T3Knical5urg3

I have a 5 gallon tank that I thought was cycled (I don't know anymore). So first ill explain my cycle. ammonia peeked at ~2ppm then dropped followed by nitite that went up to over 5ppm. Then it dropped off to zero. I thought I was good. The tank has seemed great and happy, that is until today. I looked in the tank and noticed some brown algae stuff on my white rocks. Had to go to class so didn't think to long about this. Came home and noticed that my otto seems like hes not doing so good. So I tested the water (Note: I changed the water on saturday ~33%) and I read 0ammonia 0nitrite and 0nitrates I really should have SOME nitrates with a otto betta and snail in the tank. So now I'm confused. The test kit is brand new and its the API master kit. Whats going on?

jdhef

I wouldn't worry about the brown algae. It is called Diatoms and shows up for a couple of weeks in newly cycled tanks. It will go away soon on it's own.

You need to really sahke and pound the #2 nitrate test bottle in the API kit. Apparently the solids parcipitate out of the liquid, and if noy shaken enough will give innacurate readings.

T3Knical5urg3

hrm okay I have to try that.

T3Knical5urg3

but should my ottos be okay then. He sure doesn't seem to be.

T3Knical5urg3

Ok now my otos is on the bottom of the tank with his belly up and not sucked to anything. Something has to be wrong. I know the nitrite tests are ok because I have another tank cycling that read nitrite. The ammonia is defiantly 0 too. I also just test the water after shaking both nitrate bottles and I still got zero which doesn't make sense. The otto has no physical damage or anything funny. His fins aren't even clamped. He just really having trouble breathing and at the bottom. Please help

T3Knical5urg3

Its sad now he swimming in circles please help

Lucy

Aww, poor thing, I'm sorry he's doing to poorly. I've heard they can be quite sensitive and seem to die over nothing.

I'd do a water change, gently, try not to stress him anymore.

Did you shake, band and abuse the #2 nitrate bottle? You can get a false reading if the crystals don't mix correctly.

Do you have an airstone? What's the temp of the water?

T3Knical5urg3

The temp is 77 always. Their is an airstone in it and yes i believe that the bottle was banged up and shook

T3Knical5urg3

Okay there is one other options. I do have on neon in the tank but this is temporary. He is the only surviving member of a problem I had in my 20 gallon. Could he maybe have given him something? I see nothing wrong looking with mr otto other than what i stated before

dr.fluffanutter

Caresheet for otos

:throws Oto caresheet at T3K in a desperate attempt to seem helpful:

Lucy

It's possible, is your neon sick, what happened to the others?

T3Knical5urg3

the death of the other neons was KIND OF my fault. Long story short I lost my cycle and didnt know and had 5 dead neons the next morning due to nitrites. This guy that lived seems to a a happy healthy camper.

Lucy

Ah, geez, sorry you lost them. Then your little neon probably isn't the cause.

chickadee

Do you have any real plants? in order to keep otos successfully you really have to have at least one real plant. I do not know why this is but it does seem to be a rule with them. I have never been able to keep any of them alive without at least one live plant in their tank. They also absolutely cannot stand any tank that is not totally cycled. If he was in the tank with it not being totally cycled then he probably got a higher than average dose of soemthing in the water. This is not your fault just a lack of explanation on our part here. they also do better in groups of two or more. Singletons have not done well on their own in my experience. Don't understand that either. If you happened to get a little guy who had been starved before you purchased him then he could be the victim of a type of wholesale starvation caused by the death of the bacteria in the stomach that digests his food. In that case you can feed them until the cows come home and they will starve as no food can be digested. When you buy otos they should be fat and happy with rounded white and not reddened or dark pink bellies. Otherwise they have been too mistreated and will probably not survive.

Rose

T3Knical5urg3

No the ottos has plenty of live plants. The whole tank is planted. Yes the tank is totally cycled and there are no spikes at all. BUT i left him over night and he seems okay today! Last night he was pathetic but today he has seemed pretty okay. Swimming straight and all.

pamd

You're right. The 0 nitrate reading does not make sense. Did you give the Nitrate Bottle #2 a really, really good shaking, like for two minutes of vigorous shaking plus knocking it bottom up on a counter-top several times? If not, try that. If you still get 0, something's probably wrong with your test formula.

I found out the hard way about Bottle #2 and lost two corys probably because of high nitrates unknown to me at the time. Like otos, they're very sensitive to water quality. I simply followed the API instructions to shake Bottle #2 for 30 seconds, but that wasn't good enough. It's my only disappointment with the API master test kit, but a huge one. When it's not working, it will read 0 nitrates, when you know good and well there should be nitrates.

After vigorously shaking Bottle #2 and still having it come up with 0, I figured that the previous tests had not mixed the formula correctly and that the solution had become diluted. I bought a replacement nitrate test, and sure enough, the nitrates were very high.

How's the little oto doing now? I'm glad to hear he's doing better. Probably a water change tonight helped him out a lot by reducing nitrates that you didn't even know you had, in spite of your careful efforts to monitor them.

The brown algae (diatoms) are almost certainly not the cause of the problem.