Recurring bug outbreaks

[Aftaburn]

Large very heavily planted community tank.

Ongoing finrot & fungus outbreaks.

Tank has been established nearly 2 years.

I've dosed with furan, methblue, malachite green, quinine, formalin.

It seems to clear up but keeps returning... I'm starting to think I'm not managing to kill the bug off in the substrate which I cant syphon due to heavy planting.

Ideas anyone?

This has been about for a long while.

Finally I think too the planaria problem is diminishing (formalin / gourmis treatment) they have been reduced only to the main community system.

I don't lose many fish to this but it is a regular annoyance.

I've run the treatments up to 2 weeks without improved results.

[Caper]

Wish I could help...but see what people have to say about cleaning out the tank with bleach...I've seen people talk about it. Oh...and of course withouth the fish in the tank

But I don't know what you would do for an established tank, unless you could temp house your fishies somewhere else...anyother tank maybe??

I know someone here will help you that knows a heck of lot more than me!

[Shannon]

You could take all the fish out put them in Q tanks and that would leave no hosts for the parasites to live off in you community tank and so they die.

Once fish get better slowley introduce them back into the main tank. Hopefully you sort it out, Im no expert and someone on here might have better advice.

Good luck

[Aftaburn]

Shannon...

yeah I had wanted to do that but... everything else is tied up full of fish & although I've got glass & goo I dont have anywhere else for more tanks... I've already got them in stacks so up is no longer an option. The computer desk is also shared by an aquarium (guppies).

Ideally I think you're onto the answer... but where do I put a large 4 foot tank worth of fish for 2 months while I deal with the issue... also they'd need to be spread across several systems as some species are fine & others so so.

Then theres the plants...

... then theres the planaria infection which has been in that tank... possibly killed by gourmis & formalin but I've learnt something... never assume the last one is gone coz as soon as you do they'll be back... nothing is sureer.

The plants host the planaria (well the ones I cant sterilize for).

... kinda tricky... I could do with someone about with a few empty tanks to help out with the housing problem for a while but I seem to be the only one from QT area that visits this forum.

I'd like to see some sort of aquarist club start up here but the transient nature of the town doesn't help... it'd be nice to have several serious keepers work together for the common good.

[Lucid]

Can't help with the plague problem sorry aftaburn, but why not organise a night,

put flyers up at the local supermarket, and on the community notice boards saying that there is an aquarium enthusiasts meeting and you are more than welcome to come along.

Then all you have to do is sort out a venue and have peple call you to register interest. You might even be able to convince someone to come along and have a chat if it takes off.

Or use it as an aquaria info evening and then broach the subject of a club at the end of the night.

B

[vapo]

Planaria is often caused by overfeeding. Perhaps you could not feed them for a couple of days, then go to less food.

As for the fungus, we found on two occasions, that after a whitespot treatment due to an outbreak in our clownloaches, our gouramis (dwarf and three spot) seemed to get fungus and/or finrot. We used Melafix for this, but our dwarfs seem to be very susceptible to the fungus and didn't respond too well until we moved them to their own tank. Any chance of juggling your fish to give your dwarfs their own tank?

BTW the whitespot cure we used has melachite green, acriflavin and quinine in it.

Good Luck,

Vapo

[Aftaburn]

I've cleaned out most tanks & am trying to run very clean tanks 50% water 2nd day.

Only one tank has substraite & the neons are healthy again after a long bath of furan 2.

1 black neon is swimming upward constantly.

I should have a UV sterilizer arriving tomorrow hopefully that eliminates the bug permanantly.

I've got 7 tanks & run in through a purifier, several are species tanks & sick fish get seperate housing as I only have guppies in one at this stage.

Most tanks are quarantined now.

zeolite seems to help with nts but so do very frequent water changes. I change 2 tanks daily generally.

I'm getting salt free guppies from an importer who has the fish in quarantine now. No idea what they are but the next batch he gets in he will find me whichever I wish via a contact in Thailand. I have specific fish from a specific breeder that I want.

They are guranteed clean fish & some of the nicest guppies I've ever seen, most are solid colour.

I'm still trying to source King Cobra guppies to satin cross & see what happens.

All fish healthy except 1 tank of guppies which has had 2 females die within 12 hours of each other. The babies are doing fine & the 2 pair of adults one female looks really good the other... so so but shes still dropping so im not complaining.

The wonky neon is the only other puzzle.

The new fish will be brought into identical conditions they were kept in quarantine & quarantined from each other.

Water in is treated with Cycle then Aqua Plus or Stress Coat depending on circumstances.

Most of my tanks all get regular Corgette slices & they love them.

The Planaria... vastly reduced & in quarantined plant holding with a formalin bath starving out.

Then I'll make clean cuttings from there of everything I can which is cleanable & tested to guarantee no Planaria (easy to test for so you do know for sure, put some dry bamboo in the tank for 2 weeks & if theres one theres 10,000 any tank overfeeding system should do provided it can handle the ammonia load)

3 leaf cuttings can be cleaned & held in quarantine to planaria free them.

Using a tray I've found it is effective lowering the water level with the plants in the tray & the Planaria go for the water below every time.

It doesn't gurantee removal... seeding clean new plants with 100 planaria & getting them all off successfully would suggest a fairly effective meathod for larger volumes.

Quarantine batches thereafter untill absolutely certain they're clean.

As everything else is in quarantine from everything mostly bug & planaria are coming nicely under control.

The surviving healthy Gourmis are in a new home & doing fine in a 165 litre planted community tank.

Hopefully by running all inbound water through the UV sterilizer & running bare tanks with water sprite only (isolated stocks of seperate origin) & cycling the UV around the tanks on a regular basis will help keep my tanks clean & healthy.

Some tanks will get 25% changes daily depending on stock level.

I've got a nicely developing new community tank with a heated florabase substrate & clean planaria free plant for the main tank occupants.

Cabomba goes insane with CO2 added in & zeolite keeps the ammonia under control for now with 2nd day water changes.

Tank partially cycled with Daphnia so the fish had a snack on arrival.

I have 2 daphnia cultures which are perfectly clean & have been in large sealed jars forever without input just the occasional harvest & water top up (did that once & split 3 litres of culture added tiny bit of zuchini skin to one with no noticible difference between cultures since) now I have about 5 litres of it left.

Corydoras cleaned up the algae problem on the Florabase tank & everything cleaned up the daphina & has been happy as since.

Theres another with about 50 young bristlenose.

Time will tell I guess but I think its finally sorted.

With healthy guppies as a result... hopefully.

Has anyone got really stunning guppies they can guarantee are "good" about?

I just hope it works.