Terrible few weeks

[MomOfLiveBearers]

I have been struggling with one issue after another with my tanks. Despite my water parameters testing well, regular maintenance, and a varied diet, two of my tanks are having issues.

My 65 gallon had a really bad algae bloom. I tried more frequent, larger wcs and minimal light but nothing was helping. So, i resorted to algaefix. I lost 3 mollys and 2 guppies after treatment. Several major wcs later the tank seemed to be back to normal my boy molly shows signs of dropsy. I have him quarantined, have been giving him salt baths and antibacterial medicine with his food. He is eating, and doesnt seem stressed. But he is very lethargic, he has very obvious "pinecone" scales and even looks like he has lost scales on his belly and has blister like lesions.
My 15 gallon has an outbreak of ich. One of my boy platies has minor fin rot showing as well. I am treating that tank with medicine as well and everyone is still eating and swimming around. Just the visible spots. I am so frustrated. I am doing frequent water testing and water changes right now but it feels like my aquarium world is crashing down. I can not figure out why these things are happening yet my parameters are good. Does anyone else go through times like this with their tanks?

 

[Fisch]

It will pass, they will thank you for your dedication and patience. Seeing them enjoy life after these terrible weeks will be well worth it.
I am new and having an outbreak of ich alone brought me to the brink. Nearly all of them made it and I am mesmerized every day.

 

[Trenzalore]

I can't say I've had bad times like what you are going through right now, I'm sorry you're dealing with this. Do you have more quarantine tanks? If you don't, you could go to home depot or harbor freight and buy a few of their $3 buckets that hold 5 gallons of water and use some round lamps or extra lighting you may have hanging around to make makeshift quarantine/holding tanks!
Get 3 or 4 buckets (to separate the platy with fin rot, and get everyone out of the tank with ich to treat them and the tank separately), push the buckets together, and use grate or something else to cover the buckets that will let light shine through and put the lights around those. It might speed up your tank and fish recoveries if you can get everyone out of the tank and treat things a little more individually. The tank with ich, you could split the inhabitants up into 2 or 3 different QT buckets, so if the tank is treated and done and not all of the fish have recovered, you can group the fish that look healthy into one bucket to treat one last time together, while another bucket has the ones still recovering.
This is a pretty good video on using plastic storage containers as qt tanks, athough her video goes into a lot more detail then you really need.

 

[MomOfLiveBearers]

I can't say I've had bad times like what you are going through right now, I'm sorry you're dealing with this. Do you have more quarantine tanks? If you don't, you could go to home depot or harbor freight and buy a few of their $3 buckets that hold 5 gallons of water and use some round lamps or extra lighting you may have hanging around to make makeshift quarantine/holding tanks!
Get 3 or 4 buckets (to separate the platy with fin rot, and get everyone out of the tank with ich to treat them and the tank separately), push the buckets together, and use grate or something else to cover the buckets that will let light shine through and put the lights around those. It might speed up your tank and fish recoveries if you can get everyone out of the tank and treat things a little more individually. The tank with ich, you could split the inhabitants up into 2 or 3 different QT buckets, so if the tank is treated and done and not all of the fish have recovered, you can group the fish that look healthy into one bucket to treat one last time together, while another bucket has the ones still recovering.
This is a pretty good video on using plastic storage containers as qt tanks, athough her video goes into a lot more detail then you really need.

Thank you I will look into this because unfortunately I dont have any extra tanks for this kind of scenario. I have 3 active tanks up and running, and an isolation box that I usually use for birthing but is currently holding my dropsy afflicted molly.

 

[Aquariumlover1357]

Aww. That's very sad. Though I have not had something as bad as this, but have lost a betta to ich before (I didn't recognize it soon enough). If the algae happens to break out again, I would suggest using snails (3-4 will do it) to bring it down. Trust me, it actually works, and especially nerite snails are so good with algae, no matter what type. Hope you get over this hurdle!

 

[MomOfLiveBearers]

Aww. That's very sad. Though I have not had something as bad as this, but have lost a betta to ich before (I didn't recognize it soon enough). If the algae happens to break out again, I would suggest using snails (3-4 will do it) to bring it down. Trust me, it actually works, and especially nerite snails are so good with algae, no matter what type. Hope you get over this hurdle!

I currently have a school of corydora and a pleco for algae control. It just took over to a point my tank water was green. Im worried about snails breeding.

 

[tomiyama]

So sorry to hear you are having problems... I would avoid the algicides in the future they create too many other problems. I had a bristlenose pleco too and he was fantastic at eating the algae although I had to supplement his diet they are omnivores.

 

[MomOfLiveBearers]

So sorry to hear you are having problems... I would avoid the algicides in the future they create too many other problems. I had a bristlenose pleco too and he was fantastic at eating the algae although I had to supplement his diet they are omnivores.

