Tank Cycle Crashed, Gourami Swimming Vertical, Help!

Whoah boy.
So for reference I have a 7 gallon tank with a single dwarf gourami male (I know it’s small, working on upgrading to a 10)
So everything has been great, my tank numbers perfect and fish active and healthy. Then I had to move, and despite my care taken with the move about a week afterwards I tested my ammonia levels and they were at 2ppm (!!)
I freaked out and not knowing what else to do (I’ve never had a cycle crash) I did about a 50% water change and have been doing water changes ever other day. The ammonia went down to .5 ppm then back to 1 ppm.

I’m not sure what I should be doing to restart my cycle with a fish in the tank, and I don’t want to kill him.

Then tonight, I found he had backed himself in the little space between the filter and wall. He’s swimming almost vertical, with his tail pointed toward the ground. I don’t know if this is related to the cycle crash or something totally different. What could be wrong with him? I was scared it’s fish TB, I know it’s common in gourami.

I feel really awful. Thank you in advance for any advice on how I can fix this.



.

 

High ammonia level is what's wrong with him. Do BIG water changes and get your Ammonia/Nitrite level combined down well below 1 ppm. Get some Seachem Prime and start dosing the tank every 48 hours and treat all new water with it until your tank recovers. Keep that ammonia level below 1 ppm. Prime only binds with ammonia/nitrite up to 1 ppm.

 

Whoah boy.
So for reference I have a 7 gallon tank with a single dwarf gourami male (I know it’s small, working on upgrading to a 10)
So everything has been great, my tank numbers perfect and fish active and healthy. Then I had to move, and despite my care taken with the move about a week afterwards I tested my ammonia levels and they were at 2ppm (!!)
I freaked out and not knowing what else to do (I’ve never had a cycle crash) I did about a 50% water change and have been doing water changes ever other day. The ammonia went down to .5 ppm then back to 1 ppm.

I’m not sure what I should be doing to restart my cycle with a fish in the tank, and I don’t want to kill him.

Then tonight, I found he had backed himself in the little space between the filter and wall. He’s swimming almost vertical, with his tail pointed toward the ground. I don’t know if this is related to the cycle crash or something totally different. What could be wrong with him? I was scared it’s fish TB, I know it’s common in gourami.

I feel really awful. Thank you in advance for any advice on how I can fix this.

View attachment 557556View attachment 557557.

Fish TB isn't common in DG, but DG Iridovirus is. Personally I think that could be part of the problem (discoloration / bloating). The thing is that stress (small tank / ammonia) coudd triggered this condition/disease to show.

I think it is dieing and would euthanise (sorry).

 

Hey there,

Don't worry. I pulled off fish in cycling recently and it went well. Background story-- my work schedule does not really allow for having pets so I quit keeping fish a little over a decade ago after the last surviving fish from that era, a betta (his name is pig lol) died.

Anyhow me and significant other was talking about getting back into this. We planned to do fishless cycle and were checking out pet supply stores to see what they carry ( unfortunately stores that were less than an hour drive were all big box stores). I found a betta languishing in a cup in a store I shall not name. He was in really bad shape and I just had to take the poor thing home. I had no tank, no supplies and basically picked everything I needed up from the store and figure that he would be better off cycling his own 5G tank than withering away in that cup.

Anyways..

5G tank, with filter running, temp was 86 F because after we came home we realize he had ich and I was not willing to put chemical in the water unless absolutely necessary, gravel substrate, one bottle of tetra safestart...the we waited

And we tested the water twice daily with API master test kit

And !!! We did water change as necessary. It ended up being once or twice a day water change , doing only 40% per water change maximum per water change ( usually it ends up being like 30% unless the parameters were really bad)

I kept ammonia and nitrite, each, at or below 0.5 ppm at all time. Both of them combined never exceeded 1ppm

Nitrite showed up after around 50 hours. In five days total the tank was cycled! I did daily testing after that to make sure it really was cycled and IT WAS ( and still is). I was amazed.

I did not use any prime.

If your fish is a little off I would say get the water parameters under control first and see if he gets better. If you have to dose prime do so and see if your tank will cycle despite. I am not sure if Prime will affect cycling, but if it does so be it. I mean, if your fish is in bad shape and he can't take 0.5 ppm Ammonia then his wellbeing takes priority. I have heard people doing fish in cycling with prime without problem so do some research or wait and see if those folks will chime in.

