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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Lore Newbie
| Please help!!
Hi there, I am new to Fish Lore and don't really know what I am doing yet, but I desperately need some advice please. Over the past 4 days one of my long finned Zebra Danios has become fat and the scales on her body look like they are covered with a whitey/pink "veil". Sorry don't know how else to describe it, and some of the scales have turned white and look like they are going to flake off. Its mouth is contiunuously opening and shutting. It is still eating and swimming around but does tend to spend a lot of time behind one of the plants.
Any ideas what may be wrong please? Should I go and ask advice from my aquarium shop? also its gills are red. i don't want my other fish (4 zebra's, 2 bronze and 2 peppered cat fish) to get ill 
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Master
| welcome to fishlore welsh dragon!!
Ive moved your thread so you can get attention and advice on your own tank as the other thread was something different!
do you know about the aquarium cycle process? if not, heres a good thread to read on asap http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm
do you know the water parimeters for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates? thats important to know asap too....if you dont have a test kit, its advisable to get one to know where your tank stands....if you can find an API liquid master test kit, they are very accurate and do 100s of tests.....
sounds like you could have a fungus going on as well as a tank thats not properly cycled..the red gills is usually ammonia poisioning which can be cured from daily water changes with either prime or amquel+ conditioner to help keep the fish safe..you have to do daily changes for a few weeks....
if you can measure your tanks length, width and depth, we can help you figure the size of it......good luck! | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Moderator
| Hi welcome to FishLore
I'm sorry your fish aren't doing well.
When things start to go wrong one of the first thing to check is your water parameters.
What are your readings for ammonia nitrite and nitrate?
Red gills, gasping for breath and lying on the bottom are often signs of ammonia poisoning, so lets see if we can rule that out.
Are her scales sticking out like a pine cone? Is she pooing?
You might want to consider putting her in a quarentine tank so she doesn't get picked on or pass anything to the other fish.
Can you measure your tank so we can determine the size? In inches for me, but maybe someone else can figure out if you have to post in cm.  Dang Shawnie, you were quick! lol | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Master
| Hi, your info says you are aware of the cycle - do you know if your tank has cycled? How often do you clean it? | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Moderator
| Hello Welsh Dragon and Welcome to Fish Lore. The pink veil as you mentioned, does it look like it's actually pink under the scales? I agree with the above about it possibly being ammonia poisoning causing possible Septicemia and or Dropsy. Pristine water conditions are crucial right now. I suggest a 50% water change and add the chemical of your choice to "detox" the ammonia. (Prime and Amquel + , AmmoLock are all great) Your test results in the cycle mentioned above should have the results of 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and under 20 nitrates.
If you can answer the questions above it will help a great deal. So sorry your fish are ill.
Ken | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Lore Newbie
| Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly. I really appreciate all your answers. I am at work at the moment, but will try to answer your questions about tank size etc when I get home. It actually started out as my boyfriends tank and fish but he has lost interest now (typical!) so I am looking after them now. He did a water change of about 10% last weekend, so should we do another today or tomorrow? | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Master
| yes, and test the water if possible. | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Moderator
| A quick clarification, test before changing the water.
Also, are you using strips or a liquid kit?
The liquid kits are more reliable than strips. | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Lore Newbie
| I'll be using a liquid kit. | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| Dont worry you are in good hands here.
Post the results after you test, the only thing is we cant get prime in the uk without buying it on ebay and by now it probably wont get to you until tuesday. | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Lore Newbie
| hi everyone. i made a bit of a mistake as i thought we had a nitrate test kit, but it is a pH one we have, so i will have to get one tomorrow. anyway the ph is 7.5. have just done a 50% water change. yes it looks like her body is pink under the scales. i'm not sure if her scales are sticking out like a pine cone. would it be really obvious? yes she was pooing yesterday and the day before. my tank is 7.7 gallons and measures 19.7" x 9.8" x 11.8". | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Master
| ph usually isnt an issue as most fish will acclimate to many different ranges as long as they are stable ....the water change will help allot..do you have a water conditioner?
tomorrow see if you can find an api liquid master test kit ..dont let them talk you into a strip test kit...and dont let them talk you into a ton of products (they will as they are out to make money most of the time) see if you can find the liquid kit, and amquel+ ....that will be all you need for now until we can figure out the water parimeters....keep the faith, we can all try to make this much easier on your and your fish babies! | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Lore Newbie
| thank you so much for your advice. yes i have water conditioner. i'm not sure if i will be able to get the products you suggest as i am in england and they might not be the same. what should i ask for? a nitrate test kit? and what is the amquel+ for? | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| you need an ammonia and a nitrIte test kit, nitrAte is relatively harmless in small doses to fish and with regular water changes wont ever be a problem.
Amquel+ helps to make the ammonia not poisonous to the fish for 24 hours, but I dont know if I have seen it over here.
did your fish perk up after the water change? | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Master
| Diggly, I've read a few people complain that Prime and Amelquel plus aren't available in England. Is there a comprable product you've found that is readily available? | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Lore Newbie
| ok i will go to the fish shop tomorrow and see what they have got that is similar. they were all swimming around after the water change so hopefully it will have done some good.  | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| well we can buy prime off of ebay but I find my problems usually happen on a friday lol so I wouldnt receive the prime until Tuesday and I couldnt sit there watching my fish suffer.
I usually do 60% daily water changes if I see any ammonia or nitrites and that almost killed me in my large tank but it was definitely worth it to see my fish happier and healthier at the end .