Yes I wont be using that product ever again. I have a varied diet for all my fish from flakes and pellets to brine shrimp and blood worms. I have a bnp and a rnp in separate tanks. My bnp is currently in my nursery tank with all my fry.

 

[Trenzalore]

I currently have a school of corydora and a pleco for algae control. It just took over to a point my tank water was green. Im worried about snails breeding.

Hey, if you want extra help with algae: get Nerite snails! Their eggs only hatch in specific brackish water conditions, they don't seem to reproduce asexually, and any eggs they lay in regular freshwater never hatch. I've had one nerite in a 5g for 3 years and she's laid eggs that don't hatch. I'm going to only use nerites when my 55 gallon is cycled because they are more efficient than most algae eating fish, and Nerite species of snails don't reproduce in freshwater tanks like mine. One nerite could probably cover 10+ gallons all by itself, my 5g is spotless and I have a lot of driftwood and stuff in there that algae could grow on. Not once in the 3 years I've had that snail have I had issues with algae, or ever really even seen any algae to begin with.

 

[MomOfLiveBearers]

Hey, if you want extra help with algae: get Nerite snails! Their eggs only hatch in specific brackish water conditions, they don't seem to reproduce asexually, and any eggs they lay in regular freshwater never hatch. I've had one nerite in a 5g for 3 years and she's laid eggs that don't hatch. I'm going to only use nerites when my 55 gallon is cycled because they are more efficient than most algae eating fish, and Nerite species of snails don't reproduce in freshwater tanks like mine. One nerite could probably cover 10+ gallons all by itself, my 5g is spotless and I have a lot of driftwood and stuff in there that algae could grow on. Not once in the 3 years I've had that snail have I had issues with algae, or ever really even seen any algae to begin with.

I will look into those then. In my 10 gal nursery i have a baby bnp, in my 15 gal i have a group of amano shrimp, and in my 65 gal i have a rnp and a school of corydora. Both my bigger tanks still get algae issues though so I will look into nerites.

 

[Evergreen2]

I'm going through a similar time as you. I've had two massive die offs, with no clue why in my 50g. I've got 8.5 fish stuck in a 5 gallon tank because of the situation. I say half of a fish because one of two surviving danios is half paralyzed(best way to describe it), and is bottom flopping around. She seems to be getting better slightly and isn't quite as stiff, but I'm not sure if keeping her like she is ethical.

All I can say is hang in there.

 

[MomOfLiveBearers]

I'm going through a similar time as you. I've had two massive die offs, with no clue why in my 50g. I've got 8.5 fish stuck in a 5 gallon tank because of the situation. I say half of a fish because one of two surviving danios is half paralyzed(best way to describe it), and is bottom flopping around. She seems to be getting better slightly and isn't quite as stiff, but I'm not sure if keeping her like she is ethical.

All I can say is hang in there.

I feel for you. I am so attached to my fish that I just struggle with this kind of hurdle. I feel like I take excellent care of my tanks. But something is off.

 

[Evergreen2]

I'm the same exact way. The first die off happened slower at first and I lost 12 fish of which were guppy/ endler hybrids. I was a bit of a mess at first. The second time I was a huge mess. It didn't help I wasn't able to save my last goldfish who was 17/18 years old that I had since I was a little kid. It's hard when you talk to people and they're judgy and then they can't figure out what the heck is going on.

 

[tomiyama]

That's so stressful, sounds like something's wrong with the tank parameters for evergreen as well... perhaps a mini cycle/ammonia and or nitrite spike or ph crash. Do not vacuum the gravel/change your filter as perhaps your beneficial bacteria are low in numbers. Keep up with the frequent partial water changes to remove the deadly/damaging toxins. So sorry about your old goldfish, but wow sounds like he had a wonderful life, he's lucky to have such a great fishkeeper.

 

[Evergreen2]

That's so stressful, sounds like something's wrong with the tank parameters for evergreen as well... perhaps a mini cycle/ammonia and or nitrite spike or ph crash. Do not vacuum the gravel/change your filter as perhaps your beneficial bacteria are low in numbers. Keep up with the frequent partial water changes to remove the deadly/damaging toxins. So sorry about your old goldfish, but wow sounds like he had a wonderful life, he's lucky to have such a great fishkeeper.

Bubba was a good fish. Typical goldfish who would try and fit anything in his mouth to eat it. Spat out a couple fellow tankmates that way when I was a kid. Which scared me a little bit.

