eusher11

When all of the ammonia stuff happened, I didn't have any nitrites, but my nitrates were 20ppm. I don't think the tank wasn't cycled. I freaked out and was adding ammo-lock to the tank. That may have increased the ammonia. Either way, freaked me out enough to switch to spring water.

Oh I use easy green weekly with water changes! I use iron, too, for the java ferns. They get the little brown spots if I don't. I also use Fritz zyme with every water change as well! I do have a seachem tidal 55 filter on the way. Bought it because I can fit more filter media in. Also bought a nitrazorb filter pouch for it. The grand plan is to add at least 3-4 more Cory's. Make it an even 12. But I cannot justify doing that right now with my parameters. I moved the driftwood so they would have more floor room, they seem to appreciate that change. They are voracious eaters, so I don't suspect extreme stress or anything. But man, I'm so tired of having to change the water I'm using for water changes. Getting an additional bucket so I can do 50% water changes a little more easily. I use the poopy fish water to water my flowerbeds, lol. Lots of roses this year.

Hey all! I'm back again, in need of some guidance. I have a 23G Fluval Vista tank. Originally when I first started into the hobby, I started with a 2.5g quarantine tank, and a 16.9g Fluval Flex. Anytime I upgraded tanks, I used the filter media from the previous tank to rapid cycle the new tank - used the same substrate, too. Point is, this tank is WELL established, and has been for years. A few months ago, I experienced what I like to call ammonia-geddon. From the beginning, I had been using my tap water for my tank. I have an API master kit, and back in 2020, when I got my first tank, there was NO ammonia, NO nitrite, and NO nitrate in my tap water. Perfect. WELL, I was experiencing some issues with ammonia. And when I say some issues, I mean the ammonia in my tank read 8.0ppm - it crept up with every water change. Thank goodness for Prime! That's immediate fish death. EVERYONE survived this ordeal - and there were multiple water changes that had to take place. Ultimately, because I just COULD NOT figure out where this ammonia was coming from (I wasn't over-feeding, I wasn't over-stocked - it's a 23G tank with 8 cory's). I finally decided to test my tap water, sure enough, 0.50ppm of ammonia. Went to the local Petco for advice - the fish lady told me to get spring water. So, I did. I've been using spring water for water changes for a couple of months now. Everything seemed to be going just fine. Until...my nitrates started increasing. I like to keep them between 10-20ppm. They're 40ppm. I have several plants in this tank, established plants. Just added some red root floaters and frogbit as well. Now, I've been trying to figure out our feeding schedule for a few weeks now. I've always read that cory's need to be fed twice daily, and only enough to eat in 3 minutes. I've been using frozen fish cubes, cutting them up - I've got the feeding down pat. The problem is, with the nitrates, I'm afraid to advance it to twice daily feedings. I do have some bladder snails that came in on plants - I don't mind them, they're a clean up crew. And I'd say I have about 20 in the tank. Can't imagine that's enough to kill my bioload. No ammonia, no nitrites, but nitrates were 40ppm. Tuesday I did a 25% water change, with spring water. Yesterday, nitrates were still around 30ppm, so I did another 25% water change. Yesterday I decided to test my spring water, just to see what was in it. Nitrates in the spring water are 5ppm. Great. So I decided to test my tap water, just to see if I could switch back over to using tap. Haha, no. Ammonia is still 0.50ppm, and nitrates were 20ppm in the tap water. This seems...not good to me, but I called our water provider before about the ammonia, and they assured me it was just from the chloramine they use to decontaminate the water. I'll not be using tap water ever again from this sorry town. Haven't for months. So when all of this was going down yesterday, I got some distilled water to put into the tank. I didn't want to use strictly spring water, because of the nitrates in it. Which I still find so odd, why are there nitrates in spring water!? I took 5 gallons out. Replaced with 3 gallons of distilled water, and 2 gallons of spring. Parameters are good, didn't seem to mess anything up. But I'm worried that I'm going to have to switch exclusively to distilled water, and that scares me, because I know NOTHING about adding minerals to the tank. I know Seachem makes Equilibrium, but I really know nothing about it, or how to use it. No ammonia, no nitrites, nitrates are 25ppm. I'll take that for now...but going forward I know I need to figure something else out. My journey as a fish keeper has been so stressful - just when I think I have it figured out, something else changes or goes wrong and I'm back to square one. Sometimes it feels like the universe is saying I shouldn't have a fish tank - but I'm hooked on this hobby, and I love my fish. Any insight would be appreciated. Added a picture of the tank, because I recently did some aqua scaping, and though I'm no artist, I'm kind of proud of it. 😄 The only fish store around me is Petco. They've always been super helpful and knowledgeable.

Thank you so much for all the information! So sorry for the late responses, I've been trying to pass bilateral kidney stones for 2 weeks. I wasn't capable of much of anything other than drinking my weight in water. 🤣 I'm using low light plants, so I'm sure the light on the Vista is just fine. My plants all seem to be doing well. Was just curious if it was possible to upgrade!

So, I would really like to buy the Fluval Aquasky, because it mimics the natural light of the day. I currently have a Fluval Vista 23G tank with the original lights. Would I be able to attach the Aquasky to the lid, like the original lights, if I took the original lights out? I don't even know if they're removable. I just hope because they are the same brand I would be able to attach the Aquasky lights to the tank lid. I have to have a lid, so, hanging above the tank isn't an option. Any insight would be appreciated, thanks in advance!