If you are concerned about opportunistic infection I would say start treating with antibiotics that are broad spectrum but not super harsh such as API's triple sulfa. I would hold off on really strong medicines until you really need them. Once again this may delay your cycle but if your fish needs med so be it. I have heard Sulfa does not kill beneficial bacteria but never had that experience myself since I treated all my sick fish in the hospital tank in the past.

And....No don't kill your fish! I am never an advocate of euthanizing. There are times and circumstances for it but I believe not here.

And if he really does have TB you can treat with Kanaplex,and isoniazid to my knowledge. The best way I would go about it is look up the bacteria that would cause it in fish and see if you can find any research paper that can tell you which antibiotics is effective against that strain. If he really has it the meds will be hard on your bacteria and the treatment will span over months. Means maybe daily water change for a couple months! But lets not jump the gun yet, he does not look like he has TB. Just get him clean water asap and most likely he will bounce right back.

I guess in summary I would get him clean water, dose with prime. See how he does. If no improvement after a couple days try triple Sulfa. Monitor water parameters and change if needed.( I know daily water change sucks, sorry) Be proactive, don't let him get too sick if you can help it. If the tank would cycle ( which is highly possible) while you are treating him, great! If not get him well first then once he is well you can get the tank cycled afterwards. Good luck!

 

• Hey there,

Don't worry. I pulled off fish in cycling recently and it went well. Background story-- my work schedule does not really allow for having pets so I quit keeping fish a little over a decade ago after the last surviving fish from that era, a betta (his name is pig lol) died.

Anyhow me and significant other was talking about getting back into this. We planned to do fishless cycle and were checking out pet supply stores to see what they carry ( unfortunately stores that were less than an hour drive were all big box stores). I found a betta languishing in a cup in a store I shall not name. He was in really bad shape and I just had to take the poor thing home. I had no tank, no supplies and basically picked everything I needed up from the store and figure that he would be better off cycling his own 5G tank than withering away in that cup.

Anyways..

5G tank, with filter running, temp was 86 F because after we came home we realize he had ich and I was not willing to put chemical in the water unless absolutely necessary, gravel substrate, one bottle of tetra safestart...the we waited

And we tested the water twice daily with API master test kit

And !!! We did water change as necessary. It ended up being once or twice a day water change , doing only 40% per water change maximum per water change ( usually it ends up being like 30% unless the parameters were really bad)

I kept ammonia and nitrite, each, at or below 0.5 ppm at all time. Both of them combined never exceeded 1ppm

Nitrite showed up after around 50 hours. In five days total the tank was cycled! I did daily testing after that to make sure it really was cycled and IT WAS ( and still is). I was amazed.

I did not use any prime.

If your fish is a little off I would say get the water parameters under control first and see if he gets better. If you have to dose prime do so and see if your tank will cycle despite. I am not sure if Prime will affect cycling, but if it does so be it. I mean, if your fish is in bad shape and he can't take 0.5 ppm Ammonia then his wellbeing takes priority. I have heard people doing fish in cycling with prime without problem so do some research or wait and see if those folks will chime in.

If you are concerned about opportunistic infection I would say start treating with antibiotics that are broad spectrum but not super harsh such as API's triple sulfa. I would hold off on really strong medicines until you really need them. Once again this may delay your cycle but if your fish needs med so be it. I have heard Sulfa does not kill beneficial bacteria but never had that experience myself since I treated all my sick fish in the hospital tank in the past.

And....No don't kill your fish! I am never an advocate of euthanizing. There are times and circumstances for it but I believe not here.

And if he really does have TB you can treat with Kanaplex,and isoniazid to my knowledge. The best way I would go about it is look up the bacteria that would cause it in fish and see if you can find any research paper that can tell you which antibiotics is effective against that strain. If he really has it the meds will be hard on your bacteria and the treatment will span over months. Means maybe daily water change for a couple months! But lets not jump the gun yet, he does not look like he has TB. Just get him clean water asap and most likely he will bounce right back.

I guess in summary I would get him clean water, dose with prime. See how he does. If no improvement after a couple days try triple Sulfa. Monitor water parameters and change if needed.( I know daily water change sucks, sorry) Be proactive, don't let him get too sick if you can help it. If the tank would cycle ( which is highly possible) while you are treating him, great! If not get him well first then once he is well you can get the tank cycled afterwards. Good luck!

