goldengill
Member
After a 3 week quarantine and a close inspection, I put my new swordtail in the main tank (40gallon) and boom, the next day she had full blown ich. Bummer! So I start the treatment with Rid Ich (we've had good luk with it in the past). All my water parameters were good. I took out the filter, did my 25% water changes daily, put 2 teaspoons a day in, according to the directions, and it looks like after about 4 days, it was starting to really clear up. One night I was too tired to do the water change but I did put the medicine in. The next day, full blown ich again!
So, it's been about 7 days, and I haven't missed a water change, and it looks like it's going away, but now my older swordtail is spitting out her food, looking stressed and lethargic and the new swordtail was picking on her a lot. It was so bad I had to move the older one out into the quarantine tank which I really didn't want to do because I have 3 neons in there that were all good, but waiting for the ich to clear up in the big tank.
I checked the water (using Aquarium Pharmaceuticals freshwater master test kit) and I'm shocked to see an ammonia reading of .5, while the ph is 7.2 and the nitrite is 0. We have a 6" pleco, a 2" ghost cat fish, the 1-1/2" and 2-1/2" swordtails and 6 1-1/2 " assorted tetras. I've read that you should have at least a gallon of water for every inch of fish so it seems that I'm safe with the load. I just read more on ich and I am slowly raising the water temp but I have to check to see what everyone's top temp of comfort is. Current temp is 80F. We immediately did another 2/3 water change to get the ammonia out.
Did a 25% water change for 7 days cause it to start a new cycle? Or did we do something that killed the good bacteria and it’s cycling again? This is a very well established tank and we try to be very careful when we introduce new fish. Why is my swordtail spitting out her food? Is it stress? Ammonia? All of the above? And why was the other one picking on her so much? I’ve never seen that before with swordtails.
Sorry about the long post, I’m just anxious and confused.
Thanks for your help.
Goldengill
So, it's been about 7 days, and I haven't missed a water change, and it looks like it's going away, but now my older swordtail is spitting out her food, looking stressed and lethargic and the new swordtail was picking on her a lot. It was so bad I had to move the older one out into the quarantine tank which I really didn't want to do because I have 3 neons in there that were all good, but waiting for the ich to clear up in the big tank.
I checked the water (using Aquarium Pharmaceuticals freshwater master test kit) and I'm shocked to see an ammonia reading of .5, while the ph is 7.2 and the nitrite is 0. We have a 6" pleco, a 2" ghost cat fish, the 1-1/2" and 2-1/2" swordtails and 6 1-1/2 " assorted tetras. I've read that you should have at least a gallon of water for every inch of fish so it seems that I'm safe with the load. I just read more on ich and I am slowly raising the water temp but I have to check to see what everyone's top temp of comfort is. Current temp is 80F. We immediately did another 2/3 water change to get the ammonia out.
Did a 25% water change for 7 days cause it to start a new cycle? Or did we do something that killed the good bacteria and it’s cycling again? This is a very well established tank and we try to be very careful when we introduce new fish. Why is my swordtail spitting out her food? Is it stress? Ammonia? All of the above? And why was the other one picking on her so much? I’ve never seen that before with swordtails.
Sorry about the long post, I’m just anxious and confused.
Thanks for your help.
Goldengill