Sunny

Most plants probably won’t like it long term, but I’ve found that the plants I have in my QT tank don’t seem too affected when I dose salt (I’ve gone up to 4 tbsp in 10 gallons). I’ve got some random stem plant from pet smart, water wisteria, and pothos in there, so nothing fragile or that doesn’t recover easily. YMMV

I keep prime, erythromycin (either the API one or maracyn), paraclense or general cure, and api’s ick treatment, plus easy green. I don’t worry so much about running out of the prime and parasite and ick treatments since my local big box pet stores have had it regularly, but the antibiotics haven’t been stocked consistently. I definitely order more if I have to open a box.

Thanks Colu- how long before I should see changes in the kh? (This tank has a sponge filter, no hob to add the coral to)

He’s beautiful!

Don’t get paralyzed by all the conflicting advise on the internet, although it was so easy to do when I was first new to the hobby.

Hi guys! I’m new to guppies, and I saw two beautiful yellow males at the store on Saturday and bought them (no ladies- going back next week to see if any come in). I put them in my QT tank, a 10 gallon with some random plants and pothos. I just finished using it as a QT tank for some cherry barbs and prior to that, it was a holding tank for my corys for a few months. I immediately dosed the med trio and put in 3 tbsp salt. One of the males has been sitting on the little pile of crushed coral in the corner. He eats, and he comes up to greet me whenever I look at the tank, but he does keep retreating there. I turned the temp up a little. Today he seems to have a red sore forming and is gasping for breath. He is still eating. The other guppy seems fine. My water has ph 6.8, and I put crushed coral to keep it from going lower, but I’ve never been able to get it higher. My water is 150-300 GH on the Coop test kit. I just took a reading on this tank and it’s at 10 nitrate, 0 nitrite, 150ish GH, 80KH (despite the crushed coral, that never really goes up either, and I’ve got 2 cups in there). I know my ph runs low for guppies, but I thought my hard water could make up for it. Is my thought process flawed, or is the sore an indication of something else? Thanks!

Yeah I’ll say. Lil dude is still hanging in there so fingers crossed he makes it!

Uuuugh she didn’t make it. 😔

Well, she is still alive, somehow... I don’t know that she’s doing better but she doesn’t seem to be violently spazzing out like the last one.

I've got some API EM erythromycin and tbsp per gallon salt in there. I put a towel over the aquarium to make it as stress-free as I possibly can. She's still hanging in there (literally, just kind of floating at the top). I'll update again in a few hours!

She's still hanging in there this morning, but still doesn't look good. All three came from the same tank & shipment. Maybe if the second female doesn't make it, I'll either a) give up on the females or b) try from next week's shipment......... The male still seems to be good, so far.

I dunno.... it’s not looking good. The male still seems to be doing fine, but the female is doing the same thing the first one was doing and starting to spaz out, then sink... it’s just so oddly specific. It’s about 22 hours after getting home from the store, which is right when the last female started exhibiting the signs.

Ammonia is 0 and nitrites are somewhere between 0 and .25 (I did a 50% wc last night). I dosed some prime in there to detox the nitrites until I can do another wc this evening. Do you think I can go up to the full strength of 1 tbsp salt for one gallon for the gouramis?

Me too... I’m a little skeptical the new female I have will make it. She’s already darting a little too much for my comfort. I wish there was something I could do that prevented the whatever-it-is. They’ve been at the store since Saturday, so I’m wondering if something between the store and home is just too stressful to overcome.

She just died 😭 I went up to the store before they closed and exchanged for another female. Got her in the tank with the salt, antibiotic and api Gen cure.

Hi friends! You were so helpful with my last issue, maybe we can solve this one. I bought a female and male neon blue dwarf gourami yesterday evening, and have them in quarantine. I had a bad experience with DGs five or six years ago when I first tried to keep them, and had about three die immediately in a very specific way. I thought maybe this time, with meds and quarantine would be different- but alas. What’s happening now, just like before, is that the female started out hanging out at the top- then started going vertical. It happened pretty quickly, about 30 mins ago; the QT is in my office and I’ve been watching them all day. After that, she started absolutely spazzing out. Then, she sinks and breathes very heavily. Then, she’ll get the strength to float up, hang there still for a while, spaz out, arch, swim in tight circles, fall, repeat. The male seems fine for now but I’m worried this might affect him, too. Is there a way to overcome this, whatever it is? About 24 hours ago I bought them, put them in a 10 gallon with api gen cure, api antibiotic, and ich guard (a combo I’ve used before). I tested the water just now and it came back at 0/.25/0, so I did a 50% water change and put in 5 tablespoons of salt since I’m not sure what this is?? Any thoughts? People are out there keeping gouramis so surely not every single one dies in this very specific way??

