Jack Dempsy Help

[Jsantoos]

Hello,
I recently got a JD this Christmas. I bought a 55 gallon tank and had a pleco fish but recently passed away. I’ve cleaned up the tank to get it back to normal.
I recently went on vacation for about 5 days. In those days I had people take care of my fish. My JD usually comes up to the fish tank to let you know he’s hungry. However in the 2 days that I was gone it did not eat and just sat at the bottom of the tank and would swim around once in a while.
While I was gone, the tank started getting cloudier and dirty. So today I just cleaned it and did a 20% water change with the chemicals (water conditioner, aquarium salt, and some quick start).

However I need help. My JD looks weak. Like it keeps going to the top of the tank and leans side ways. It has never done that. It constantly goes to the top of the tank and just leans sideways. To me it just looks weak and it’s about to die soon.
I have no idea what is wrong or what to do. Please help.

 

[fishorama]

Welcome to AC! I think your fish sitters probably overfed your tank. A 20% water change is not enough to get your tank & JD back to healthy. I do at least 30% every day or 2 & vacuum the substrate each time.

What are your tank's & tap water parameters? Ammonia, nitrite & nitrate plus pH, GH & KH if you can. What was your "normal" after the pleco died? Were you gone 5 days or 2? I'm confused.

 

[Jsantoos]

Hello! Thank you for getting back to me. Sorry if it sounds confusing, I was gone for 5 days. Whenever I clean my water, I usually try to clean the gravel as much as possible and get any left over food.
My normal is usually; ph 6, and everything else is usually the normal meaning what the test strips says.
I’ll do a 30% water change tomorrow to kind of try to get my fish get used to the water change I did today.
I added ammonia remover, water condition, aquarium salt, and quick start to see if it would help with the water.

 

[fishorama]

Well. I'd skip the aquarium salt. If you need to treat for something with salt just use table salt...

But right now I think you're best off doing water changes as often as you can, every day or 2. It's good you're vacuuming.

What are your tap water numbers? If they're much different than your tank...well, you know, do more frequent water changes!! That's always my go to treatment. Keep it up, I know it a PITA but JDs are pretty sturdy & can survive quite a lot.

Good luck & let us know how it's going.

 

[Jsantoos]

Thank you so much for helping me out!
I took a sample of my water to petsmart. They said that my ph and ammonia was off the charts. So yesterday I did a 50% water change. Today I did about 20%. I added some of the rock salt (I think that’s what it’s called) to increase the ph. Keep constantly adding the ammonia and aquarium salt. So last time I checked the ammonia is around 1-3 I would say 2. Alkalinity is around I would say 20 and ph is slowing getting up to a 6.8.

I’m just concerned about my JD. Whenever he stops swimming he just tends to lean on the side.

 

[fishorama]

You need to know your tap water parameters. If you're on city or other municipal water co. it should be online somewhere, look hard. If you're on a well...Well, there's no telling, unless you test it (pun intended).

pH "off the charts" which way? That sounds like a ton of overfeeding if it's much less than your tap water. Like I said JD are fairly forgiving, within reason. Ammonia can be helped by, oh yeah, water changes & Prime water dechlorinator. Prime can neutralize ammonia for 24-48 hours but water changing needs to happen that often. ANY ammonia is harmful to your fish's gill. You want to keep it to 0.25ppm or LESS.

Did you get a nitrite & nitrate number from Petsmart? ANY nitrite is bad...any more than 20ppm nitrate (up to 40 MAXIMUM) is as high as is healthy.

Please keep up your WCs & gradually reduce "aquarium salt" (I'm not sure what "rock salt" might be, like for water softeners?) & let us know how it's going. You can fix this!! Don't mess around or "forget" to do WCs, it's not that hard & takes 30 minutes, your JD is worth the effort!!

 

[FreshyFresh]

Just to add to the excellent advice above, in the future, even if you're gone for a week or more, unless your fish-sitter really understands the hobby, it's best to not have food added to the tank for that time period. This won't harm your average adult fish at all. Way less chance of having water quality related issues as what we sprinkle into the tank is what effects is most negatively.