scarletrain
10-11-2005, 5:11 PM
Hey everyone. I'm new to this site. I've been keeping fish/plants for about 18 months now. I've just gotten my tank (10 gallon) nicely planted and it looks spectacular, if I do say so myself! I've gained an understanding of fertilizers and I'm managing to keep algae at bay even without algae eaters. I do diy co2 and I have about 3 WPG 6500 K lighting. I have to dose nitrogen to keep my nitrates from dropping to zero. I change 25% of the water once a week. No water quality issues--0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 10 ppm nitrate.
There's the background. Apparantly though, I'm good at keeping plants but I suck at keeping fish! I have three platies, five neons in this tank. Unfortunately I'm dealing with a TOUGH outbreak of disease (chronic columnaris I think) and I just can't shake it! I just hate dumping medicine in, so I've been feeding Jungle antibiotic food. This seems to stop the disease from progressing but as soon as I stop the food, it comes back. It's been going on for over a month. I've also tried daily 50% water changes without success.
Can anyone recommend a plant-safe antibiotic, if there is one? Otherwise, I'm tempted to let nature take it's course with these fish, and wind up converting to an invert only tank or the like. I don't have the heart to rip apart the tank and bleach it, and I don't know how to sterilize flourite anyway! :help:
I forgot to mention, this all started because--um, I didn't quarantine a new fish. :duh:
There's the background. Apparantly though, I'm good at keeping plants but I suck at keeping fish! I have three platies, five neons in this tank. Unfortunately I'm dealing with a TOUGH outbreak of disease (chronic columnaris I think) and I just can't shake it! I just hate dumping medicine in, so I've been feeding Jungle antibiotic food. This seems to stop the disease from progressing but as soon as I stop the food, it comes back. It's been going on for over a month. I've also tried daily 50% water changes without success.
Can anyone recommend a plant-safe antibiotic, if there is one? Otherwise, I'm tempted to let nature take it's course with these fish, and wind up converting to an invert only tank or the like. I don't have the heart to rip apart the tank and bleach it, and I don't know how to sterilize flourite anyway! :help:
I forgot to mention, this all started because--um, I didn't quarantine a new fish. :duh: