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Sick and dying Fish


Halcyondaz

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Hi everyone, I'm a newbie and would love some help and advice. My tank has been setup about 3 months now. The first batch of Neons I had got something I was told was Cotton Mouth. I purchased Furon, took the carbon out followed all the instructions, did the water changes but they didn't improve. I ended up getting rid of them and starting again.

I then got 5 Neons, 3 Plattys, 5 Runny Noses, 1 Betta and 1 Alge eater over a period of a month or so and I thought all was going well. Then 3 of the Runny Noses died and the alge eater within 24 hours. I did a water change, tested everything and 24 hours later they appear to have white spot. I took a sample of them to the fish shop and am now treating for bacteria and white spot. 1 Neon has since died and 1 of the 3 Plattys is clearly unwell and being picked on by the other 2. He's hanging out at the top and appears to be having difficulty eating.

The shop tested the water and couldn't fault it, I have taken all the advice I have been given and asked lots of questions.....they told me it was just bad luck! Am I missing something? Fish and medication is getting costly.

Any tips would be appreciated.

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Hi and welcome,

As asked above, how big is your tank, what sort of filter, do you have gravel and plants, do you have an airline (bubble blower). You say your tank has been set up for three months so after the first lot of fish died what did you do with your tank? When you got your next lot of fish over a month what order did you get them in and how long have the ones that died been in the tank?

Do you do water changes and if so how do you do them, how often do you do them and how much do you do at one time?

I know it seems like a lot of questions but the more info you can give the more help we can hopefully be :roll:

There have been a few new fnzas forum members on here in the last few weeks with similar problems. Don't let it put you off fishkeeping, its a great hobby :D

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Do you have anything in the tank that was not supplied from a petshop that might be poisonous?

To me it almost sounds like you are buying diseased fish straight from the petshop and they are setting you up.. It is very common these days, of course without seeing the fish in the shop it is hard to know for sure. If you have healthy fish to begin with then they shouldn't be getting sick as long as your tank is big enough, given you gradually added the fish over a period a month had the water tested heaps with no problems showing up.

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omg!! I will try and answer all the questions. Thanks everyone.

Rummy Noses - Thanks :oops:

The tank is 57 litres, I am doing water changes about every 10 days although they were more frequent when I used the first medication as it required them every 48 hours. I am using a Stabilizer every other day and a water conditioner and accu-clear when I do water changes. I adjust the PH in the bucket when doing a water change to ensure I get it right before adding new water to the tank. I am changing about 1/3rd each time.

The filter is ummm whatever came with the tank. It has the (excuse my ignorance) little black balls, wool and carbon in it (carbon currently removed for medication). It blows bubbles into the water. Temp is 26.

Gravel is ummm white purchased from the fishshop as is everything in the tank. Plants are all the silicon type.

Order of events:

10 Neons for one month then

1 Betta

Then the Neons got the cotton mouth and the tank was medicated. The Betta appeared unaffected so I kept him. After no improvement and the medication costing more than the Neons I tossed them unwilling to spend more on medication when it cost more than the fish and didn't seem to be helping.

I kept the Betta

Purchased 5 Rummy Noses

1 Alge Eater at the same time.

Had them 2 weeks and purchased 5 new Neons.

One week later 3 Rummy Noses and the Alge eater died within 24 hours.

I did a water change which was about due and 24 hours after that I discovered the white spot. One Neon has died from that.

Sorry what do you mean by Cycle the tank??

I have on two occasions now taken water to the shop for testing and they couldn't fault the water condition and of course doing my own testing at home.

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Sorry what do you mean by Cycle the tank??

It refers to the Nitrogen Cycle and it's the process of building up a population of beneficial bacteria to take care of the toxic ammonia that fish produce.

When you set up a new tank everything is nice and clean and there's no bacteria. As the tank ages the bacteria begin to populate the system, in the gravel, on ornaments but mainly in the filter media. That's what the black balls are for, to give the bacteria a home, although there are better medias IMO, porous ceramics mostly. The bacteria consume ammonia, which is extremely toxic to fish, and convert it to nitrite, which is less toxic but still toxic. Another bacteria starts to populate the system next which converts the nitrite to nitrate. Nitrate is tolerable to fish in small amounts and we control it with waterchanges, preferably 30-50% weekly. The whole cycle can take 6-8 weeks and at the start waterchanges can sometimes be necessary on a daily or two daily basis, depending on whether there is any detectable ammonia or nitrite. A test kit is needed to confirm their presence.

There's heaps of info about it on the 'net. Here's just one, http://www.worldcichlids.com/faqs/cycling.html but Google will give you tons of sites to look at and a search of the forum will help you too :) HTH

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It could be caused by either - a small ammonia spike due to the tank 'cycling' or the second lot of neons you purchased may have 'brought' something nasty into the tank.

My suggestion is that you treat for white spot (caused by stress normally) as you are and to do that effectively you need to increase the tank temp to 30 degrees. White spot has a cycle of 7 days and therefore you will need to treat for this length of time. Each day you will need to do a part water change and vacuum (syphon) up any muck that has accumulated in the bottom of the tank. To help your fish cope with the increase in temperature you will also need to add oxygen to your tank via an airline connected to a pump. You may not have one of these but if you let us know where in the country you live someone may be able to loan you one. Normally when fish are at the top of the tank gasping it is because they are trying to get more oxygen into their systems.

