capekate

good morning all you fish lovers!
Ive been away from posting for awhile, having a close friend die of cancer was pretty hard on the family. Starting to get back into the routine of things helps.
The reason for this post is Im having problems with the new fish I purchased a week ago.
I brought home two albino cory cats and five rainbow platy. No they weren't put into a Q/tank, as I didnt have one yet. I do now. Two days after bringing the new fish home, I found one of the cory cats dead in the morning check of the tank. A day later the second and last cory cat was found dead. My water perimeters were all fine, at ammonia: .50; nitrate at 10 and nitrite at zero. Then I noticed the marble angel fish acting very sluggish but didnt notice any signs of disease. The next few days brought two of the rainbow platy found dead, also in the am, and then another day one of the serpae tetras that I had for awhile was found dead. The marble angel has the spider webby looking fungus on it now and last night I started the treatment with maracyn. Its the powder form from mardel and it doses the tank as one packet per 10 gals of water. I have a 29 g tank and used three packets last nite for the first treatment. The water temp is at 80* degrees. Says to use for five days for a course in treatment. One of the tetras is acting strangely going back and forth into the bubbles from the air wand. Maybe trying to relive it self of some itch? I tested the water yesterday am and ammonia was .25; nitrate at 10 and nitrite at zero. ( after doing a 20% water change). I had one rainbow platy that was pregnant and thought I would set up the 10 g Q/tank and put her in there for the duration of her pregnancy. I woke this am and I have been looking and looking and just cant seem to find her. I am assuming that she is dead and among the plants somewhere, but after careful searching still cant find her. Im sure I will tho.. she couldn't just disappear. I wonder if the maracyn treatment may have killed her? I thought at most she may abort due to the medication.
Is there anything else I should be doing for the fish at this point? Other than continue the treatment with maracyn? With using the medication.. can I or should I do a water change?
thanks for any help... coming my way!

COBettaCouple

the corys are pretty sensitive to water conditions and .5 on ammonia is considered toxic so that might have got them. Are any of the gills looking reddish? the platy could be hiding very well, with the various stresses on her, she'll do her best to hide and be away from the other fish. I hope you find her alive.

I think you have to wait to finish the maracyn to do water changes, but i would do them daily after it's done. For now, i'd treat the water with amquel+ or prime to help them out and see how the meds do. Hopefully the maracyn will do the trick for the angel with fungus.

capekate

Hi Flbettacouple...
at 0.25 on ammonia, is just barely above zero. I cant see that being considered toxic. Also with my pH at 6.4, it shouldnt have been a cause for the problems that Im encountering. I believe I ended up bringing a infected fish into the tank, and there is the problem. The gills are not reddish. When I got home from the LFS, where I just bought the jungle lab medicated food, I found the water is terribly cloudy. I guess somehow that is the result of the med ( powder) that I put in last nite. I am doing a 50% water change now, and washing down all the decorations etc in the tank and will re arrange while Im at it. Another platy is dead. Once I am done with the water change, I will be feeding them the medicated food instead of usng the powder maracyn. And see what happens. I hope the two angels make it throught this. In the meantime I am setting up the new 10g tank and will add the stress zyme to that along with the water conditioner (prime) and have it handy in case I have to move any surviving fish to that tank til the 29g can be cleanned out.
thanks, kate

COBettaCouple

Yea, i just meant the .5 that the corys were in, but since you have 6.4pH, then the .5 should be NH4. platy's are hardier and ours survived us having 1.0 at times on ammonia when we were starting out - and that was with 7.8pH.

