Static

After some more testing, it doesn't look like the HDX totes are leaching chlorine into the pond water. From what I can tell, using the Aquarium CoOp test strips outside in direct sunlight will give a false positive chlorine reading. To confirm this, I took a sample of water from the pond & did back to back water tests, 1 outdoors & 1 indoors. The outdoor test read 3.0ppm chlorine. The indoor test read 0 ppm chlorine. Hope this info will help others.

@Colu quick question: I'm on Day 5 of the first treatment & I'm still seeing fish flashing. Is this normal or should I be considering using something stronger like the Cloverleaf Absolute Wormer Plus? Thanks in advance!

I'm glad I found this thread to prove that I'm not going insane. I'm also running into this exact situation for my patio ponds that are housed in Home Depot HDX totes. When I set up the ponds last summer, I noticed that the Aquarium Coop test strips were always showing chlorine levels of 3.0ppm. I had a couple of Rice fish die but overall they all survived & I shrugged it off to an issue with the test strips. After the summer, I set up a 25 gallon tank in my house & I've never seen an issue with the test strips & their chlorine readings. I always use either Seachem Prime or Fritz Complete before adding water into the bucket for filling a tank/pond. Which brings me to now where I'm setting up the patio pond again & I'm seeing the test strips reading chlorine levels at 3.0 ppm no matter how much dechlorinator I add. Another data point to add is that I have a 2nd pond using an Edge Plastics 21 Gallon Big Tub that doesn't have this issue. This makes me suspect the HDX totes are leaching chlorine into the pond water.

Sounds good. Thanks! will do, thanks!

Also, when only dosing Paracleanse, do I need to withhold food for a week?

For this course of treatment, do you recommend following the box instructions or Aquarium CoOps method of 1 pack per 10 gallons per week? Thanks! I'll keep this in mind if Paracleanse doesn't fix the issue.

Unfortunately, I only have 1 tank so I wasn't able to quarantine. Up until now, I haven't used any meds but I'm tempted to dose Paracleanse now just to get a baseline for the fish health. I looked into using salt but my tank is planted so I think that rules out that option.

Not all of the fish flash, just some. Out of 4 species, I think I've only seen my Luminatus & Borellii flash. I'd say when they flash, it's 2 -4 times each episode & then they go back to normal. In a day, I might notice 2 - 4 episodes but I'm not watching the tank all day. If it matters, my water parameters are stable at: Ammonia: 0 Nitrate: 10 Nitrite: 0 Hardness (GH): 150 Buffer (KH): 80 PH: 6.8 Chlorine: 0 Full disclaimer: I'm a fairly new to fish keeping.

Thanks for the advice!

I have a planted community tank where some fish exhibit flashing against plants and hardscape. At first, I thought it was Ich but after watching closely, none of the fish had white spots. Then, a local fish store owner suggested that the flashing could be from Flukes & that I should dose some Paracleanse. After that conversation, I learned as much as I could about Flukes & it's symptoms but other than the flashing, I'd say that none of the fish exhibit them (ie: loss of appetite, labored breathing, lethargy etc). All of the fish are active, are ALWAYS hungry & some are breeding. With all that said, is it recommended to still dose Paracleanse just in case? Thanks in advance!