0morrokh

She should be in the q tank at least until her fins are making good progress healing. You could wait until she if fully healed but that would take a long time.

The general rule for treating finrot is to treat until the fins have stopped rotting away and started re growing. (Which will probably require more than one treatment of 5 days) At this point the bacteria is killed off and it is just a matter of waiting for the fins to grow back. However, it may not be a bad idea to add something like Melafix at that point to help the fins to re grow. Oh and also turn the temp up to about 83, to help the fins heal.

So put her in the q tank (with carbon removed from the filter), medicate for 5 days, do a huge water change and then continue medicating until fins have started regrowing. Then do another huge water change, remove the tetracycline with carbon, and (optional but would be a good idea) dose with Melafix for a bit to help heal the fins. At least that's how I would go about treating it.

Yes that would be a good idea to stick the male in too. The meds won't harm him even if his fins heal much faster than hers.

Is the q tank cycled? Because if it isn't then the instructions for medicating may change slightly if you feel you need to do water changes more than every 5 days to keep the water quality good.

shollia

No the tank isn't cycled unfortunatly.. I just got ahold of it today.. and I know my mother hasn't used it for quite some time.
Is it still ok to use though even if it isn't cycled?
Since it's not, how often should I do water changes?

When you say continue medicating after the huge water change... do you mean with the tablets or with Melafix?

shollia

BOY are danios freaking hard as **** to catch!!!!! Good god... those suckers were just darting everywhere. I got lucky catching the fin rot gal.. she panicked and went to the top of the water....
She WAS trying to burrow into the gravel which surprised the **** out of me. All of a sudden I saw her nose dive into the gravel and start wiggling... then suddenly she must've found the right opening and she disappeared
Well.. I guess I now know how they keep disappearing......

The male was just a pain in the butt to catch... he kept hiding behind all of my plants so I had to risk damaging the plants to get him. *SIGH* I don't wanna do that ever again.

I'm not liking this hex tank though... there seems to be a pretty strong current at the bottom of the tank for some reason. I have no idea why. Getting my brother to go to Dollar General to get me some rocks to put in there. I know it was recommended to leave it bare, but I'm hoping that adding some gravel/rocks it will help this weird current that's happening.

They're also not liking their temp home heh.
Oh well... it's gotta be done to make them all better.

shollia

Uuuugh... bf needs to get home already so we can get a better filter for this hex tank! I think the filter that my mom gave me for it is too powerful.. and that's what is causing the current at the bottom. My poor male danio was trying to rest near the bottom and he couldn't b/c he kept having to fight the current. I cut one of the sponge filter things that I got and put it where the water flows out, but all that did was make the water rise in the filter so it was almost overflowing.. and there was still the current at the bottom... *shrugs* Should I just turn it off? I'm kinda afraid to as I don't know how that's going to affect water quality and I'm not sure if I did, when I should be doing water changes since I'm medicating. Think I could get by by turning the filter off at night and then cutting it back on during the day?
Really hope they're gonna be ok... the top of the tank seems to be calm though.. so I hope they can rest up top....They seem to be having alot of fun now though. They keep playing with eachother and swimming through the disturbance the filter is making up top.


Few questions... how do you keep a quarantine tank cycled?
Am I just supposed to empty it whenever I'm not using it? Am I supposed to have some fish in there to keep it cycled?
Like when we start getting new fish... put them in the Q tank for a week or 2... then take them out.. so where does that leave the Q tank? Am I making any sense? Lol



EDIT: I unplugged it for now... it was just breaking my heart watching them trying to relax but not being able to. I really hope this won't cause any harm.

0morrokh

I assume you mean you unplugged the filter in the q tank right? Now, normally I would never adivse anything like that, but since the q tank isn't cycled a filter isn't going to do anything. So perhaps it is better to save them from some stress from the filter.

Well, since their main tank isn't cycled either, I don't see what difference an uncycled q tank would make. I think you should still use the q tank because it is easier to keep the water clean in a smaller tank, since you are able to do bigger water changes.
You need to be doing water changes as often as possible...oh I don't know...just test the water in there asap and you will have to decide if you need to do a water change in the middle of treatment. Then you would have to put back the amount of meds you removed. Are you following me?

Medicating:
Turn temp up to 83 degrees.
Treat with tetracycling for 5 days.
I'm guessing the fish won't be healed by that time, so do a 75+% water change and treat with tetracycline for another 5 days.
Do another 75+% water change.
Now add carbon to remove all the tetracycline (you will need a filter to put the carbon in).
At this point if the tetracycline hasn't made any difference you may need to switch to another finrot med. Personally I don't know how good tetracycline is. I have had good success with Jungle Fungus Clear. Or, if the fish are improving but still have a long ways to go, you could skip the carbon step and opt to do another round of tetracycline. However read the label...for some meds there is a limit for how many times you can treat.
Once the tetracycline is removed completely, I would recommend dosing with Melafix to help heal the fins and just as an extra precaution.
***during the 5 day treatments, it may be that the ammonia in the tank will get too high. If that happens, you may need to do a smaller water change in the middle of treatment as I described above.

