Old Tank Syndrome remedy

[DOCTORDOCTOR]

Hello everyone.

My 3ft tank is in trouble!

Reading around it appears I have Old Tank Syndrome.
How do I rectify this problem? I only have 3 coolies, one plecy, a firemouth and a gourami left.

Please help. :help:

 

[Blueiz]

How long has it been since you did a water change?

Start slowly...do a ten percent water change toay, wait three days, do a twenty percent, wait three days, do a thirty percent...so forth. Clean your filter on the first water change.

Blue

 

[ct-death]

I agree w/ BlueIZ; go slow.

I would also do deep gravel vacs after the WCs, ~10% of the gravel daily. Make sure you grab all the detribus and bacterias that will be stirred up.

 

[Rbishop]

Take it very slow buddy, the fish have to slowly adjust to the new clean waters. A good reason to do weekly water changes for prevention.

 

[Que]

Good luck!

Q

 

[J double R]

agreed with above posters, slow is sure. if you go too fast, it will shock your fish just as if you had tossed them into a tank of superclean water without acclimation after bringing them home from a store.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

start out with 5-10% water changes.

 

[12 Volt Man]

agreed. 10% per day with gravel vacuum should be fine.

its the drastic change in pH that we are trying to avoid.

tanks with old tank syndrome often have low pH's due to the build up of wastes.

 

[chaibill]

what is old tank syndrome is that when you don't do water changes or is there more to it?

 

[J double R]

what is old tank syndrome is that when you don't do water changes or is there more to it?

OTS comes from the lack of water changes, which causes WAYYY too much nitrates and hormones and waste, and the fish get so used to it that clean water is like shocking them.