Prime does not affect cycling. It binds ammonia and nitrites into a form that is harmless to fish but remains in the tank and are available to nitrifying bacteria establishing in the tank. The binding effect only lasts 48 hours, then ammonia/nitrites will be released back into the water so must be redosed every 48 hours. At the normal dosage it only treats low levels of Ammonia/Nitrite (1 ppm total) so water changes are necessary to keep those levels down. Ammonia is toxic over time, at any level. So, in the best interest of the fish, I would either do water changes to keep ammonia/nitrites at 0 ppm OR converting them to a harmless form until tank is cycled.

 

HI all,
Thank you first of all for all your wonderful advice. I was very afraid my buddy Nero wouldn't make it through the night (I posted my thread around 2AM where I am and I couldn't wake up the other members of my house changing the water) but he is still kicking this morning and I did a huge water change as soon as I got up. I rush ordered Seachem Prime, I've been using Stress coat + and water conditioner but from what I've read Seachem Prime does more and works better?
Last night I added an ammonia remover to the tank- I know it's not the best solution but I wanted to give him some relief and at least try to detoxify the ammonia until I could change the water in the morning. This morning before I changed the water, the ammonia was at .5 ppm, so I'm assuming that it was higher last night. I'll continue with daily water changes to try to keep the ammonia as low as I possibly can.

Nero seemed to perk up just a bit after I did the water change, he can swim around it seems but he's still tilted vertically. He also has what kind of looks like a flap of skin sticking up near his nose? I'll update with a photo.
If this is all related to ammonia poisoning, can fish recover from that if they have clean water conditions?

I'm so torn up about this- how often do you all test your tank parameters? I tested mine once a week, before my water changes but I guess that wasn't often enough because of this whole disaster.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3648355/Until the tank is re-established and the fish is feeling better I would test everyday.

And I agree that nitrite and ammonia at any level is toxic even though hardy fish won't die from that small amount if not subjected to them long term. Too bad my betta had to tolerate that because I could not find prime locally.

I think the skin flap could be the beginning of columnaris or fungal infection. Order kanaplex and nitrofurazone and oxytetracycline ( if that turns out to be comlumnaris) and antI fungal med in case it is fungal and so you have them on hand. If that spot grows noticeably or fish continue to tailslide then treat immediately. Some strains of columnaris can be really aggressive and could kill your fish withing a couple days. In addition to that if it is columnaris methylene blue and salt bath 30 mins daily on top of in tank treatment can be helpful. As amatter of fact if your fish can tolerate salt putting salt in the tank can be helpful.

Noted that a lot of research paper written on columnaris was in the context of treating farmed fish, and there are fewer antibiotics approved for those. Oxytetracycline and nitrofurazone were consistently reported to work well in those situations. However some resistance to oxytetracycline was reported hence why you should order kanaplex so you have another treatment option

https://appliedecology.cals.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/479b.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16060264

 

Until the tank is re-established and the fish is feeling better I would test everyday.

And I agree that nitrite and ammonia at any level is toxic even though hardy fish won't die from that small amount if not subjected to them long term. Too bad my betta had to tolerate that because I could not find prime locally.

They may not die, but they are still being damaged. Even "hardy" fish.

 

Here is another link
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3648355/

They may not die, but they are still being damaged. Even "hardy" fish.

I agree but as mentioned earlier, he could either cycle his own tank without prime or live in the cup at the big box store where ammonia and nitrite have been shown by a couple forum members to go through the roof. That was all I could do at the time doing unplanned rescue.

 

I agree but as mentioned earlier, he could either cycle his own tank without prime or live in the cup at the big box store where ammonia and nitrite have been shown by a couple forum members to go through the roof. That was all I could do at the time doing unplanned rescue.

Oh I think you misunderstood me. I was not disparaging you in the least. I will just say though, having done fish in and fishless cycling of the tanks, fishless is the way to go if at all possible. Yes, fish in is possible with enough water changes, but even then there will be some damage done to the fish.

 

Morpheus1967 not at all. We all mean well and I know you want to make sure the OP is well-informed. As mentioned, we planned to get back into fishkeeping and was going to do fishless cycling but the rescue happened... I appreciate it that you chimed in to put an emphasis on how dangerous ammonia and nitrite is. I was just trying to encourage the OP and let him know if ideal circumstances were not possible he can make it work.

 

HI all, thank you so much for all your help and advice.
Unfortunately though I did daily water changes and treatments and tests, I came home today to find Nero had passed away. I’m very crushed as this is the second fish I’ve lost far before their life span. I at least know thanks to you how to take immediate action should my tank levels ever spike again. I always get kind advice from this forum.

 

I'm so sorry for your loss.