Cory

it looks like condensation, try leaving that glass flap open for a few days. Also ensure you have enough nitrates in there for them to thrive.

Have a picture? Could they be starving?

Most floating plants don't like to have water on top of their leaves. This can happen from condensation, bubbles popping in excess, too much agitation. Pics may help?

I’d say for now stop medicating. So we know what these developed in your tank? Are there other tank mates as well?

Should be visible now, wasn't set for viewing for non mods yet.

I think you're fine, probably just a genetic thing that the scale is a different color.

Hello everyone, You'll notice that there is a fish and invert swap forum now. You can buy/sell/trade/giveaway fish or inverts there. Review the rules carefully, aquarium co-op is not responsible and won't step in. You need 50 meaningful posts on the forum to see that forum. It also won't show up in the topic feed as I don't want buying/selling to become to main topic of this forum. The goal is to allow hobbyists to rehome stuff, sell off some extra fry etc. Maybe make enough to support their hobby. Competitors are not allowed, and full fledged businesses aren't either. If you have a website or retail store somewhere else where you are selling stuff, you're a business and not a hobbyist. If you sell to local stores, friends, family, etc. That is not a business. You breed/buy the fish with the intent of keeping them as pets, not buying and reselling. You can use the trader feedback once a transaction is completed. Threads where people are calling each other out, fighting etc. Will just be locked. This is very much a don't ruin this for everyone situation. This is a soft launch where only forum people will know about it. Lets not make this a regret to facilitate this.

Placement shouldn't matter much. Once val gets established it really flourishes. I find that can take up to 3 months. How many to buy really just depends on how fast you want that instant gratification.

Hopefully in the next 2 weeks I can post some pics from stores in Europe as I visit 😉

This is a math problem. Basically you have old tank syndrome. Lets say your nitrates were 100 and you make 30 nitrates a week. You change 25% of the water and you still have 75 nitrates. Next week your water is 105 nitrates. you change 25% of the water, and you'll have 77 nitrates. See how it continues to rise? This is why testing is important and adjusting as necessary. You could cut back on fertilizer, or have more live plants, or adjust feeding or change more water. Whichever plan you want to do to accomplish your desired nitrate level.

Usually not much pressure is left in the line after it's been off for a bit. But even when running, I don't worry about removing mine. I also only use Aquarium Co-Op airline tubing instead of specific co2 tubing.

Start with water parameters, what are those looking like?

I already keep them in my fish room.

There is always a chance that meds can hurt fish. People can use them improperly, the fish could already be too frail, etc. What I am saying is, Ich X would be the medication I would be using to treat Ich if the fish were in my possession.

Any med can harm fish. However I have used it for years without low risk. However I'd be using ich X to treat ich normally. I'm not sure how effective you'll find the general cure against ich cause I use it vs internal parasites normally. I find when dosed correctly, I only lose fish if they were full of parasites to begin with or very weak to start.

@Bev Cthanks for the photos. I wonder if the spray bar is causing cooling to go on via evaporative cooling? Is there a particular reason you run it like 4 inches low? Top is sealed up well so I would think a 100 watt heater would have no problem heating that up in a normal situation. If nothing is holding you back, perhaps try filling it up and seeing if it works then?

I suppose the personal link is fine here, you could resize the photos with free resizer website and post em here. something like this, or google another tool. https://www.simpleimageresizer.com/

Lets start with the basics, what type of danios were you trying to keep, and what were your water parameters? A longfin zebra danio, can tolerate a huge range of parameters.

Ken is correct, the heater time starts as soon as it's plugged in. So pairing with a heater controller would give you the experience that Tihshho is explaining. As for @Bev C something isn't adding up. Do you have a picture of your tank? And the top area? In principle, heating the water up 5 degrees in a 55g isn't that difficult. Most people turn their heat down at night, do you have yours going down to say 65 degrees at night? Another thing would be having a tank by somewhere drafty, or by a window/sliding glass door. Also if there are big gaps in the lid structure around the filters, and lots of aeration it could be evaporative cooling. With many factors at play, I'd love to see what is tweakable to just use the 100 watt heater as your setup should be better off for it. If you're interested in getting to the bottom of it. I totally also understand the, "I'll just run two and move on" approach as it's a simple thing for $25 basically.