Unfortunately, little man didn't make it through treatment. I found him yesterday afternoon. Thank you to everyone for your advice! Not how I wanted it to end, but I also wasn't overly enthusiastic that treatment would be effective. Crappy situation all around. Put carbon in the tank to remove the antibiotics.

Okay so I have more questions now. I have snails. They're just pond and bladder snails, but I don't want to harm them. The salt will probably kill them. SO if I was going to do a salt treatment I'd take the little guy out and do that independently from the tank to save the snails. Here is a really DUMB question. Do I use aquarium salt or Epsom salt? The "recipe" I found on this site for something major is 1tbsp per 1 gallon of water, but that says it's hard on scale less fish. So maybe I should do 2 gallons and 1 tbsp of salt?

I have not, yet. I have plenty on hand. You think it's safe to add that to the regimen I'm already doing?

Okay so update: I added some more crushed coral to my wilting supply that was already in the tank. I also bought a new, adjustable heater. Took the old one out, put the new one in, set it at around 72. I'm hoping the temperature will just go down gradually, so as to not stress the fish. Little man is doing alright, still active as ever. The area looks disgusting. It just seems to be getting worse - I don't know. Did my 30% water change and dosed with 2 packets of Maracyn and 2tsp of Ich-X. This is day 2 of that course of treatment. I'm wondering if I can take him out in a net and just use a q-tip to put some Methylene Blue directly on the area, just as a topical treatment. But I don't know. Thank you to everyone for the insight and advice, I appreciate it!

I don't understand Gh or Kh at all. I have crushed coral in the tank, but I don't think I put enough in. I have a pound of it left. I think I only added a half a cup like a month ago. I wasn't sure how much to put in, and didn't want to overdo it. I will get a new thermometer as well, so I can lower the temp a bit. Something tells me that mold probably grows faster in a warm environment. I'll decrease the temp gradually.

Okay, so if I do this five days in a row - do I do water changes daily? Is it SAFE to do this with the other cory's in the tank?

Hello, everyone! My name is Liz and I am from a small town in Ohio! I got into fishkeeping 3 years ago, and have had a tank since. I've worked my way up to a 23G Fluval Vista, which houses 3 Venezuelan Corys, 3 albino corys, and 3 bronze corys. This tank was set up in October of this past year - using the same substrate from my 16.9 gallon Fluval tank. So the tank was immediately cycled. I gradually added to my school until I got up to 9 fish. That's all I really want. Oh, and I have some bladder snails in the tank as well! I noticed that one of my bronze cory's had a strange growth on him the week before last during a water change. So naturally, I checked my parameters and my nitrates were through the roof - and when I say through the roof, I mean like 80ppm. Did a substantial water change (60%), added in a Nitrazorb pad to help reduce ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites. I use spring water for water changes, and condition with Seachem Prime. My tap water has ammonia in it - so that isn't an option anymore. I use the API Master Kit, and also Cory's strips for testing parameters. I'm pretty sure, despite having live plants, that I had a nitrate bloom because I was over-feeding. I struggle with this A LOT. I have 9 cory's, 8 of which that are still growing. I've read that you feed twice daily. I make their food, I use Repashy bottom scratcher, community, and soylent green - I mix them all together and put them into cute little gummy bear molds. I cut them up into 8 or 9 pieces, relatively small, and then dump them in. I've backed off a lot on feeding recently, because of this situation. But any insight on HOW much to feed would honestly be so appreciated. I'm ashamed to ask, having had a tank for 3 years - but I am SO bad at knowing the amount to feed. Since I wasn't sure exactly WHAT was on him, I decided to do the trio on Cory's page. I treated with a week of Maracyn. What initially started as a tiny, round, white dot on my cory's side, right below the gill, now exploded into this white...fuzz. I consulted Reddit and I believe I've found the diagnosis: Saprolegnia. Now, I've been doing daily water changes, and treating the whole tank with ich-x. I feel like this isn't the best strategy. I'm using Ich-X because it has Malachite Green in it, which is supposed to be good at treating Saprolegnia. I'd like a more focused treatment, just for little man, because this isn't something that is typically spread - hence why no other fish are affected. I know that survival rates, at least from what I've read, aren't super great for this disease - but I'd like to give him the best chance at survival, if possible. I did a Methylene blue dip on him yesterday, added 2tsp of Methylene blue to 1 gallon of tank water. Let him sit in it (in a net, of course), for 10 seconds. Then I put him back in the tank, completed the rest of my water change, and added my 2tsp of ich-x to the tank. I read somewhere that you can do salt water baths for treatment, but because cory's are scaleless this can do more harm than good. I'm at a loss, and I really don't know what else to do. I have Epsom Salt, aquarium salt, Maracyn, Paracleanse, Kanaplex, Methylene Blue, and Ich X on hand. I'm happy to buy anything else that might help. There isn't a lot of info online about Saprolegnia - at least not that I could find. I DO have a quarantine tank that I can put him in - but I don't want to separate him from his school. I know how stupid that sounds. But I feel like being alone, in a quarantine tank, would just crush him. He's used to being with his buddies, all day, every day. He's still relatively active, and has a great appetite - which makes me somewhat hopeful. As a nurse, when I did the Methylene Blue dip yesterday, I literally wanted to scrape all of it off of him - but resisted. Because I'm sure that would do more harm than good. Any advice would be so appreciated! I love these little fish SO much, and want everyone to make it through this in one piece. I tried to get some better pictures of him - but it's so hard to photograph him, he's constantly moving. I did the best I could. I've included pics of current parameters, as well as my thermometer. Tank always sits at 78 degrees - preset. No ammonia in the tank.