You can also help white spot by adding salt - not table salt - but rock salt (from the supermarkets next to the table salt) at the amount of 1 gram per litre of water in the tank. If you do this you will need to measure the amount of water you take out during a water change and replace this with the same amount of water and added salt (water evaporates but salt does not).

Salt is a good cure all and all the fish you have will happily cope with this amount in your tank.

Just one question - the stabilizer you are using, is this for pH?

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Oh thanks, I have increased the temp from 26 to 28, I was a bit unsure about doing a big temp change all at once. You're right I don't have an airline pump. I'm in Takapuna on Auckland's Northshore.

I will get some rock salt from the supermarket and see if that helps. The stablizer is called STABILITY by Seachem. Says its New Tank Stabelization System. It doesn't say anything about PH. I do have the PH up and down.

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Okay - I have just googled the stabilizer and it does the same thing as cycling your tank therefore I think your problem has been a sick fish bringing something in to your tank.

I'm in Epsom, I will look in the shed tomorrow to see if I have a spare air pump that is not too noisy to loan you and some spare airline tubing. Without an airline I wouldn't suggest you up the temp to 30 degrees.

The only thing I can find on the net for accuclear says it is for pond algae. At this stage can I suggest you don't use it as mixing medicines and a lot of other things might be a little hard on the fish.

What did the shop sell you to treat the white spot.

Most problems can be solved with salt and frequent (at least weekly in a well established tank)

water changes which saves a lot of money in the long run.

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Sorry to hear about all your problems, Halcyondaz - I hope you'll get all the advice and encouragement you need on here to keep going. When we started our tank almost 2 years ago, we had all sorts of problems, and nearly gave up in despair, but I'm now so glad we didn't.

I can't add much to help with your current problems, I'm afraid, but I wonder why you are adjusting the pH of the water before you add it to the tank? When we had pH problems, I was advised on here to NOT use pH up and down, as it is apparently easy to use the wrong amount, and drastically change the pH. Unless your tap water is excessively high or low, or very soft (which can cause pH to fluctuate wildly), the general consensus seems to be that you are safest just leaving it be.

Also, are you using Stress coat or similar when you do water changes, to remove chlorine from the tap water?

You said you lost 3 rummy noses and an algae eater within 24 hours. My guess would be that this was an ammonia spike, and the whitespot was possibly also caused by the stress of the tank cycling. If so, if you keep doing lots of water changes, you may be over the worst by now.

If I were you, I'd stop using pH up and down, and do more regular water changes for a while (if you can when treating whitespot?), use stress coat, and test your water every day if possible, for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. Sometimes, by going right back to the basics, you can get a better idea of what's going on in the tank, why you are having problems, and therefore how to go about fixing them.

Good luck!

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How long has the carbon been in the tank? It will only absorb for a month or so then release trapped toxins back into your tank. Thats my pick, and yes stop using the ph stuff and stabilizer, in my experience the main thing these deliver is a stable income for the lfs :o The only thing i put in my tanks is water straight from the hose or tap. You could use a water conditioner but the less additives the better in my opinion.

Weekly water changes minimum in my opinion, all mine get either weekly, twice a week or daily and i havent needed meds for nearly 3 years.

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What did the shop sell you to treat the white spot.

I am using Wunder White Spot Cure and BioPet incase of possible bacteria.

I am surprised a fishshop would knowingly sell me sick fish and equally disappointed that they offered no concessions on the medication or future replacement fish when I have become a significant customer.

Thanks for the offer of the pump, I will check tommo to see if you have found one. :)

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Good advice nzcookie. 8) I tend to agree - the pH fluctuations could certainly be part of the stress as could the ammonia spikes of cycling. Getting back to basics is a great idea. Also some very good advice here about water changes and chemicals used in the tank. Sometimes less is better.

I know it is frustrating when our fish die. I doubt the shop knowingly sold you a sick fish but the stress of moving into a new tank could have caused the fish's immune system to weaken and this may have made it susceptible to disease. In general, once you have taken livestock out of a shop, they cannot guarantee it since they are no longer in control of the environment that the fish is kept in. If it was an obvious disease that showed up within a day, then you may have a case. Just a sad fact of reality and a risk we take with purchasing live animals. :wink:

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I am surprised a fishshop would knowingly sell me sick fish and equally disappointed that they offered no concessions on the medication or future replacement fish when I have become a significant customer.

It does happen, some people just see $$ signs.

Good advice nzcookie. 8) I tend to agree - the pH fluctuations could certainly be part of the stress as could the ammonia spikes of cycling. Getting back to basics is a great idea. Also some very good advice here about water changes and chemicals used in the tank. Sometimes less is better.

Totally agree with this too. When I first started out, I too came on here seeking help as my fish were dying. Advice given to me at the time was to stop using all these unnecessary chemicals the LFS had sold me, such as pH up down whatever, Ammolock and Stress Zyme. So I quit using those things and things got better. Now, the only thing I regularly add to the tank is Stress Coat which removes the chlorine from the tap water. Ocassionally I add plant ferts.

I've only been keeping fish since 2003-4 so by no means super experienced but I'll learned a whole lot from this forum. I've come so close to throwing in the towel so many times but I stuck with it and now I'm pretty happy with my tank. Now if Only I could get rid of my black beard algae...

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