DarenHowells

Hi, I put eight otocats into my tank about three weeks ago and they seemed to settle in fine, getting nice and plump and swimming freely around. When I looked this evening though I noticed one, and then three of them have very red mouths like they are bleeding internally. The blood appears to be all over their lips and behind the mouth running up to the gills. They are eating fine and are swimming around as normal but it looks nasty and sore. I am worried they are hurting their mouths on the gravel or even then sand which they have been syphoning regularly to get the brown algae out of it. Does that sound like anything anyone has encountered before? I am also worried it is/will get infected and don't know what infection I should be dealing with. Any help would be great, I'm very attached to them already.

p.s. I don't know if it would be connected but I have had to move one of the Lemon Tetras out to the hospital tank because he seems to be suffering from swim bladder disease.

p.p.s. I am confident the tank is cycled, it has been running six weeks with bacteria additives. Nitrites are in the region of 1, nitrates 0-10, have no test kit for ammonia, plant growth is strong, it's a 44 gallon tank and I do weekly 20% water changes.

Shawnie

welcome to fishlore!!!

what "bacteria additives" did you add because it sounds like signs of ammonia ..having ANY nitrites means it is NOT cycled....unless you used tetra safe start, thats what the problem is...red gills, mouth, tails, is usually a sign of that...

to correct, daily water changes with some prime or stress coat+ to make the ammonia and nitrites safe for 24 hours, and continue this until you have 0 ammonia and nitrites and under 20 nitrates is a deffinate cycle completed...

DarenHowells

Hi there,

Thanks for responding. The Bacteria additive is 'Waterlife Bacterlife' which claims NOT to cause an ammonia spike when it adds beneficial bacteria for nitrite to nitrate conversion. I already do a 20% water change weekly but I did replace half of the carbon in my filter with ceramic tubes the weekend before last so maybe i lost too much bacteria when I did that although it did only work out at about a third of the filtration media. The other half of the carbon was renewed as it only lasts a month apparently.

I will do additional daily 10% water changes for the rest of the week and see if that improves the situation.

Their mouths are 'very' red though. Are they in danger of getting a secondary infection through this do you think?

Jonah

Hi, and welcome.

Some good advice there from Shawnie. The product she is advising you to add to the water along side your normal declorifier, (StressCoat + and the + bit is very important) will help prevent secondary infections while at the same time making your water safe from nitrites and amonia.

When you do your partial water changes what are you treating the water with before you add it to the tank?

DarenHowells

Hi there,

Thanks for your input. I am treating the water with Tetra AquaSafe with every water change to treat for chlorine. It also has additives to promote the slime coat and reading the blurb claims to promote wound healing. Do either of you think StressCoat+ offers more than that, I can see it contains Aloe Vera?

In addition, as notes previously I am adding a weak dose of the Waterlife Bacterlife to promote good bacteria growth.

Since Shawnie said she felt it was Ammonia I have been thinking maybe I have overloaded the tank in the last couple of weeks because I changed some of the filter but also added eight Lemon Tetra and three more Platys which added about a third more fish to the tank in one go whereas previously I had been adding a small group every week of two.

Cheers

Shawnie

yes stress coat+ detoxifies the ammonia and nitrites for 24 hours until another water change..it also takes care of the chlorine and chlormydes........the bacteria you have used ive not heard of....but from your readings, you arent cycled yet so id say it wasnt working like it said it would

DarenHowells

Thanks Shawnie,

I will see if I can pick some up at the weekend. There are NO fish shops anywhere near my work so I hope plain water changes will help a little til I can get to one. I wonder if I can up the dosage on the Tetra WaterSafe in the meantime?

Daren

Shawnie

your welcome daren...you dont need to up the aqua safe as it works well in the amounts you are directed to use..but it doenst neutralize the ammonia and nitrites which is what either stress coat+ or prime will do...so just use the regular amount...any water change is always good ......

DarenHowells

Hi there, just an update on my otto cats.

I didn't get hold of the StressCoat + in the end. I have been doing daily 10% water changes though syphoning from the bottom of the tank where the Ottos hang out. I have changed my water treatment to Haloex that I had bought to use after the WaterSafe was finished. It has Aloe Vera in it so I thought it would help the ammonia burns. The good news is that two of the ottos faces seem to be calming down and the worst affected is still looking raw but it appears darker and looking like it is in the process of healing slowly.

I was very worried before I started the daily changes as the Cardinal Tetras had just started to look pale which was very unlike them but now they are glowing red and blue again.

Thanks again for your advise and I will update you again shortly.

Daren

Shawnie

goodluck im glad things are looking up for you!