back to square one

zeebo

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Jun 11, 2010
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:wb: ok if members reading this will scroll down 2 threads where it says ''loosing fish every 2 weeks'' that is my origional thread with all the info.

I treated with maracyn and maracyn II , lost my beneficial bacteria, tank finished cycling last week and no deaths during this process.

Until today..lost another one. Not sure if same symptoms of hanging at top for a few days because of heat wave 3 days here, i kept the lights off. But last night i noticed a platy sitting on the bottom, behind some rocks and this morning he was dead ( that part is part of the previous symptom). So I need ideas on what is going on in this tank. Please throw ideas my way..i am at a loss as to what is going on in my 30g. Please any suggestions would be sorely appreciated .

This tank is a death tank atm and I really want to move the fish from my 20g to the 30g so I can use the 20g as a q-tank and get more fish for my 54g. I can't move any until I know the 30g is safe .

Please HELP! thanks,
 

Irene0100

UK Support Team
May 14, 2009
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Norfolk, UK
hi, sorry you are having such problems.
you say it is hot, what sort of temp is the water getting to?
are there many/any plants. maybe you could post a pic of the tank -perhaps it would give us some ideas.
 

zeebo

Member
Jun 11, 2010
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hi, no live plants , just a few silk plants.

The heat wave was only 3 days , we have 3 AC's to cool off the house so the tanks with ligthts off stayed at 79d. This problem began long before summer started.

Will try to post a pic tomorrow.

My hard drive crashed and I lost all my photos.

tank has gravel bottom
2 hob marineland /biowheels -cartridges removed and replaced with clay biomatrix.
1 hydra-sponge filter
rocks, slate boiled before placement
9 fish left ( there were 10 when I began treatment)
light feeding-flake once a day
wc 20% weekly
vacuum monthly
pregnant platy but no babies (in the 20g there are lots of babies / no losses

hth ,thanks
 

pauldoit

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Sep 4, 2012
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Sorry its such a tough nut to crack.... I don't have a lot of experience with diseases because touch wood my tanks have always been pretty good once I got a good system going...But others here as you know seem to know a lot about everything fishy. I'll leave it to them to advise on diseases.

If the filters are cycled it seems that there should be enough biofiltration to rapidly deal with ammonia/nitrite spikes? Thoughts BigJohnnofish?

If it's just this tank that's problematic, are there any obvious differences? Like it's next to one of those silly air freshener things or near the kitchen and gets an oily film? Which makes me think, what is your aeration like? if your biological oxygen demand is high but there isn't enough gas transfer with the atmosphere you might get some nasty drops. I pump a lot of air into all of my tanks which seems to help.

Is the gravel thick without an undergravel filter? Could anaerobic dead spots be releasing hydrogen sulfide (from quite deep) or nitrite (due to lack of carbohydrate in denitrification reactions)?

I'm a firm believer that plants really help the ecosystem out, so go get some! Especially the floaters like amazon frog bit as they are not CO2 limited. Dont put duckweed in as you'll never get rid of it....
 

bigbird

Pleco Profiles Moderator - RIP FRIEND
Sep 9, 2010
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Sorry for this news. I would set upnthe qtank and place all fish only in this q tank. The other tank i would start from normal from cleaning fully all flters , getting new substrate throw the other out and start from scratch. Sorry that is what i would do. Cheers jk :thumbup:
 

zeebo

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Jun 11, 2010
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Sorry for this news. I would set upnthe qtank and place all fish only in this q tank. The other tank i would start from normal from cleaning fully all flters , getting new substrate throw the other out and start from scratch. Sorry that is what i would do. Cheers jk :thumbup:
thanks, jk, the other tank, the 20g is set up and has been for a very long time and has platy in there also, lots and doing fine and have babies. The problem tank is the 30g with 9 fish-8 platy and 1 celebe--very understocked.

Yes there is gravel, and could be possibly causing the problems. It is not too deep, say just under an inch.

well if i loose anymore I guess i will have to remove it . I can't remove the fish as i am not sure if they are carrying anything bad. The 20g fish are healthy. The 54g with the L128's is also healthy.

I purchased the 30g so I could get some smaller L's but this has got me stumped and to be honest ,pissed because i can't find the cause.

I do have a lot of aeration. 2 HOB's with water level lower. 1 hydra-sponge,and and air stone. More than necessary I think.

will try to set up photobucket again, my com crashed and lost everything so let me give it a try and see if i can post a tank pic.

thanks eveyone for your concern and trying to help me. taking advice .
 

Tener ds

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Mar 22, 2010
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id go with bigbirds post.:clap:..dump them and get some live plants,good for the fish and water.:yes:
do a 50% water change when u pull out the fake plants and put new ones in.
 

zeebo

Member
Jun 11, 2010
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Maybe your plastic plants are releasing toxic stuff ?
thanks jk, gee they are aquarium plants which I also have in the other tanks :dk:

well, anyway , an new problem popped up today. I noticed ich on one of the fish. Never saw anything in past months to indicate this , so could be from stress from living through a cycle after the meds ? or could this have been hidden all along and just started showing on one? As i said before , each dead fish looked fine before death and after . I looked at them good. No signs of ich till today ,so started meds for that .:wb::wb::wb:

