afoultz

Thanks. Will keep all of that in mind. Doing a water change tonight and adding beneficial bacteria. Will leave the air stones in. I’ll update as needed.😀

Hmm. That sure doesn’t make sense to me that Maracyn2 doesn’t harm beneficial bacteria. From what I read, Maracyn only treats gram negative or gram positive bacteria (forget which), and Maracyn2 treats both. Curious that Maracyn2 doesn’t harm beneficial bacteria. Yeah, based on the delta changes from last night, I think I will do another water change tonight. I’m getting frustrated, though - it seems with the treatments and everything, I’m changing the water pretty frequently. I like the idea of adding beneficial bacteria, will try that as well - I have the fritz product for that. What about the scruds? Any feedback?

According to API, Nitrate - between 0-5 ppm Nitrite - about 0.25 ppm Ammonia - 0 ppm pH - about 7.4

There is no problem with ammonia per API Master Freshwater Test Kit. Latest (last night) parameter results (Tetra “EasyStrips”): Nitrate - somewhere between 0 & 20 Nitrite - safe 0 Total hardness gH - about 150 Chlorine - safe 0 Total alkalinity kH - about 180 pH - I think about 7.8 I just now redid, picture of strip results attached…. I will also redo per API Master Test Kit in a little bit and post those results when I have them.

I’ve already treated with maracyn from aquarium co-op. Tank is 29 gallon. I have driftwood, rock, plants - 1 artificial decoration for fish to swim through. This is the thread I originally posted: I have lost the guppy I originally posted about. There was a separate guppy I had been concerned about, so I completed a treatment with ich-x and maracyn. I think she’s ok now, but I also think with her coloring it’s a little tricky to tell if she’s miscolored or not. I will attach a picture for review. I also have a new question……I’ve seen things crawling in my substrate. I thought they were baby shrimp, but after looking around and seeing they should be miniature versions of adult shrimp - I think not. These things are shrimp-like. I haven’t seen them swim or anything, just crawling. I did some research, I think these are scuds? I’ve seen mixed information on whether they are of no concern (even beneficial?) or not. I will post the best pictures I was able to get of those…. Curious what community thoughts are on that…All the advice is appreciated!!

Update….. I don’t think them being hungry is the problem - there was food in the tank when they were at the top. I’ve had 1 of the guppies for over 2 months, the other about a month. I had just been treating them for an infection. A few weeks ago, I had turned the temp up in the tank because I thought it was ick. I added 2 air stones at that time. It was not ick but an infection - so I brought the temp back down about 4 or 5 days later. This past weekend, I was changing water & cleaning the tank after finishing treatment, so I took the air stones out because the temp was back down. I don’t remember ever seeing them gasp before treating & adding the stones. In any case…..I watched some videos one of which suggested that there is some benefit to having an airstone in the tank out side of oxygenation, so I’ve decided to go ahead and add the stones back in. I’m not sure what’s going on with the guppies, but hopefully leaving the air stones in will resolve the problem. I had wanted to observe and see if I could determine if there was any pattern, but I think I was going to add the air stones either way after learning a little more. I’ll monitor for the time being…..

Has anyone ever seen just 1 species struggling for oxygen? All of my water parameter seem ok. Temp is around 76F right now. Guppies seem to be the only ones gasping. I have shrimp, panda garras, otocinclus, and galaxy danios in the tank with the guppies… Not sure if I should be concerned or if there is a problem…..

Update…lost another guppy. This one had a very bloated stomach, no marks on it that I could see, but it had a pretty white belly. Down to 2 guppies. Got the ich-x and have treated….will look for maracyn2 tomorrow. Also, since we’re thinking bacterial - I should be turning heat back down right?

Thanks for the advice! Yeah, I guess I didn’t say, but I looked at ammonia too. No problem there. My take on treating the fish is if you have one, they should all be treated as infected, so my thinking was treat the whole tank. Anyone else have thoughts on which way to go?

Hi there. I am pretty new with an aquarium. I thought I was doing OK (I’d say about a month and a half), but about a week and a half ago (9/10/24) - I noticed one of my guppies was sick with some spots on it (pictures attached). I wasn’t 100% sure if it was ich or not, most pictures I see have smaller whiter spots. Without any better theory, I proceeded with what I knew about treating for ich. I ordered ich-x, it shipped quickly but it’s not due to arrive until later today. So, I put 6 tbsp aquarium salt in and gradually increased heat to about 80.9 degrees. I also reduced amount of time light was on to let them chill. My understanding was that 1. Guppies could tolerate this heat & 2. Theoretically, this should be enough to kill ich. I lost 1 guppy by the next morning (didn’t have spots) and after about 24 hours, my feeling was that they were struggling to breathe, so I added two air stones on either side of aquarium and slightly reduced heat. Intermittently, they did better (sometimes at top, sometimes seemed improved and swimming around). Around the same time this started, I had some plants I needed to get added before they died. Last night, I could tell I most likely was going to lose the guppy with spots by this morning - she was struggling with swimming at all. (I also had a shrimp I could tell was going to die, it was upside down, but until last night all the other fish/shrimp in the tank seemed to be unaffected - maybe it was unrelated). Flash forward to today….guppy & shrimp was dead. Plants for sure are not doing well, a lot of leaves are transparent. I am really bothered by my whole situation. I did my best to diagnose & treat, but everything seems to have gone wrong and I thought I was doing a much better job of keeping fish this time around. I need to figure out how to figure out what’s wrong & how to fix these situations as they come up. I tried so many different things and there were so many different things that went wrong at different times, I feel like I failed. I’d really like to keep it going and enjoy this time around. 😔 So..additional details. I have 29 gallon tank. When this all started going wrong, I had 5 guppies, 3 CPD (celestial danios), 2 panda garras, 2 otocinclus, and about 8ish orange pumpkin shrimp. Normally temp was around 74-75. Water tests showed safe level of nitrates (I had added some plant fertilizer, normally nitrites were pretty close to non-existent. No problem with nitrites. I believe hardness was around 150ppm (maybe a little less, not sure on colors sometimes, lol.) No chlorine problem. Alkalinity some where between 120-180ppm. Normally pH was 7.4-7.8, was slightly elevated - around 8. I’ve attached some pictures of test results as well. (Strip reading is Tetra EasyStrips). Advice for beginner is welcome.😁 Thanks!