Algae, weeds and other problems.
- Thread starter Hunter555
- Start date
Hunter555 said:
Hey Hunter,
You are getting some great advice from two of the best on here already. I'm in the ofice so can't linger long, however, can you check that Nitrate reading, that is incredibly high.
If it is still reading you need to a water change and a big one (80% 'ish) urgently. Most people recommend 40 ppm as the max for Nitrate and many (myself and most on here) will try to keep it sub 20ppm.
Also when you do the water changes are you rinsing out the filter media in the water you removed from the tank (a good thing) and are you cleaning the substrate (another good thing to do)?
Sorry, i appreciate there are a lot of questions coming at you at the moment but the more information people get, the better they can help you. Good luck, hang in there and keep us posted....
Agreed, you need to get the NO3 level way down. Not just because high NO3 levels are harmful to your fish (they are) but worse, they indicate that your water also has high concentrations of other, untestable, fish waste biproducts, organics like hormones, sulfur compounds and lots more fun stuff that's really no good for your fish. NO3 is the proxy that we use to tell us how many of these other compounds are in our water, in other words, how clean our tank water is. This, of course, fails in heavily planted tanks where NO3 actually need supplementation.
Although instead of a big 80% change, I would suggest numerous smaller changes. 40-50% each. Daily or twice daily. After you get your NO3 level below 40ppm, you can fall back to 50% twice weekly. This should bring it the rest of the way down to 20ppm or lower. From there, change as frequently as necessary to maintain sub-20 NO3 levels. This should be about 50% weekly. I don't mean that you need to test NO3 every week for the rest of your career in the hobby, just until you get a feel for how often and how much you need to change water to maintain proper levels of NO3, and therefore, other pollutants.
Although instead of a big 80% change, I would suggest numerous smaller changes. 40-50% each. Daily or twice daily. After you get your NO3 level below 40ppm, you can fall back to 50% twice weekly. This should bring it the rest of the way down to 20ppm or lower. From there, change as frequently as necessary to maintain sub-20 NO3 levels. This should be about 50% weekly. I don't mean that you need to test NO3 every week for the rest of your career in the hobby, just until you get a feel for how often and how much you need to change water to maintain proper levels of NO3, and therefore, other pollutants.
Just an Fyi To add to the last two posts, the nitrate reading says a lot about your current situation. High notrates indicate a build-up of pollutants. many of which can slowly "poison" (for lack of a better term) your fish. this also explains the algea very well. despite the fact that algea doen't typically feed on nitrates, it does feed on many other pollutants and ammonia. And a tank with those levels is a smorgasboard for algea. The great news is nitrate reduction is easy. as said just do a lot of water changes until the level is down and then see what is required to maintain it. After you get the levels down you'll have to kill the algea. but I find that isn't as hard as it may seem. Keep usposted. we'll guide you through each step if we can. if we can't, the experts can step in.
dave
Happy, check your PM's. you just turned on a lightbulb and I have a question for you.
dave
dave
Happy, check your PM's. you just turned on a lightbulb and I have a question for you.
dave
A quick update:
After suffering heavy casualties over the last few days the fish are starting to return to their normal behaivour and looking a lot healthier. They are no longer sitting on the bottom of the tank gasping. The knife fish are even trying to kill each other again instead of lying on top of each other gasping. The sole surviving neon has lost all white spots and the other fish are loosing thiers too. I'm going to do a 50% water change when I get home from work today and then continue to treat the tank with melafix for another 5 days or so while slowly lowering the temp back to normal. (Currenlty 28 degrees C.) I'm not game enough to treat them with any more formalin and malachite green treatment in because this REALLY upset the loach and knife fish. Looked like it almost killed them. So I will treat it with melafix for a few more days just to be sure the ich is gone. I will put the carbon element back in the filter in a few more days too. Gotta suck up all that junk off the bottom of the tank too.
So now a list of the casualties... rest in peace my friends:
After suffering heavy casualties over the last few days the fish are starting to return to their normal behaivour and looking a lot healthier. They are no longer sitting on the bottom of the tank gasping. The knife fish are even trying to kill each other again instead of lying on top of each other gasping. The sole surviving neon has lost all white spots and the other fish are loosing thiers too. I'm going to do a 50% water change when I get home from work today and then continue to treat the tank with melafix for another 5 days or so while slowly lowering the temp back to normal. (Currenlty 28 degrees C.) I'm not game enough to treat them with any more formalin and malachite green treatment in because this REALLY upset the loach and knife fish. Looked like it almost killed them. So I will treat it with melafix for a few more days just to be sure the ich is gone. I will put the carbon element back in the filter in a few more days too. Gotta suck up all that junk off the bottom of the tank too.
