tetra

Unfortunately, the pepper in the photo above passed this morning. I saw it near the bio rings in the corner with its tail fin curved to the left. I put the corpse in a ziplock bag so I can save it for maybe identifying something though I don’t have a microscope. Another pepper started staying at the surface and laying on its side. It only went back down when I tapped the glass. And I also saw a bronze cory laying on its side and it would only move when I tapped the glass. When the pepper died, I did a 50% water change. At the time, I thought the pepper might have been alive still but it still wasn’t moving so I netted it out and it still wasn’t moving in the slightest. I only have ich-x and salt right now. I don’t have Kanaplex/maracyn 2. Is it okay to just dose ich-x and salt until I could get it? And in what directions?

These are the best pictures I could get of one of the peppers. When I looked a little closer, I realized there was a little red near the tail fin and there was a lot more white spots there too. The pepper in the picture is still breathing heavy and fast. I tested with the GH/KH test kit and after adding the alkaline buffer, my KH is 11-12 degrees and my Ph is now 8.0-8.4. My GH is 4 degrees. On the test strips, my KH is 300ppm+, the GH is still 25ppm, the nitrite is 0ppm, the nitrate is 10ppm, I tested with liquid ammonia test kit and the ammonia is 0-0.25 ppm its difficult to see the colors on the charts as they look so similar.

I was doing daily water changes when I first introduced them to the quarantine tank to keep ammonia down. But currently, I’ve been doing them 2-3 maybe 4 times a week. The last water change I did was 2-3 days ago I think, it was a 50% water change like the other ones. I already have the liquid GH/KH test kit it’s just I haven’t used it anymore cause I already got the strips. Alright, I’ll reduce feeding and test for nitrite and ammonia, hopefully I’ll see improvements. Should I try salt (1 tbs per 3 gallons of water?) Just to reduce stress cause I saw they still have white spots on them but aren’t growing so I’m assuming its stress ich.

I didn’t have equilibrium so I just dosed alkaline buffer and unplugged the heater last night. This morning, I didn’t see any improvement, one bronze cory started to breathe fast and a few of the other ones started just drifting mid-water-column. They only came down when I fed them. The peppered cory that was breathing fast started to lay on its side again next to the bio rings and didn’t come to eat with the others when I dropped some food in. I do know that pepper likes the Xtreme nano, so I think what ever is going on is getting worse. The pepper eventually got up from there but started to breathe fast again. The other ate all the food so that pepper didn’t get any. Most of the peppers have been lethargic and sometimes freeze in place (though I heard Hoplo catfish will freeze sometimes and they are a cousin to Corydoras.) All the other fish including the neon tetras are eating but over all I have seen no improvement. I have also started to see a bronze cory flashing now, and one neon tetra just flashed once. But that Bronze cory has been flashing for about 2-3 days now.

I did have a heater in there, so I unplugged it. The temperature usually drops 72F-73F at night when I tested with a temperature gun and it usually doesn’t fluctuate much. I forgot to mention, the Gh in the 75G is 150PPM so I’m not sure what brought the Gh down as I’m not adding any minerals to the water other than just Easy Green and Prime. There should be enough hiding spots and they usually hide on the side of the cholla wood where there is the least light at night. Even at night, they aren’t active much, just sitting there for 30 minutes+ and not doing much.