What you're doing now is exactly what I'd do and i wish you the best in saving the rest of your fish.

capekate

Well, the cleanning is done, 50% water changed, added stress zyme, prime and cleanned up all the decorations and rinsed out some of the gravel. Its sure to start a mini cycle, but id rather deal with that then the loss of anymore fish. The rainbow platys were so very cool. I had not seen that type of platy before. From starting out with 5 of them 6 days ago I am now down to the last one. Which is also a female like the other pregnant one that I lost, and is also pregnant. I wish her luck poor thing. It seems that the hardy ones are the serpae tetras and only lost one of the six I started with. The water is still cloudy( but not as bad as before) but the filter will have to take care of that now. I took out alot of plants that had the rotten roots and now Im only keeping the frill plant, the others are the silk plants. The tank looks much neater now and slightly empty. So I am left with the two angels, 4 serpae tetras and one rainbow platy. I hope they all survive and the water change helps them. I will not use the powder maracyn again but wonder about the tabs of maracyn, if they would make the water so cloudy. Im hoping that the jungle lab anti-bacteria medicated fish food will be all they need to survive.
thanks for your help flbettacouple!

COBettaCouple

i've not used a maracyn product yet, but i might for one of our platys who seems to have developed an ulcer (she's also fighting fish pox). The TriSulfa I got in a dissolving tab and it didn't seem to cause any clouding of the water.

Best of luck with the fish and i hope to hear they're all doing well and maybe soon some little rainbow platy fry will be swimming around there.

capekate

g'morning
Im wondering if the TriSulfa would be a good anti bacterial med for the angel with the fungus? I tried feeding them the jungle lab medicated food, and the angel is just not interested. The other angel that is fine is at least eating it and will hopefully help if it also ends up with the fungus. The tetra are not really interested in that food, tho i ground it up a bit, as they are too large a pellet for them to eat. they went for one or two but also are not really keen on the change in diet.
So I think its another trip back to the LFS and see about either the trisulfa, if that would be a good med for the problem, or the maracyn tabs since your tank didnt cloud up with that product, I may go ahead and try that.
The tank is clearing up slowly but surely with the help of the filter. The fish this am, look good so far. Except the marble angel who just hangs around in one spot. He/she is the one that I really want to eat this medicated food, but its just not interested.
Any suggestions?
thanks ,kate

COBettaCouple

I'm not sure if the angel would go for it, but you could try the gel-tek meds: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Produc...&N=2004+113021. Just put some on the normal food for that angel and see if he'll eat it or not.

capekate

I went to the LFS and bought the jungle lab, fizz tablets for Fungus clear. Wanted to let you know that it didnt cloud up the tank like you said! So now I will go back and feed the guys the regular tetramax flakes and try a few of the medicated food in case someone will eat it.
Thanks for your help!

COBettaCouple

Cool.. best of luck with them. We had to make a med run ourself for our twin goldbar platy who's in real bad shape with a huge growing ulcer and gill flukes (i think).. she's also been fighting fish pox, so we hope she'll make it.. she's the one who had the fry and my favorite platy.

Let us know how it goes with your tank.

capekate

good morning!
After a lightening storm knocked out my power on friday evening Ive been without a 'puter to use. Seems the built in ethernet in my mac is not working now and i hooked up the windows laptop that i am now using. Not used to windows anymore lol... but glad to have something to use for awhile.
Anyway... The jungle lab fizz worked great! the angel is doing wonderful and has no more fungus on it. I used the tab two days in a row before reading up and realized that its only to be used every four days! yikes!!
But all is well and they and the remaining fish are doing great. I set up the ten gal to use as a Q/ tank, but ended up instead with 3 black skirt long finned tetras and three tiger barbs that i reallly really like. So after introducing the tetras to the 29g tank, i realize that they are just too hyper for the angels to be around, the angels were nipping at them. So I moved the tetras to the 10 gal tank where they are happy. the tiger barbs that I was so worried about being a semi-aggresive fish has not bothered the angels at all, and vice versa. So that is going very well in the 29g tank. So in the 29 I know have the two angels, four serpae tetras, and three tiger barbs. I am in the process of aquiring a 30g hex tank with stand from a friend and hope to have that in a few weeks or so. Then I can move the angels to their own tall hex tank.
Hope your platy is doing better??...
take care, kate

COBettaCouple

did the mac take a jolt? maybe a reinstall of os x would fix things, if it's not a lighting & hardware issue.

