Jeff Bogey

Hi! I have a white cloud minnow showing symptoms of swim bladder disease. He can’t keep his tail fin upright, it’s always drooping. He is otherwise healthy as far as I can tell. After some research, I’ve narrowed it down to a couple of potential treatments. 1. 48 hour fast, then feed frozen peas (thawed, skinned). Continue this for a few days. The fiber in the peas should help to clear any blockages in his digestive system that might be affecting his swim bladder. 2. If that doesn’t work, give him a 10 minute epsom salt bath. This will be challenging. I’ve already tried to move him to my quarantine tank and so far I haven’t been able to catch him. He’s fast and there are a dozen other minnows in the tank. Plus a lot of live plants and other places to hide. 3. I’ve heard conflicting opinions on epsom salt vs. aquarium salt. Some people say one, others say don’t use aquarium salt for this condition. Can anyone comment on the above plan of action? Pros, cons or any other ideas? Thanks, much appreciated!

Thanks! I’ll try the vinegar test. I did test our tap water before filling the tank and it was soft (very soft - we live in Everett, WA and if you live in this area, you know we have super soft tap water). That’s the weird thing. After 2 weeks in the tank, the water is now hard. So it kinda makes sense that something in our tank caused it to change.

Hey AC forum, New here, setting up a new 30 gallon aquarium and trying to cycle in some live plants and get it nice and stable before adding any fish. Situation is: our tap water tested well in the soft range, but after 2 weeks in the tank, the same water we got from the tap is now testing at the high range or “hard”. The difference is from one extreme to the other. We were wondering if the river rocks we added could be adding some mineral content that would cause the hardness level to increase. Oops, accidentally hit the send button. Has anyone experienced a major difference in water hardness between the tap and the tank? If so what was the cause and how was it corrected? Adding some pics in case we have any geologists out there 🙂 Thanks~