Apologize for not being clear. The Gh is 25PPM on the Co-Op strips I have previously tested before with the Gh and Kh test kit and the Kh and Gh were on point with the strips. The Kh was higher previously at around 4-5ppm, it’s Just I haven’t cleaned the filter for about a month in there so all the waste shot out and probably brought the Kh down. The temperature was between 77F-78F so not too much fluctuation really I have tested the temperature several times and it has been exactly the same since. I rose the oxygen output into the air pump and they mostly stopped going to the surface and gasping so that helped. But the peppers were still breathing heavy and not moving much. The one that looked as if it was dying in the photo above fortunately got back up and started swimming again yesterday after I added poly-fil straight-after I replaced the sponge and just dropped the sponge in. It was probably the ich-x that was still in there and I did a full dose, too. After the Sponge fell, the corys hid under it and most of the day and will only come out when I throw in some food. Now, the one that was about to die started breathing really fast when it was with the rest of the corys when eating. I know that it looks like their breathing fast when they are chewing sometimes but this looked like genuine breathing and would swim away behind the cholla wood to catch its breathe by breathing really fast, then the cory would come back and repeat the process. I did notice that some of the corys were not interested in the food, but it was Repashy Soilent Green and I know Corydoras mostly like food with protein but I don’t feed this everyday, I mostly feed other protein rich foods. 2 peppers will sometimes lay slightly on their side breathing heavy. They aren’t pale, but I did see a couple of the bronze corys losing just a bit of the black horizontal bar they had on their side.

Currently the ph is 6.8, the hardness is 25 or soft, the Kh is 0, nitrites are 0, the nitrates are 0 or 10 (the co-op strips aren’t the easiest to read.) and haven’t read for ammonia yet. But I have been doing loads of water changes lately at about 50% every time. I also added an air stone already before I got them. I put the flow up a bit to add more oxygen, and there should be more than enough oxygen in the tank. But right now one is laying on its side, looking as if it’s gonna die. I haven’t forgotten to add dechlorinator when I did a water change this noon. I have been running the air stone when I add meds too and I haven’t taken it out as I want to keep the oxygen high.