I still have my cycle. I mean I tested everything. The only thing wonky that came out of all the testing was that we have extremely hard water and we knew that. And that my pH level had increased by 1/10 from 8.2 to 8.3 which was a little weird but that was it on the last bout. Nitrates was at about 5 parts per million with it being lightly planted. I've only washed the filter once and that was only a partial wash and some old tank water the 5 months that it's been up. At this point we can only think of maybe some sort of bacteria or toxin that got in the water which I don't know how it could have. Last couple of days I've been treating it with hydrogen peroxide at about an ounce for the entire tank to see if that would help. All I've got to do now is do a water change on it. And I hope it everything's okay.

 

[AvalancheDave]

I'm going through a similar time as you. I've had two massive die offs, with no clue why in my 50g.

Are you using a liquid carbon product such as Excel?

 

[Evergreen2]

Are you using a liquid carbon product such as Excel?

No. But I have thought about it, given that I was having a bit of algae problem.

 

[AvalancheDave]

No. But I have thought about it, given that I was having a bit of algae problem.

I'd avoid it at all costs.

 

[Shrimp42]

I'd avoid it at all costs.

Why so? I'm not trying to sound aggressive about it just genuinely curious why.

 

[Evergreen2]

I'd avoid it at all costs.

Why so? I'm not trying to sound aggressive about it just genuinely curious why.

Just curious is it possible, for say some sort of algae when scraped off the glass after a big water change to start dying and start killing off fish?

 

[AvalancheDave]

Why so? I'm not trying to sound aggressive about it just genuinely curious why.

The same chemical was trialed as a fish poison. No proper testing was done to determine a safe dosage (or it was ignored). Just Google "Excel killed my fish."

Just curious is it possible, for say some sort of algae when scraped off the glass after a big water change to start dying and start killing off fish?

It would have to be a huge amount of algae or some weird toxic algae.

 

[Shrimp42]

The same chemical was trialed as a fish poison. No proper testing was done to determine a safe dosage (or it was ignored). Just Google "Excel killed my fish."



It would have to be a huge amount of algae or some weird toxic algae.

I just read a bit of the thread from a while back you were in about excel killing fish and it was very interesting. I spot dosed with some the other day to kill BBA but after reading that thread I dont think I want to anymore. What could I use as an alternative for BBA or is my tank doomed to have it forever?

 

[FishRule4208]

I have been struggling with one issue after another with my tanks. Despite my water parameters testing well, regular maintenance, and a varied diet, two of my tanks are having issues.

My 65 gallon had a really bad algae bloom. I tried more frequent, larger wcs and minimal light but nothing was helping. So, i resorted to algaefix. I lost 3 mollys and 2 guppies after treatment. Several major wcs later the tank seemed to be back to normal my boy molly shows signs of dropsy. I have him quarantined, have been giving him salt baths and antibacterial medicine with his food. He is eating, and doesnt seem stressed. But he is very lethargic, he has very obvious "pinecone" scales and even looks like he has lost scales on his belly and has blister like lesions.
My 15 gallon has an outbreak of ich. One of my boy platies has minor fin rot showing as well. I am treating that tank with medicine as well and everyone is still eating and swimming around. Just the visible spots. I am so frustrated. I am doing frequent water testing and water changes right now but it feels like my aquarium world is crashing down. I can not figure out why these things are happening yet my parameters are good. Does anyone else go through times like this with their tanks?

I have an issue with dropsy in my tank. It is horrible and I have lost my favorite fish to it.

 

[MomOfLiveBearers]

I have an issue with dropsy in my tank. It is horrible and I have lost my favorite fish to it.

My boy has dropsy. I have been treating him for a couple days now and he is still around so we will see if it actually goes away.

 

[Evergreen2]

The same chemical was trialed as a fish poison. No proper testing was done to determine a safe dosage (or it was ignored). Just Google "Excel killed my fish."



It would have to be a huge amount of algae or some weird toxic algae.

I was just curious because I had greenish brown algae that came up almost over night(About two days and I had to do a WC to clean the glass). On the front glass it just came off in sheets. About a quarter of the entire interior glass was at least covered in a thin layer of algae. Usely I do a pwc every 7 days or so. The speed of the algae built up shocked me, 4 or 5 days maybe.

 

[tomiyama]

I just read a bit of the thread from a while back you were in about excel killing fish and it was very interesting. I spot dosed with some the other day to kill BBA but after reading that thread I dont think I want to anymore. What could I use as an alternative for BBA or is my tank doomed to have it forever?

Someone mentioned the nerite snail earlier, that could be a toxic free alternative, or otoclincus if your fish are compatible with those little ones....

 

[Shrimp42]

Someone mentioned the nerite snail earlier, that could be a toxic free alternative, or otoclincus if your fish are compatible with those little ones....

I have 2 nerites but don't touch the BBA. They have done a good job on brown algae though.

 

[tomiyama]

Hmmm, would it help to increase the aeration in your tank/increase the frequency of your water changes? is the BBA all over the place or just on your plants?