I have a 55 Gal tank with two large filters.
In the tank are various cichlids and others. 5 all together not couting two good sized plecs.
I had a loach in there, pet store gave him to us free because we purchase lots of fish there. Anyway... he had been nipping at my smalled plec which was bigger than him, but after close observation stopped. Also I have a bloody parrot who doesnt tolerate nipping on any fish. he seems to intervene by fighting the fish that bothers the others. Ive never seen him nip the loach though.
Everything was going fine until yesterday when i came home, my loach was on his back on the bottom of the tank and he had whitish fins and gills. Not Ick, looks more like fungus or fin rot. He was still alive but died shortly after. I noticed some of the other fish had the white stuff too, so I went out and bought all the necessary treatments for fungus. I figured the loach was nipping at the others and the bloody parrot probably got him back. I know fungus sometimes appears if they've been fighting. I also checked the ph levels and other tests. Ph was reallly low and the ammonia was high.
My husband who is a newbie aquarist took charge and treated the tank with fungus tablets, ammonia tablets (ammonia was kinda high) and parasite clear. As well as metaflix. I thought that was way too many chemicals at one time and have been keeping an eye on the tank. He also pulled the carbon from the filters and turned one off. He also corrected the ph using the tablets.
This morning I noticed my yellow cichlid (not sure of its name it was also free) was staying on the bottom of the tank and had become lighter colored than usual. So I decided to keep and eye on him. Well about an hour ago, I was making lunch and I looked up and saw one of my barbs swimming upside down and the others were gasping at the top of the tank. I immediatly ran to them and scooped some of the water out (husband had topped the tanks off yesterday) and I took the barb out and put him in my hospital tank and ran him through the water to get his gills working properly (ive done this before, when the time for tank cleaning comes around and hes in a bucket, he jumped out and almost died) Anyway I got him breathing and his color returned , he seems great now.
however, I lost my yellow cichlid. He became white as a ghost. All the whitish spots on the others are gone. I turned the other filter back on, cuz they were gasping and am trying to filter some of the chemicals out.
Is it lack of oxygen or did my husband overload the medications? Ive never lost a fish when i medicated it. I always research the possibilities and treat one thing at a time. He did it all at once. Am I right? or did he do the right thing and we were gonna lose the fish anyway? The ph and ammonia levels,
could have brought it on itself. ( I checked them just last week and all was fine)
Thanks.
In the tank are various cichlids and others. 5 all together not couting two good sized plecs.
I had a loach in there, pet store gave him to us free because we purchase lots of fish there. Anyway... he had been nipping at my smalled plec which was bigger than him, but after close observation stopped. Also I have a bloody parrot who doesnt tolerate nipping on any fish. he seems to intervene by fighting the fish that bothers the others. Ive never seen him nip the loach though.
Everything was going fine until yesterday when i came home, my loach was on his back on the bottom of the tank and he had whitish fins and gills. Not Ick, looks more like fungus or fin rot. He was still alive but died shortly after. I noticed some of the other fish had the white stuff too, so I went out and bought all the necessary treatments for fungus. I figured the loach was nipping at the others and the bloody parrot probably got him back. I know fungus sometimes appears if they've been fighting. I also checked the ph levels and other tests. Ph was reallly low and the ammonia was high.
My husband who is a newbie aquarist took charge and treated the tank with fungus tablets, ammonia tablets (ammonia was kinda high) and parasite clear. As well as metaflix. I thought that was way too many chemicals at one time and have been keeping an eye on the tank. He also pulled the carbon from the filters and turned one off. He also corrected the ph using the tablets.
This morning I noticed my yellow cichlid (not sure of its name it was also free) was staying on the bottom of the tank and had become lighter colored than usual. So I decided to keep and eye on him. Well about an hour ago, I was making lunch and I looked up and saw one of my barbs swimming upside down and the others were gasping at the top of the tank. I immediatly ran to them and scooped some of the water out (husband had topped the tanks off yesterday) and I took the barb out and put him in my hospital tank and ran him through the water to get his gills working properly (ive done this before, when the time for tank cleaning comes around and hes in a bucket, he jumped out and almost died) Anyway I got him breathing and his color returned , he seems great now.
however, I lost my yellow cichlid. He became white as a ghost. All the whitish spots on the others are gone. I turned the other filter back on, cuz they were gasping and am trying to filter some of the chemicals out.
Is it lack of oxygen or did my husband overload the medications? Ive never lost a fish when i medicated it. I always research the possibilities and treat one thing at a time. He did it all at once. Am I right? or did he do the right thing and we were gonna lose the fish anyway? The ph and ammonia levels,
could have brought it on itself. ( I checked them just last week and all was fine)
Thanks.
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Both of them. These were the first 2 fish we had. We've had them for 2 years. They were the size of a tetra when we got them. They were tinfoil barbs, no one told us how big there were gonna get. They were 7 inches long. I was so proud of them. Im thankful my bloody parrot survived, he has such a cute personality. And my 7 year old Plec. (handed down from my mom)