Hello all, About one month ago, I bought some Peppered and bronze corydoras from Aquahuna. They all came alive and well. Unfortunately they were left in the mail box for some time (maybe around 12 hours) But no deaths. The box was warm so nothing should have stressed them too much. But I did notice the peppered and the bronze corydoras breathing fast (I didn’t suspect too much of it as I thought they were just stressed from being shipped a long way) so I followed the Aquahuna acclimation process (as I did it the last time I bought from them) and it worked for me so I did it again. After the acclimation process I netted them and put them into a 10 gallon quarantine tank. A day later, I checked on them and saw all the peppered corydoras were breathing heavy, but the bronze were breathing normally. So I feed them Xtreme Nano in hopes maybe they were just stressed or hungry. They all eat the pellets up and no food is left behind. Note: I bought some neon tetras from Aquahuna about 2 weeks before the corys and they’ve been in there with them ever since. Detailed version: Fast forward 1 week later, the peppers are still breathing heavy, and the bronze aren’t. since then, I’ve been doing 50% water changes every other day to reduce ammonia levels in the tank (as I added 6 peppered and 6 bronze and also 10 neon tetras and 5 adult bronze corydoras before) and I know my quarantine is over stocked but most of the fish were juveniles (about 1 inch or a little more) except for the adult bronze corydoras (they were about 2.5 inches or 3 inches I think.) I soon removed the adult bronze Corydoras to a 75 gallon planted tank (and are still in there now.) and now the 12 corys and 10 neon tetras are the current occupants. Fast forward another week later, peppers still breathing heavy and the bronze were breathing normally. They eventually started to sit at the surface and gasp for air instead of going up in short bursts and coming back down including the bronze corys (neon tetras weren’t gasping though.) Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, etc. Everything was stable but were still doing it. Sometimes they would be lethargic and stay at the bottom and just breathe heavy, and sometimes they would kinda lay on their side but not all the way, twirling their left or right pectoral fin like someone helicoptering their arms when they are about to fall. Only the bronze would not helicopter their pectoral fins and not lay on their side. Another week later, I decide to treat for parasites. I dosed a packet of expel-p and blacked out the tank for 24 hours, then I did a 50% water change and added paracleanse. A day later I did another 50% water change as I didn’t see improvement. So then a day later, I do another 50% water change and add the strongest treatment of salt, (1 tbs per one gallon of water) I know corys can’t handle that level of salt. But at that point, I was getting pretty desperate to figure out what’s happening. A few hours later, I see a bronze cory barely holding on behind the filter. So I did a partial water change and the cory was swimming again. But stayed in place head down like a headstander down on the bare-bottom glass. Eventually the bronze cory was swimming again and everyone was acting fine. Peppers were still breathing heavy though which bothered me. 3 days later after letting some of the salt sit, I did a 50% water change after I saw flashing as they were irritated by the salt and didn’t see improvement at all. Still gasping at the surface sometimes, lethargic and breathing heavy usually. Finally, fast forward to now. Earlier this morning I did a quick 50% water change after I saw a peppered cory floating at the surface laying in dead position breathing heavy. When I saw the Cory laying like that, I tapped on the glass and the cory swam back down. I then added maracyn in hopes it was some sort of bacterial infection and would cure it. A few hours later, I now saw one laying in the corner next to the bio rings gasping laying on its side and saw another one laying on its side against the glass. I tapped the glass next to the one leaning against the glass and and got back up again, but didn’t move much and started breathing fast. When I tapped the glass near the one with the bio rings it didn’t move. I then added Ich-X and the ones laying on their side got back up again and start swimming around. After that, I feed them blood worms and they all ate them. A few hours later, back up at the surface again gasping and one of the peppered are just sitting there. Not really leaving until I tap the glass. Ever since then, I’ve been testing the water and everything’s been okay. I thought it may have been ammonia burn but I’m not sure what it actually is. a couple days ago I saw white spots on them but it didn’t act like Ich, so I assume it was stress ich cause it didn’t spread to the other fish. And it didn’t get larger on the corys who had it. But then I saw just one bronze cory flashing but nobody else was doing it. I still treated with ich-x Just in case. No deaths yet fortunately but right now it looks like the pepper is not gonna make it by tomorrow. (Adult bronze Cory Issue) Before I added the neon tetras, I got some bronze corydoras from my local mom and pop pet store and we’re a decent size at about 3 inches. They looked relatively healthy and were active in the display tank. So we got them and put them in the 10 gallon quarantine tank when there was only 1 neon tetra in there (from the outbreak disease in the 29 gallon that killed the other 9, I eventually got 11 more but one died from getting sucked up from the filter but nothing else happened after that.) At around evening. I saw the largest bronze cory swimming super fast then started breathing really fast. I didn’t see the other corys doing this and I started getting worried. She continued to do this ever since I got them. I also forgot to mention that I accidentally cross-contaminated a syphon when I was doing a water change the first day I got them. And the largest cory started swimming fast after I did cross contaminate I didn’t have another syphon at the time so I assumed they picked up what ever the other tank had going on. A 3 weeks later I used the quarantine med trio to just take out what ever they had as I couldn’t Identify what was happening it didn’t help unfortunately. And they all started flashing and are still flashing today. I suspected it was flukes as I saw a lot of symptoms of it. So I treated with paracleanse but no effect. Eventually I put them in the 75 gallon and they started getting really skittish even though there were loads of hiding places nobody’s really around that area so nothing could be scaring them so much. They began flashing and breathing fast and are scared of me even though I’m around there a lot and not doing sudden movements and something that could scare them. I did see after 3 weeks of them being in there start started becoming more active than usual and then I saw cory eggs on a Amazon sword and the glass. One cory ate all the eggs on the sword though. I did manage to get some eggs into the breeder box but them eventually the eggs in the box started disappearing which was bizarre. I didn’t see anything swimming around and the box wasn’t collapsed. There was only 2 eggs left now. But back to what I was saying. The corys started getting pale and I thought it might have been the sand being white. But then they started getting darker and were still flashing and breathing fast. I feed them paracleanse in their food but it only help a little but then they were back to flashing, breathing fast, etc. I’m not sure what to do at this point. I’ve tried Expel-p, paracleanse, maracyn, salt, ich-x, even medicated food. But nothing is helping. I thank you in advance if someone could figure this out.