Our Platy didn't make it. she got much worse and i think we were too late to help her with the melafix.

capekate

Sorry to hear about your platy not making it. It seems that the platy is talked about being a hardy fish, but in my own experience I have not found that to be true and have lost all the platy that i have introduced to my tank and will not be adding anymore. So far the new introduced fish are all doing great and get along with the others in the tank.
As far as my mac goes, after installing a new modem, ethernet cord it still was unable to get online. All the other features are working tho so Ive found out that it is in fact the built in ethernet that has gone bad during the power outage. I did unplug the mac before the storm but forgot to disconnect the ethernet cord and power source for the modem. ugghh... So I will need to bring it to a tech support where they can install another built in ethernet. Wish I knew how to do that myself, seems that it may end up costing me alot of money to fix it. I sure hope not... for now it sits.. while I use the laptop. I sure miss my mac!!!

COBettaCouple

well our platys survived a lot, but this just came on fast.. it killed the 2 cory cats too.

i know how you feel. you miss your mac when you're using a PC. what model mac is yours? on mine, i could slide the card out and put a new one in.. is yours an iMac?

capekate

g'morning flbettacouple!
I am using the Emac, osx w/ tiger operatiing system. I'd love to find out if all I need is the buiilt in ethernet card. Anyway for me to find out? I sure can use the tech help here! yes... I do miss my mac, and all my photos and videos are in the mac, all my bookmarked sites etc etc...

COBettaCouple

Try here & see if you can find info to help with your computer: http://search.info.apple.com/

capekate

..was off doing tank 'stuff'... thanks so much for the link.. I will go and check it out now!

COBettaCouple

no prob. best of luck.

capekate

Well I did some research.. alot of reading that is very confusing at best. So I have the tel number for apple support and waiting for them to open ( pacific time there). My ISP provider tells me that the IP address is wrong. Showing me that I need to re configure the IP address numbers, and the only one that can do that is the apple support who will do it manually for me. Ive been searching thru the apple support pages looking for some help to see if this is something that i can reconfigure myself. any suggestions on this? thanks, kate

COBettaCouple

by now you've probably got the problem solved.. but if you go to the system prefs, then network, you should have the ethernet card listed. Click on it, then 'configure'. You'll want to change "configure IPv4:" to 'using dhcp with manual address' to type in the IP address you need to set your computer to. Usually 192.168.1.100 is fine.. i'm not sure what the ISP is talking about.. do they mean the IP address of their servers in your dsl/cable modem?

how's the fish btw? (keeping on topic )

capekate

good morning..
I havent fixed the problem yet. I was too busy yesterday to sit with a tech on the phone, but plan on doing that today. You have answered a question for me tho. I was wondering if there was a 'universal' IP address that I would be able to add myself without techie help. Since my ISP couldnt give me a IP address, I dont think its a matter of IP address of their server in the dsl/cable modem. I will try and change the IP address to the numbers you have given me and see if that works. Ohhh btw.. since I started this post i think its ok to 'highjack' the topic matter! lol...
BUT on the matter of the fish... I did add three tiger barbs to the tank on monday evening. This am I found one dead sticking to the outflow tube of the filter. I just dont understand what is going on with these fish??!! I do know that one of the angels has rammed another tiger barb and the remainning tiger barbs have been low key in the tank, hiding under the bubble wand most of the time. They all have plenty of room in the tank. I guess angel fish are pretty territorial in that regard and i will just have to watch them. The friend that had the hex tank that I would have put the angels into gave it away before I had a chance to get it. This same person has a 55 gal tank and set up for 100 bucks and my husband has agreed to buy it for me. Its a matter of driving about 3 hours to go pick it up so Im hoping we can do that next weekend. Now he will be able to get his 'big' fish! lol...

COBettaCouple

Angels are very territorial and can wipe out the smaller fish in short order, especially when they buddy up.

capekate

and here I am... having read up that the tiger barbs can be so aggressive that I feared putting them into the tank and its not the tiger barbs at all that are a problem! the poor things. I would put them in the 10g with the black skirt long fin tetras, but not too sure how they would react with each other. tho there are only 2 tiger barbs left.

COBettaCouple

well, angels can bully barbs, bettas.. even other smaller cichlids.. they don't always live up to their name.