Need to know if ich could have been hidden for so long and not see visible signs....if so, that would solve the mystery . thanks all,
 

dw1305

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May 5, 2009
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Hi all,
I hope you get it sorted, I think you can discount the gravel being too thick.
dump them and get some live plants,good for the fish and water.
I agree with Dave, plants just make water management a whole lot easier. The really great thing about plants is that if you have a lot of nutrients, you get a lot of plant growth, reducing the nutrients, it is a KISS solution.
I do have a lot of aeration. 2 HOB's with water level lower. 1 hydra-sponge,and and air stone. More than necessary I think.
It should be enough, but aeration (and biological filtration) is a bit of a strange subject, have a look at: "Aeration and dissolved oxygen in the aquarium" <http://plecoplanet.com/?page_id=829>

cheers Darrel
 

zeebo

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Jun 11, 2010
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thanks Darrel, as for live plants, I have tried for years and believe me I suck at them, even the easier ones. I spent a lot of money on replacing them and never had any luck so gave up and went with silk. Appreciate your guys advice on that though.

My main concern/question now is about ich. Since one fish in that tank has it, and I have begun medicating, what I really want to know is how long can ich hide it's ugly head ,before actually showing signs on a fish. Can it ''lay in wait for 2 months in the tank without seeing any visible signs? If so, that was my problem all along. If not, then the ich is a new problem. So new prob or could it have been hiding all this time when I was loosing a platy every 2 weeks ? This will tell me after the ich med is done if I still have a prob or finally got to the bottom of it.

thanks everyone for your concern and advice. still hope for an answer on this new development.
 

Irene0100

UK Support Team
May 14, 2009
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yes take out silk plants and most of gravel as they do not contribute anything.
some real plants will help absorb toxins and chemicals that could be in the water. and now you have to treat for ick as well, what a shame.
but as this is a very long running problem do check all environmental ideas, eg is any air freshener used (eg febreeze is a killer), someone lost a tank due to relative using a nearby asthma spray!
good luck
 

zeebo

Member
Jun 11, 2010
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yes take out silk plants and most of gravel as they do not contribute anything.
some real plants will help absorb toxins and chemicals that could be in the water. and now you have to treat for ick as well, what a shame.
but as this is a very long running problem do check all environmental ideas, eg is any air freshener used (eg febreeze is a killer), someone lost a tank due to relative using a nearby asthma spray!
good luck
yeah, that was me. I lost my entire 54g tank (incl 2 L128's) when my mother-in-law (suffers from Alzheimer's) sprayed her inhaler by the light of my tank where I had left the top open,I was preparing to feed them their veggies, I left the room to answer the phone :wb:

I don't use any spray's in the rooms with tanks. I use candles once in a while.

As for live plants, it was suggested ,however, I have tried to keep aquatic plants, easy ones , but no luck and gave up forking out money for them after a few yrs of trying.

What I really want to know is can ich stay hidden for aprox 2 months, without showing any signs at all ? Anyone know the ans to this ?? thanks
 

bigbird

Pleco Profiles Moderator - RIP FRIEND
Sep 9, 2010
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Ich is sometimes hard to detect especially when the spores are tiny and small. You are having a bad run, so as i stated start from scratch, clean everything as if new. As for plants go for java ferns or anubias. Do not put the roots in thesoil, but attach them to rocks and wood and they will thrive on their own. Good luck and hope you have good news soon. Cheers jk :thumbup:
 

Lornek8

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Apr 21, 2009
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Ich is one of those things that some say are always around but not a problem until conditions allow. If it were bad enough to kill you should have seen signs though. One of my main recommendations surrounding ich is that you make certain that you are indeed dealing with ich. Ich is probably the most misdiagnosed disease in fishkeeping. Anytime anyone sees white spots on fish they immediately treat for ich. Often bacterial diseases which affect the slime layer/skin can also cause something that can be mistaken for ich.

Have you gone through and run water parameter tests? I've still got a hard time believing its a water issue as it seems only one fish is affected at a time and at approximately 2 week intervals and all other tanks are setup similarly and don't have issues. I'm inclined to go a different direction but i'm not sure how you'd take to it. If it were my tank, i'd tear it down completly and start new. Sterilize everything, new filter media and new fish. That'd mean finding a way to part with the fish (give them away or other, i'd learn towards other). In the long-run it'd simply be easier and less costly. But that's just me and they way I view things.
 

zeebo

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Jun 11, 2010
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ok . so I have a lot to think about here. Thanks jk and Lorne, seems you both have the same idea. Since this tank was to be for small L's , I am not willing to chance any mysterious disease that especially you experts can't figure .

If ich can't hibernate for 2 months without showing some kind of sign, then I have to assume the cycle stressed them . I do believe it is ich. Looked like salt on nose, gills and tail fin. Atm, after 4 days of treating and 6 more of Micorbe-lift, I don't see any signs but will finsih the treatment.

I have a 5g I wonder if that is too small for a q-tank? Just leave the other platy in the 20g and tear down the 30g as suggested. Not sure I can destroy the fish in the 30g ...that is something difficult for me to do . I will/have culled a fish showing signs of illness but that is different..... got some thinking to do now that I have suggestions/advice . This has been going on too long so I want to thank everyone for their help and concen.
 

zeebo

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Jun 11, 2010
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ok, forgot to ask, but I assume I will be sterilizing everthing with bleach. 1 part bleach to 9 parts water. Then rinse and rinse a lot until I don't smell bleach anymore ? Is that the correct way to do it ?

will I need to bleach the new gravel too or just rinse as usual ?

thanks again eveyone