I have seen the fins healing from the damage and no discoloration at all. A few weeks ago I started feeding them Xtreme nano and Hikari sinking wafers and I also thought that’s why they are also getting yellow fins. also wanted to include that I haven’t lost a single rainbowfish ever sense I got them. But my danios and neon tetras started dropping like flies. I started with 10 zebra danios, 10 neon tetras, and 5 Australian rainbowfish in March-April-ish 2021. And now, I have only 5 zebra danios, 5 Australian rainbowfish, and 1 neon tetra left in quarantine with some bronze Corydoras waiting to go into the 75G tank. The symptoms I see before the zebra danio/neon tetra die is when they start becoming pale, skinny, lethargic, laying at the bottom, and sometimes they don’t come up to eat. Though most of the time they come up to eat if they are strong enough. I’m wondering if it’s a parasite? A small parasite that only causes them to become skinny a few days before they die. Though I could be wrong.

After @nabokovfan87 said it looks like natural colors, I started doing research and looking at images of Australian rainbowfish and eventually found a photo that shows a yellow caudal fin on a Australian rainbowfish and it looks some what similar to what I have. I also wanted to include that I bought a light for the tank a couple weeks ago (The tank hasn’t had a light for over 2 years). And in this time I thought that maybe they didn’t color up cause of not having a light ever sense I got them. I did do research on zebra danios as well to see why they had yellow fins. And I found another forum that said that male zebra danios will get yellowish fins when they’re possibly gonna breed. Except I’m not sure this is true for me though cause it seems one gets extremely sick only a few days before it passes. Though it would be nice for them to breed for me. At least now that’s out of the way I wanted to know why the fins were ragged. My male rainbowfish have been showing off to each other and chasing each other around the tank. The males have been chasing the females as well. I do see some fin nipping when this does happen. I don’t know if this is a bacterial infection or it’s just from being excessively nipped.

Update: This morning when I turned the lights on, I noticed one of my danios were lethargic and all the danios had bright red or discolored gills. They also got the yellow fins from the rainbowfish now and its spreading. So I added Seachem Prime to detoxify any possible ammonia or chlorine in the water. But I did a 50% water change yesterday and added prime. So it shouldn't be chlorine. I also added a a banana plant cutting from one of my tanks established one. A few hours later though, everyone was relatively active but still had discolored gills and yellow fins. Note: I haven't treated for parasites or bacterial infections yet because I'm not sure what to do.

Sorry I didn’t point it out where it’s at. The tip of the anal fin is also a little ragged.

Currently, I have 5 zebra danios and 5 Murray River rainbowfish. The tank size is 29G and I’m using a Seachem Tidal 35 modified with more sponges. I also Included the skinny zebra danio @Colu. Also, now the other rainbowfish have the yellow markings now.

Do you recommend I try any of the meds @dasaltemelosguy? I'm pretty curious cause it could solve my problem.

What about the ragged fins and yellow spots on the rainbowfish? Should I dose maracyn and Ich-x? Do I use just paracleanse or paracleanse and prazipro together?

I've used Fritz maracyn and Ich-x but I only used Ich-x for only a week. But I did continue dosing maracyn for another 2 weeks before I stopped dosing it entirely cause it did pretty much nothing.

@Colu I haven't seen any of those symptoms at all except one of my danios were skinnier than usual. It is still relatively active and has good color, no fin damage I assume. But I did have a danio that got parasites and unfortunately died. Not so long after that, the one I was talking about began to lose weight. It used to be a lot fatter but is now skinnier but not overly skinny. Also, the rainbowfish with yellow spots on its fins has ragged fins in that area, as well and some of the other rainbowfish have ragged fins, too.