Hopefully that clarified it a little...

Btw, if you think catching your danios was hard...try catching Otos in a tank with so much algae you can't see them (but they can swim as fast as your danios I'm sure...)

shollia

Lol.. that must've been super fun :P heh
Thanks so much for the advise!
I'm not sure how accurate testing would be since the water is a yellowish color b/c of the medication.

Would using an ammonia neutralizer affect the medication any?

shollia

Just an update on my sick fish....

They seem to be doing great in their hospital tank. The male especially since he's taken on the dominant role instead of being the one that's always chased by my big Bully heh.

I'm not sure if they like the current in the water, but every once in a while I'll look over and see them near the bottom in a single spot just sorta swimming against the current.. maybe they do this for exercise or something since the tank isn't that big.... *shrugs*

I can't tell if there is any fin growth though... I guess there wouldn't be much in only 4 days heh...
One more day to go with this medication. Might keep them in longer to treat with Melafix if we get some.. as was suggested

shollia

An update on my fish.. and my main tank...

The male seems to be doing really well. Very active in his newly found dominant role in the hospital tank heh.
I'm not sure how my girl is doing though. There isn't a light on the tank and with the colored water, it's hard to tell if the fin rot has cleared or not. From the glimpses I get of her before she darts off to hide... it looks like the part of her tail fin that got cut off (still not sure how).. seems to have started to grow back.
I'm not sure if her finrot has cleared up though.
I'm gonna see if I can get bf to go to the petstore tonight to get a better filter for the hospital tank. and tomorrow when I do the big water change to help clear the medication out.. I'll be able to see how she's doing.

As for my main tank..... I really hope it's not cycling again!!
I've been getting very low ammonia readings for the past few days even though nitrite has gone to 0 and nitrate is staying between 5-10.
If someone could tell me what's going on with that.. it'd be much appreciated.
It's not cycling again is it? Could ammonia in the tap be the cause? Would something to take the ammonia out of the tap affect anything in a negative way?

0morrokh

Glad to hear your fish seem to be doing well. If your female is improving you may not need to use the tablets for another treatment after all. I would just treat with Melafix (if her fins are for sure growing back).

I think when you took out two of the fish it caused problems with the cycle because there are now only 2 small fish to produce ammonia. That may be why the nitrites went away--the bacteria died down because of the smaller food supply. After your sick fish are better, it may be a good idea to move the other fish to the q tank and finish the cycling process using pure ammonia. This will make it go a lot faster. All you'd have to do is do a big water change right before you put the fish back in. Since neither tank is cycled I don't think putting them in the q tank for a week or so would hurt them any.

shollia

Update.... male danio is doing fine and I thought the female with finrot was doing better. So dumb me decided to put them back into the main tank.
I sat and watched them a bit, they were schooling with the other 2 as usual, but then Bully and the male started to chase the girl with finrot all over the place and just would not leave her alone. She would try to get away from them wherever she could. She's even find little spaces between the rocks and try to squeeze in to get away. The male even cornered her a few times and well.. I dunno what he was doing to her. Was hard to see what was going on since they were moving so much.
Later on I noticed that her anal fin still had that black edges to them and appeared to have gotten a bit worse... SIGH.. so bf fished her out for me and we stuck her back into the hex tank. Poor thing!
I started another round of medication. I had cleaned out the tank and all before she went back in... Oh well... I hope this time she'll get better.

Do have a question.... I just got a divider and some gravel for my 10 gal. Tomorrow I'm hoping to go to another walmart a bit further away or to a hardware store to try to find some ammonia to help cycle it with (been using flake food).
Now, I want to put in the sister? plants that are growing from my marble queen that's in the main tank into my 10 gal... will the ammonia harm the plants?

0morrokh

Sorry I took so long to get back to you. The javascript on my computer isn't working so it won't let me pull down the header with the arrow button, so I can't click on "show new replies to my posts" which is making it very hard to track down posts I need to respond to.

I am sorry to hear the female has gotten worse again. How are all the fish doing now?

As for the plants, I don't know if the ammonia will harm them or not, may want to ask in the plant section. I'm not exactly that great when it comes to aquarium plants... :P

shollia

Heh... it's been a while since I've updated!

Welp, my finrot danio gal seems to be doing rather well actually! I can still see a slight discoloration on a small part of her anal fin, but it doesn't look as bad as it was before.
Her tailfin has grown back nicely though. It's not back fully yet, but about halfway.
I might keep her in the Q tank a bit longer and treat her with a dose of Melafix again just to make sure her finrot is totally gone. I'm just afraid I'm going to over-medicate her or something.

AS for the plants... I cut them and placed them into the tank this past Friday and they seem to be doing just fine... sprouting new leaves and all that jazz

shollia

Oh yeah, not sure if I mentioned this earlier.. too lazy to go back and check...
I got ahold of some pure ammonia (yay for Ace Hardware store! heh)... and am using it to cycle my 10gal.
I can't remember when we got it though.. Do know it's been about a week*
Not sure if I'm doing it right either. I've been adding 5-7 drops per day, but still no nitrite which is frustrating b/c I thought doing it this way was gonna be really quick heh.

And it does seem like our 28gal is cycling... again.. SIGH.
I'm really hoping that the 10gal will hurry up and cycle. I'll transfer the danios into the 10gal temporarily and then do the whole pure ammonia fishless thing with it... which shouldn't take too long though since some bacteria should already be in it.


EDIT: Alrighty... I read on another forum... not sure if I can post a link to it here or not... about their methods of fishless cycling and I think I'm gonna try it their way since the tank is only going to be housing 2 bettas... or well.. little danios and then bettas eventually heh.
It basically said to add in enough ammonia to get a reading of 5ppm and then just leave it until you get a reading of 1ppm and something or another lol... I'll have to read up on it again while I'm not doped up on cold medicine :P heh

0morrokh

Glad to hear your danio's finrot is getting better. Melafix is pretty "natural" as far as meds go and it shouldn't hurt her to do another round of it.

Yeah you want to jack the ammonia up pretty high if you want a fast cycle. Just make sure to do a huge water change before adding fish to the tank, since adding so much ammonia will cause very high nitrates once the tank is cycled. I think I have heard 5 ppm recommended too. I have not cycled with ammonia but I'm not sure I'd just leave it until the ammonia goes down a bunch, for fear of starving the bacteria. Might want to continue adding ammonia every day. I think I've heard that once you think the tank is cycled, you add enough ammonia to get it back up to 5 ppm and if it's all converted to nitrate by the next day, the tank is cycled. Not positive on that one though...

shollia

Welp.. I finally got some money.. and my impatients got the better of my and I ordered some Bio-Spira off the net. Hoping it will be shipped and get here within the week, but I'm not holding my breath.

Also ordered a few plants as well and am really looking forward to planting them when they get here Got 2 java ferns, some dwarf sag, an amazon sword compacta, 1 moss ball, and some cambomba. Kinda afraid I'm gonna end up killing the cambomba, but I really like the way it looks and well.. might as well give it a try
Really wish I had ordered a tiger lotus as well b/c they are SO pretty, but I'm hoping that our walmart will have bulbs for sale and I can get it then and just grow one myself.

Also wanted to order this CO2 cheap 20 dollar thing, but I ran out of funds for it heh. Just hope my plants will survive on the liquid fertalizer for now

ANywho!
My fish are doing great so far. Guppies have calmed down and have made themselves at home in the main tank. So cute whenever I walk up to the tank, they get all excited like puppies.
My finrot danio gal is also doing great. Well, she was being harassed by the male today. He kept picking on her making her release eggs. Not sure if he was eating them, or if he just wanted to fertalize... *shrugs*
But the spot on her tail isn't at the edge... the dark spot that I've been worried about USED to be at the edge of her tail, but when you look closer, you can see that her fin has actually grown out more and it's clear. That's why I never noticed it before so kept thinking the black part was still unhealed finrot.

0morrokh

Well you're braver than I am...only plants I even attempt to keep are java fern and java moss. Actually, I tried a few others a while back and managed to kill them all. :

Good to hear the fishies are doing well. Aren't Guppies so much fun? I miss my girls....... (had some female Gups a while back but lost them all to tuberculosis ) Maybe I'll try to get ahold of some Endlers this time
Anyway glad the finrot is improving. Sorry it's rather late and my brain isn't working :P....how many danios do you have in there with the girl with finrot and the male? Keeping them in a larger group (6+) will help keep one girl from always being picked on.

smillermom

HI there! It sounds like you are enjoying this hobby even with the trials and tribulations! Good for you! I have used Bio-Spira several times. I ordered it on the net from "The Fish Store". Prob the same as you did! When you get the Bio-Spira, add it right to the tank. It has live bacteria so will need to go in if not refrigerated. I have added fish right away with no problems as the bacteria needs to start feeding on something. You can also wait a day which might be better in your case as you have added to your tank already. (10 gallon). I noticed your comment on the clown loaches. Your tank is too small to accommodate them. Please ignore the LFS on this as they need a very large tank due to the size they get as well as need a bigger school than 2. You might really enjoy some little corydoras (or cories-nicknames!). They are bottom feeders, need a school of at least 3, stay small and are a blast to watch. There are many different types, peppered, panda, albino, that stay at around 2-3 inches. With the smaller fish, the 1 inch to every gallon rule should be followed. That is in adult fish size. For example, danios get to be around 2 inches long. So, with the 4 you started with, that is 8 inches of fish. That leaves you with 20 left for other fish. I am envious of you, I love hearing of new tanks and the choices that people make! Have fun! Sharon

shollia

Oh don't worry! I still want my clowns, but after doing more research on them I realized that my little 28 is way too small for them in the long run.
I want them really bad, but I can wait til we get a bigger tank (if that ever happens heh).