

I’m after any gold barbs in Wellington that aren’t babies. I find the babies too aggressive. I lost a barb due to bullying recently and I’m looking to replace her with 2 more if possible.

Hi. I need to change my filter pads in my Aqua One Aquis 1200 filter. The person I inherited the tank off was using cotton wool but I have don’t think this is the best thing to use so I have bought some Tankmaid pads that I would like to swap in. What is best practice for doing this? I’ve had a lot of conflicting information and would like to avoid crashing my cycle.

I have a brown Bristlenose who’s probably just over a year old, about as long as a thumb. Possibly male but I do not know as I inherited the tank. I would like to give him a new home as he does not get along with my gold barbs.