So now a list of the casualties... rest in peace my friends:
- 3x Sunset gouramis
- 1x Kuhli loach
- 2x Bristle nose plecos (Poor little things were only babies less than 1 cm long).
- 6x Neon tetras
Just an FYI, you will want to keep up some type of ICH treatment (melafix isn't it) for at least 1 week after all signs are gone from your fish, 2 weeks is better at lower temps. Looks like I linked the salt article twice in my earlier post, but Happy linked my favorite ICH article so it's there. Ich has three life stages. if it cleared off of your fish yesterday it is reproducing in the substrate today when it is done reproducing it will hatch out and go find your fish again. It can only be effectively eliminated when it hatches and goes freeswimming. ich meds and salt will not kill it while it is on your fish or in the substrate. The article covers all of that in much better detail. I'm no longer a fan of ich meds simply because of how hard they are on the fish. I use and reccomend the salt method whichever you use, use it long enough to wipe out ich for good. Melafix aids with healing but doesn't kill ich. There is some debate about how well it helps with healing, but many use and reccomend it. I've never personally tried it. Ether way it won't kill ich, so you are still in danger of a repeat if that is all you use.
That gunk on the bottom of the tank should be removed, this is a really good time to vaccum up the gravel very well. if the ich is in the gravel reproducing, it will get sucked up as well leaving far fewer little freswimmers to kill later. and in the event that some of them don't get killed there will be far fewer to attack your fish. also with malechite or potassium permagenate ich treatments, heavy organics lower the effectiveness. so the cleaner tha tank during treatment the better tha chance of success.
Carbon will remove meds, but won't remove salt BTW.
thing are looking up, it's good to hear that your fish that remain are perking up a bit.
Dave
That gunk on the bottom of the tank should be removed, this is a really good time to vaccum up the gravel very well. if the ich is in the gravel reproducing, it will get sucked up as well leaving far fewer little freswimmers to kill later. and in the event that some of them don't get killed there will be far fewer to attack your fish. also with malechite or potassium permagenate ich treatments, heavy organics lower the effectiveness. so the cleaner tha tank during treatment the better tha chance of success.
Carbon will remove meds, but won't remove salt BTW.
thing are looking up, it's good to hear that your fish that remain are perking up a bit.
Dave
Agreed, keep up the Ich meds for another week! You've just cured the first and easiest stage of Ich to treat. Now the parasite is reproducing in cysts on and in your substrate, getting ready to send thousands of swimmers back at your fish. These are what Ich meds are good for, the high temperature is to speed up the parasite's life cycle, i.e. get it off your fish and into the water. The salt helps the fish heal, in theory. I've also read some suggestions that it kills the free swimmers, but I've read contradictory arguments as well, so I'm a fence sitter on that one until I read something I trust to tip the balance.
At any rate, you've crested the peak and it's downhill from here. Most of your fish should recover completely. Keep up the water changes and clean that gravel!
At any rate, you've crested the peak and it's downhill from here. Most of your fish should recover completely. Keep up the water changes and clean that gravel!
Hmm... I did a 50% water change yesterday and sucked all the junk off the bottom of the tank. While waiting for the water ager to take effect, I noticed the blue dwarf gouramis were scraping themselves against the leaves again. :thud:
So I put another does of white spot rememdy in which upset the loach again... but it has to be done I guess. Still haven't got the element in the filter so I'm guessing my ammonia levels are going to skyrocket soon? This worries me. I'm still keeping up the treatment for the ich but the bottle says to put it in and then put it in 3 days later. This was only 2 days but I considered it okay because I had just done a 50% water change.
On a different note, it looks pretty cool watching the knife fish fight/play. They curve through the water forwards and backwards nose to tail and look so alien. But I don't want them to hurt each other so I walk over to the tank and say "Stop that!" and they swim and hide in their caves. :laugh:
So I put another does of white spot rememdy in which upset the loach again... but it has to be done I guess. Still haven't got the element in the filter so I'm guessing my ammonia levels are going to skyrocket soon? This worries me. I'm still keeping up the treatment for the ich but the bottle says to put it in and then put it in 3 days later. This was only 2 days but I considered it okay because I had just done a 50% water change.
On a different note, it looks pretty cool watching the knife fish fight/play. They curve through the water forwards and backwards nose to tail and look so alien. But I don't want them to hurt each other so I walk over to the tank and say "Stop that!" and they swim and hide in their caves. :laugh:
