kennya

One of our mollies lost it's tail. I went to do a 25% water change over this past weekend and thats when we noticed it. He seems to be moving around fine, but he is staying in the top corner of the tank until I feed them. Once he eats, he goes back to the corner. He is also sticking his mouth out of the water and breathing I guess. He eats good and gets around good when he leaves the corner.

The water is CLOUDY! It has been this way since around the 3rd of Aug. I am just not sure how often I can do water changes, and what %, I can do to help clean it up. My filter media is good, but I did have to turn my filter down because we lost a neon tetra as he got stuck on the inlet. I had turned it down to the lowest setting. Last night I turned it back to about medium. I am wondering if that will help with the cloudyness.

I checked my readings last night and I have 0 amm, 0 nitri and 20 nitrate. Thats to much isnt it? I am thinking another 50% water change tonight to get that back down. Is that ok?

Whats the best way to get rid of snails Oh man, I am flooded with them.

Please check my tank info. How many more fish would you all recommend?

Lastly, any good battery powered gravel vacs out there?

jdhef

Generally cloudiness falls into two catogories. If the cloudiness is white, it is a bacterial bloom. If green, it's an algae bloom.

You can do 50% water changes daily if need be. While most people on this site recommend keeping nitates below 20, the API booklet recommends keeping them below 40.

A dramatic increase of snails generally means you are over feeding, so there is a lot of leftover food in the tank to support a large snail population. Try cutting back on feeding a little and see if that helps.

There was a thread on here the other day with a link to a battery power vac. You can probably do a search and find it.

I'm a little worried that you don't have enough oxygen in your water and that's why your mollie is gulping at the surface. Do you have an airstone?

navyscuba

Well since you turn your filter off until you got the issue fixed there's a big chance that is a mini cycled(bacteria Bloom) For damage tails I use Pimafix i also Put the fish on a separate area like a floating tank or just put him on a QT tank. He needs to be alone so the others don't pic on him. Good Luck.

peacemaker92

Something to add with the jdhef and navyscuba's post, about your filter inlet. You can put a sponge around it and tie it with a string or just poke a whole into it and put it on your inlet so that it covers the inlet to prevent your fish being sucked into it. I won't take credit for this advice as it was given to me from the members here and it worked out fine for me! haha

kennya

I actually have two airstones, one in each corner. He is the only one that is doing that. Yea, we have been overfeeding, I am slowly backing off the food. I was at twice a day, now I am going once one day and twice the next and less food each time.

I didnt turn the filter off, I just put it on low. I have since moved it back to medium. From what I have observed, none of the other fish mess with him, he is more of a bully than they are. If they get close to his corner, he runs them off. I don't have a QT or a floating tank, so I am hoping he will be all right in the tank now.

How long does it take for a tail to grow back? I will look into getting the Pimafix. Thanks!

navyscuba

Well I have a Sunburst Mollie that 3/4 of his tail was biten off by the other male. It took around 1 or 2 months but I released him when he was swimming better.

kennya

Would that be a Sunburst Platy? We have two of those and I was thinking it might have been one of them that did it. The Mollies we have, I don't remember the name of them, but the one that had it's tail taken off is half black and half yellow. The other is all yellow with black spots on it. They are the same kind just a little different in color. Anyway, my wife thinks one of our Danios might have done it since it likes to chase most of the other tank mates around.

navyscuba

Yeap Sunburts are Yelowish/light orange with black specles on them.

Craig-D

On the matter of batter powered gravel vacs, I'll repost what I poseted in another thread:

The first link is the one I own by Hagen. It vacuums and then you can swap out the vaccum bag for a hose (sold separately) and viola! You have a powered siphon. It can be had for around $15-$20 on various sites.

http://www.petsolutions.com/Multi-Va...11004+C37.aspx

The other popular alternative is this model by Eheim. It is a vaccum only, and is not designed to also siphon water. It is much more expensive, but is also much more powerful and better designed . Ignore the insane price in this particular link. This model can be had for as little as $50 or so.

http://www.petsolutions.com/Eheim-Sl...35014+C37.aspx

Should you decide to get one of these, I highly suggest using rechargable batteries to power them. They eat batteries like you wouldn't believe.