He’s much better today! He swam up to greet me and is back to exploring his tank and zipping around. Yay!!! The danios are also much better and back to chasing each other around. A light at the end of the tunnel! Thank you @Coluand @Dwayne Brown! I think they’re going to make it.

The struggle is real 😭 Stay tuned for a report tomorrow morning ....

I did add new plants and found out there was a pest snail on one (I think pond snail). He also has a new heater (switched from the original heater that came with the kit to Fluval one so I could put the old one in a quarantine tank). The plants were on Saturday and I think the heater was Thursday or Friday. I went ahead and dosed some erythromycin this morning and this evening he is swimming around like his normal self. Did the snail bring in something?? PS- the danios in the other tank seem to be perking up a bit, and most of them at least made an attempt to get the frozen brine shrimp I dropped in.

He did eat this morning (dried bloodworms) but he went right back to hiding in his little betta log. 😞 I just tested the water and got 0/0/20.

Some of the danios have been eating, but some are not. It's kind of hard to tell which ones are which, but there's three that are hanging out in the corner that don't seem to be interested. I fasted the whole tank yesterday, so I'll see if they're interested today. Now in my 10 gallon, by betta is lethargic and just sitting on the gravel..... sigh.......

The timing could be totally coincidental. Maybe the first treatment helped them feel better, but it wasn’t enough to get rid of everything, and they started going downhill again and it just so happened that’s when I started the second treatment, because they were looking worse. I freaked out and stopped the second treatment but I’m going to go for a drive and get some crushed coral, maybe that’ll help keep ph stable while treating. Thanks for your help on this!! I’ll let you know what happens. And here I thought the tetras would be the difficult ones lol.

The crushed coral is all sold out in my area, but I put an an air stone in there and that helped! Ph is up to 7.2. One danio was starting to struggle with swimming (and the others were hovering around it in... support? Waiting for it to die so they could have a snack...??) so moved it to a hospital tank. He’s not eating still. Now there’s two others that were eating and happy, but when I dosed the second round of general cure they stopped moving and eating and just sit at the top of the tank. 😭 The skirt tetras are still doing great, at least.

Thank you! I started another round of treatment and the danios suddenly stopped moving and eating, and now they’re all hovering in the top back corner of the tank. No ammonia or nitrites so I did a 50% water change in case it was the medicine, because last time I dosed general cure it made them more active. There was no improvement the next day, so I checked my water again, but this time also checked the ph, which plummeted to 6. I guess I’ll do another water change tomorrow to try and raise the ph? My tap water is 8.2. But other than that, not really sure how to proceed.

Hi all! This is my first post, and it’s about parasite problems! My main question is: after one complete treatment of API General Cure, some of my glofish danios started showing white poop (I’d never been able to catch them pooping before, and I’m sure the rest poop I’ve just not seen it) and have continued to do so about 4 days after I completed the treatment. The one I saw tonight looked like a white string with beads in it. Does this mean they still have worms, and I should do another treatment immediately? Or is this them pooping out dead worms, and I can wait the rest of the two week time period to treat again (to catch hatched worms)? The fish are eating well, and the ones that were really hit by the wasting disease seem to be putting some weight on again. Background: 29 gallon tank has been set up for 2 months. 7 white skirt tetras, 8 (now 7, one didn’t recover from the wasting disease and died today) glofish zebra danios. They were added at the same time about 6 weeks ago, and I didn’t quarantine them, but have certainly learned my lesson! There’s also a young bristlenose pleco in there that’s been in for about 3 weeks and seems to be doing great, and a hitchhiker bladder snail that was the lone one for about 2 months and has suddenly produced a second. There’s some live plants in there, have no idea what kind, but they’re from Petco so I’m guessing pretty common, and some hair algae that’s doing well .... I’ve already treated for ich and fin rot, both of which the tetras had. It’s been fun, but I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! Tested today and ammonia & nitrite are 0, nitrates are 5ppm. I don’t have the gh/kh test kits but my tap water is fairly hard, and temp stays steady at 75. I did a water change at the end of the treatment. Thanks all!