No worries, I try to explain things in expanse because I know a lot of people read what I write and it's an opportunity to get people to think on a subject more 😉

Whats the room temperature where the tank is? Also how long did you let it go "on all the time".

So a couple of things I'd bring is as some points to think about. With fish that aren't new to you/you know the history. You can definitely take your time medicating. As in doing just the dewormer first, then doing ich X after etc. Also one thing that gets glossed over a lot is, fish that are "fine" but then start dying with meds. The real life example of this would be, You could have been fine for the last 5 years. The doctors find you have cancer, the treatment of cancer can kill you. This happens with fish as well. Imagine something most people can't see, like gill flukes. Lets say this has been going on for 6 months to a year and there is gill damage. Not enough to notice labored breathing or anything. However then you add a med to the water and it changes how much oxygen is left in the water. If they were already compromised for oxygen exchange, making it harder can be the 1-2 punch. However if you never treat it, you'll just see that result 6 months down the road and the fish die off 1 by 1. I think medicating/illness is the most difficult thing in the hobby because there are so many factors. Could the maracyn kill bacteria. It could, but in our experience it doesn't as I've used it with tanks for 15 years straight. But I also know that for the most part, all the beneficial bacteria I would have come into contact with in the last 15 years, would have seen maracyn before. I would wager most other people's would have as well, but there's always a chance it hadn't and gets hit by it. I doubt that all bacteria is killed by the maracyn but there could be some disruption. But again, people forget that most of the oxygen requirement of the average aquarium comes from the bacteria. Not the fish. So if you put in meds that affect oxygen levels, the bacteria can die from lack of oxygen instead of the antibiotic. Which just makes things irritating to try and figure out. If I had to guess what happened here, it is a combination of a few factors, with nothing concrete, lets say 10% bacteria died to the maracyn. Lets say 30% less oxygen from meds. Some gill damage from the past, whether it was gill flukes or ammonia at a wholesaler etc. Then factor in that meds themselves are stressful, and add in 0.5ppm ammonia on top of that. You get a recipe for stressful soup, that makes the fish not happy. The outcome is you can say, if you never treat the fish that wouldn't have happened. That's probably true. You can also make the case that if you never treat fish, they die from diseases more often. I met someone who is well respected in the hobby who told me they have never used meds in the last 10+ years and their fish are great. This doesn't compute to me, imagine every dog or cat you've come into contact with in the last 10 years, and none have never had a shot or med. I believe that it's just easier for a human to be like, well tetra number 26 died today, must have been old age. Instead of remembering they've only owned that tetra for 3 years and it's well before it's end of life. I'll end it with, I share with the public what we do, and why I do it. It's up for others to make that decision. I myself want to get long lives out of fish and I treat them when they come into my possession. Hopefully getting a handle on everything they come in with from a wholesaler. To bring back the cancer analogy, I want to catch it and treat it early, instead of waiting until it's affecting life quality already.

I'm not sure how long it takes to fully mix different compounds into water. For instance feeding, you'd need the fish to release urea, and do they release enough to be measurable that early? With easy green, the testing time should be the amount of time it takes to adequately dilute into the water. I honestly don't know this. I would think in the average aquarium it'd be less than an hour. But I can see sponge filter in a 55 gallon taking longer than say a canister filter. But that is purely guessing.

What are the water parameters besides the ammonia? Do you have an airstone or sponge filter going? Often I find it's something outside of the meds causing these issues. In my experience 0.5ppm ammonia isn't enough to be causing the problems you're describing.

The pink/purple shade indicates over 300 ppm of hardness on our strips. We had that confirmed with the lab. I'd have to look it up, but a chemical in the water can also do this but it wasn't common.