Poorly Krib

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Mummynicks

AC Members
Jan 5, 2005
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I have got a pair of lovely Kribs, they are one of my favourite fish in my tank, and over the past week the male has become unwell. The first thing that I noticed was that he is not shutting his mouth, and now his eys appear to be bulging. All my other fish seem o.k. including the female, but he seems to be getting worse. I have not done anything different in the tank, I always do a 30 percentish water change about every 10 days and change / wash filter sponges as instructions. The only thing I did notice is that the fine filter sponges were extra dirty on the last change. Reading information I can find I have put it down to poor water quality and treated with King British Bacteria Control, but have seen no improvement yet. Does anybody else have any ideas? I'm really worried, I don't want to loose him!
 

~*LuvMyKribs*~

AC Members
Nov 15, 2003
1,909
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Vancouver, Canada
www.aquaticescapes.ca
It does sound like poor water quality... BUT:

Washing the filter sponges on every water change is a very bad idea. They are store houses for the helpful bacteria in your tank.

They hardly ever need to be changed- ive had the same sponges in my filters for the past year at least. Every few water changes I will squeeze the sponge out into a bucket of OLD tank water, but i dont really wash it all that well. I just get the thick gunk out. Dont rinse them in fresh, cholorinated tap water because you will kill all the bacteria on them.

That gunk in the filter is actually good for the tank, in small amounts, as it feeds the plants and keeps the water healthy. You just dont want so much of it that it will slow down circulation through the filter.

I suggest stop rinsing the filter sponges and do your regular water change every 10 days. Cut it down to maybe 20% water change with a simple gravel vacuuming, nothing too big though.

Try that and see how things turn out. You might loose your male krib though...

Oh and ps- why would you treat with Bacteria Control...? Does that kill bacteria? Why would you do that? Ive never heard of bacteria control before...

HTH
-Diana
 
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