Problems, Help Please

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I have 3 problems,

1) Today My fish (2, 1 platy and 1 black widow) are showing signs of the white spot (ich) Disease,

I added Metaflex and hope it works, any thing else i should do?

I change the water regulally about 20% once or twice a week.

Pic

2) My guppy sometimes (5) Lie down on the gravel or onaments like in the pic, This is unusual behaviour from what I have seen them in before, This has happened since about last week.

3) Some of my fish sometimes on the left side of the tank go up and down the glass in rapid movements (like rubbing against it) up and down ?? I sometimes put a sheet of white paper on that side of the glass and then they stoped, but now some started to do this again.

My temp is 26*C, I have a 85L Tank.

Any help with this would be great,

Thanks

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Also my bristlenose is being picked on by the guppies ? its about 5cm, its there stuck on the filter or glass, then the guppies come and pickat it, its got some open looking wounds, so i seperated it into one of thoses fry hatchery floaters. Any advice on this pls?

[Caryl]

White spot is usually caused by stress so you have to narrow down the cause.

Melafix treats ulcers, wounds, fin and tail rot, it is not a white spot cure as far as I know.

How long has the tank been set up? You say you do 20% changes once or twice a week which implies it has been going a while but the pics seem to me to show a very newly set up tank. What sort of filtration are you using?

The guppies will be attacking the bristlenose because they sense it is not well. I think it had the wounds before the guppies attacked it and it is these wounds that are attracting them to pick.

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so should i leave the bristlenose in the fry hatchery until its wounds heal?

I have a fluval #3 underwater filter

The tank is about 1 month old

but got new fish a week ago i have a 85L tank

What might be the cause? are there some chemicals i can use to reduce the white spots?

each time i clean the tank, i move things around (onaments and plants)

[JoandWilly]

Blue circle white spot cure is one of the better white spot cures i reckon. Aslo turning the temp up a degree or 2 helps speed this stuff along cause it speeds up the parasites life cycle...

The fish swimming up and down the glass can sometimes indicate stress... do you have test kits? Whats your pH, ammoina and nitrites? Do you always rinse you filter out with tank water and NOT tap water?

[craig]

hi,

your ph will be high as your gravel is alkaline based.

where about's do you live? cos if you have chlorine in your water, and you don't use aqua plus, your two changes aweek will be slowly poisoning your fish/stressed out/whitespot.

you shouldn't have to clean filter unless it slow's down, and if it slow's down in a week your overfeeding big-time.

did you put a fish in to cycle tank? before you added the rest, if no, reason for fish not happy is putting to many in at once with no real goodies in the tank to cope with the fish load.

malkon is great for whitespot and raising temp to 28, but do add extra air, as higher the temp,less oxygen and also treatments take oxygen out of the water.

1 month old tank is still a very new tank, careful on the food and 20% once a week w/c.

if this was my tank i would change the gravel to a neutral based,[brown]

good luck

shelley

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i added some brown gravel last week, i live in remuera auckland and do use aqua + everytime i change the water, i only have one tank so i couldnt add them slowly, but am getting a bigger tank so the current tank can be a quarantine tank.

ill take note on the filter cleaning, how would i add extra air? i have the airpump working 24/7.

[Caryl]

Have you done any tests on the water? What are the pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? I suspect stress from too many fish too soon.

[craig]

hi,

if you have a air filter running,it will do the job it would be a good idea to test your tank like caryl said.

great your useing aqua+, even when you added the brown gravel it would not do nothing,the fruit-salad gravel would need to be taken out,unless you plan on having swordtails and mollies,problem being that neons don't like that water,there are some really good sites on the net for beginners,you need to learn what fish like what water.

but apart from all that now, just treat tank for the whitespot,your ph will be high,so be very very careful on how much you feed, it's very important not to feed to much as you will get ammonia level's. if you could get your ph below 7,6.8 ammonia turns into ammonium which is not toxic to your fish, problem being that your gravel won't allow that to happen. the pet store you got the gravel from should have told you about the gravel, fruitsalad is good for goldfish,sword's mollies, african cichlid's but no good for most tropical's.

it is a big possibilty that you could loose some fish, but don't despair it not your fault,it's a beginners thing, we have all at some stage lost fish through misinformation,but you will get nothing but help here.

shelley

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ammonia was 0, found out that the ph was acidic 6.6 ! got some acid remover, have to retest tomorrow, also added whitespot solution

[craig]

hi,

tht's cool, what's the ph out of the tape,must be acidic.

if that's the case,keep the fruitsalad gravel it will help buff up.

never bring ph up to quick,ammonium will turn back to ammonia over 7.

shelley

[craig]

hi,

ph of 6.6 isn't bad, except if your a mollie or sword. your neon's would be loving it. try keeping your tank 6.8 after waterchange, then letting it drop slowly 6.5, then do change, depending on what's coming out of your tape that is.

chch's water is 7.4 out of the tape,so doing it like that here works well.

good luck and hope your fishies get over their spots without loses.

shelley