This has been going on for a while now but it seems as if every month or two a fish in my aquarium dies but only starts showing symptoms a few days before it passes. Even though I've tested my water everything was fine. My GH is 3. My Ph is 6.8 (it hasn't fluctuated at all for almost 2 months). My ammonia and nitrite are both 0. And my nitrates have been usually around 10-20ppm every week. And even all of this, and they still get sick. Their fins become ragged, they sometimes get parasites, and now one of my rainbowfish have yellow spots on their lower fin near their anus. I'm not sure what's going on. I've medicated the tank several times in the past. But now I just stopped. Cause I realized I'm just putting a band-aid on it and I'm not finding the root cause of the problem. Not only is it costing money, but when I see no more symptoms (even after medicating for an additional week) they just get sick again. Fortunately, they are still eating like pigs. But for now, I haven't seen a death for about a month or two. I'm still confused about this because my water parameters are normal and there should be enough hiding spots in the tank for them to flee from other fish. I just don't get it. Everything is normal yet they still eventually die anyways. I have noticed fin nipping in my zebra danios and 2 of them have gotten a deep bite in the caudal fin but its now growing back. They have been more aggressive than usual towards each other also, which I think could be a problem, too. But after all those deaths, I only have 5 danios left. I think that could be the reason for their aggression. Constantly being worried that I'm gonna wake up to one of my fish dead tomorrow really sucks. And I can't even enjoy it as much because of this. Another thing that could be the reason is old age. They are 2 years old but I think zebra danios and rainbowfish live a little longer than that. If anyone has a solution to this problem, I thank you in advance☹️.

I've actually read on another forum on which poly fil is safe, and which isn't. Someone also said that the poly fil made their fish very ill cause it had those chemicals in it @lefty o.

Hello, I'm sure we've all had cloudy water in our tanks, and wanted to clear it up. And its probably gonna be some water polishing filter pads that will do the job. Another water polishing filter media that's sometimes talked about is poly fil, it catches the tiniest of particles in the water until it soon makes the water clear. And its super cheap too, only about 5 dollars on Walmart for a large bag. Now, I wanted to know if poly fil or water polishing filter media designed for aquariums is better. In your experience, was poly fil or water polishing filter media better? Was poly fil a hassle and only caused more problems? Or was it really helpful and even better at cleaning the water than WPFM? Thanks in advance.

In your experience, was LLDW the same as normal DW? Was it a slower grower or did it just not stick like normal DW? After looking at the replies, I've seen that DW is a hassle and I shouldn't buy it. So then I started looking at frogbit. I saw that it consumes a lot of nitrates but they don't get out of control like DW. And it looks a lot prettier than DW, too. I won't mind getting LLDW instead of frogbit if I'm recommended to, as it looks more appealing than DW.

Hi all, So for a little bit, I've been researching on duckweed and if I should buy it. Some said that duckweed is super beneficial cause it consumes nitrates really quickly and provides a food source for larger fish and even turtles. But others said that because of how fast it grows, It shades all of the other plants in the tank and can kill the plants because they couldn't get any light. Another thing is that if you don't take the duckweed out and instead let it keep growing, it can reduce the amount of oxygen in the tank, killing the fish if left to long. You have to keep removing it almost every single week cause it can take over if its left alone for a long period of time. So what are your thoughts? Should I get it? or should I pass and look for another floating plant that won't grow too fast and take over? I don't mind taking out duckweed every week as I can feed it to my turtles or just throw it out.

I really like gold barbs so I think I'll look for another tank mate. Doctor fish do look pretty neat. Though they do get pretty large at 5 inches, I'm worried they may take up the bottom section of the tank sense they like to be kept in groups. Also, If I do get a doctor fish, I'm gonna make an appointment for a pedicure because why not 🙂

How many Pygmy sunfish are supposed to be in a school? I've only seen 3 together, a dominant male, a beta male, and one female. Is that supposed to be the school their in @Biotope Biologist? I've been also thinking about gold barbs too, about 8 of them. Would that work?

What about snails? The largest aquarium snail is the sulawesi. They get pretty big (4 inches) Though I don't think its gonna be easy to find them on sale. Will dojo loach eat that?