Edit: Thats good news that they are swimming around more. If you can do another 50% water change when you get up before you go out to get the test kits your fish should act even happier . | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Master
| I've used Tetra AmmoSafe, and that worked very fast, too. I don't hear about that brand here, but I liked it. Some people have also mentioned AmmoLock. You may want to check on its availability. | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| I think we can get ammolock here. Daily water changes will do just as well until she can get some. I really try and steer clear of all chemicals, adding chemicals cost me 2 tiger barbs when I first started but then I tried the method on here of adding aquarium salt and upping the temperature and it worked much better with no further fishy losses .
One small tip that I have learned on here is garlic juice! It helps protect the fish against parasites and can help them eat if they arent eating. | |
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October 16th, 2009
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| | Fish Master
| Quote:
Originally Posted by mommybaby295  I've used Tetra AmmoSafe, and that worked very fast, too. I don't hear about that brand here, but I liked it. Some people have also mentioned AmmoLock. You may want to check on its availability. | Quote:
Originally Posted by Diggly I think we can get ammolock here. Daily water changes will do just as well until she can get some. I really try and steer clear of all chemicals, adding chemicals cost me 2 tiger barbs when I first started but then I tried the method on here of adding aquarium salt and upping the temperature and it worked much better with no further fishy losses .
One small tip that I have learned on here is garlic juice! It helps protect the fish against parasites and can help them eat if they arent eating. | ammo lock wont do anything for the nitrites tho only detox the ammonia..which is great!!!! until you get to the nitrite phase...
ive seen that in the UK , amquel+ is easier to get...or as others mentioned, prime off ebay...one or the other is needed and any substitute, wont do what those will...yet!! (give the other companies time , im sure they will make their products better to compete!) | |
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October 17th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| Yeah we get it pretty tough here in the uk I feel neglected fish product wise . | |
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October 17th, 2009
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| | Fish Lore Newbie
| hi all. tested my water today and the ammonia is 0-25 (i couldn't quite decide on what colour it was), nitrite is 0 and nitrate is 40. i guess that is quite bad..... what causes that? i asked my LFS about amquel and they had never heard of it, so i will get it off ebay. | |
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October 17th, 2009
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| | Fish Master
| make sure you get amelquel plus, not just amelquel. | |
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October 17th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| I dont think you need amquel, as I dont think it is an ammonia problem, if you couldnt decide on the water test being 0 or 0.25 it was probably 0 but you were being overly cautious (I am the same!!) if it had a slight green tinge to it when held up to the white card it is probably 0.25.
How long has the tank been set up? Sorry if you have already said.
I would also recommend testing your tap water for nitrates (note nitrAtes) as 40 seems quite high, especially as you have been doing the water changes. | |
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October 17th, 2009
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| | Fish Lore Newbie
| it did have a green tinge to it so that's why i couldn't quite decide. the tank has been set up since june. i will check the tap water as you say. how can i get the nitrate reading down? | |
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October 17th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| As you as showing small amounts of ammonia and a higher level of nitrates, I would feed your fish every other day as overfeeding can show ammonia and higher nitrate readings.
Do a water change now and test the water for nitrates and dont feed the fish until Monday, fish can go up to 7 days without food in the wild so skipping a day wont effect them while your tank is settling down .
How often do you do water changes normally? | |
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October 17th, 2009
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| | Fish Master
| Quote:
Originally Posted by Welsh Dragon hi all. tested my water today and the ammonia is 0-25 (i couldn't quite decide on what colour it was), nitrite is 0 and nitrate is 40. i guess that is quite bad..... what causes that? i asked my lfs about amquel and they had never heard of it, so i will get it off ebay. | were you able to get the liquid kit? ANY ammonia is bad..but having nitrates is good..unless you have them in your tap water...nitrates should be under 20..id do a 30-40% water change with your water conditioner....when you get the amquel +, which is great for water changes even if you dont have ammonia, that will help detox the ammonia/nitrites in case they happen to sneak up on you...high nitrates are caused from either overfeeding, overstocked, or lack of water changes...... | |
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October 18th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| Thats why I suggested feeding a day and fasting a day though that can be hard when fish beg all the time lol!
The only reason I said not to worry about amquel+ for now is that we have post strikes over here and by the time the ebay seller posts it out she wont get it until at least thursday, maybe even longer. | |
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October 19th, 2009
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| | Fish Lore Newbie
| yes i got the liquid test (it was so expensive!). we normally do a water change every week, but a few weeks ago we we didn't do it and the water got quite murky, so i would think that is why we are having these problems. i will still order amquel+ from ebay and at least i will have it if i have this problem again. but for now, i will do another water change (the last one was on saturday and that's when i took those readings). will the other fish get ill do you think? why would only one get ill and the others not? i've also bought some new media for my filter as the man in the fish shop said i should change it now as i have had it since june. | |
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October 19th, 2009
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| | Fish Master
| In my opinion, changing the filter now would disturb the bacteria, and since you are already having problems, I think that wouldn't be a good thing. But since I'm a newbie, too, please wait for someone with more experience to respond.
edit: My understanding is that you shouldn't really change the filters. If there is carbon, you just cut it out and throw it away, but the beneficial bacteria colony lives in the filter, and at most you should give it a rinse in tankwater or dechlorinated tap water. When the filter is falling apart, you can change it by putting in the new one and sticking the old one in the tank for about a month.
Last edited by Meenu; October 19th, 2009 at 11:21 AM.
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