B1gJ4k3

Noticed a spot on the head of one of my blue acaras and thought that it might be hole in the head, so I pulled him out into his own quarantine tank and started treating with salt at a ratio of 2 gallons per tablespoon. The spot almost seemed to heal a bit and was almost gone with only a little redness around the area, but then suddenly over the last two days has gotten much worse, spreading to the sides of his head and even some on his body. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get to the store for meds, but I assumed that the salt would be an effective band aid in the meantime. Any idea what might be going on here? What should I be doing? Parameters: pH: 6.8 Nitrates: 25-ish Hardness: 150 Nitrite: 0 Ammonia: 0 KH/Buffer: Low Temp: 79 Last week: Yesterday: Today:

Archer, Season 13 Episode 5: The gang takes cover in Pam's (strangely amazing) apartment, featuring a very sensibly-stocked betta bookshelf tank. (Sorry for the phone picture of a screen. Hulu won't let you screenshot. I'm as annoyed by it as you are...) Killing Eve, Season 4 Episode 2(?): A pivotal scene between Eve and Villanelle prominently features a large cichlid tank Although Eve does commit the cardinal aquarium sin and repeatedly TAPS ON THE GLASS! 😫

Thanks for weighing in, @Colu. I'll continue to monitor. It's been a few weeks now and it doesn't seem to have gotten any worse or had any other ill effects, so that's pretty much the conclusion that I came to. I'll probably take the bamboo out just in case (and because I'm sick of him attacking/rearranging them all the time)

My big Central America cichlid has developed some white spots on his tail fin. They're too big to be ich and only on his tail instead of all over his body (at least I think so. He's all white, so it's kind of hard to tell). They seem slightly raised, so I thought maybe it could be epistylis. However, treating with 3 tbsp/gallon of salt and food medicated with Maracyn 2--each for two weeks---has had no effect. I thought it could possibly be some kind of non-ich fungus and was contemplating trying Ich-X to see if that would help, but if it is a fungal infection, I would have thought the salt would have taken care of it? I'm not sure what to make of it at this point. I don't think he could have injured himself on anything. All I have in his tank are big round river rocks and some bamboo (which for whatever reason, he seems to hate and is constantly attacking...🙄). He also doesn't seem to be eating as much and doesn't come to to the top of the tank when I come to feed in the morning. Although that could be a result of putting an auto-feeder on his tank over Christmas when I was gone for a week or just him pouting because his food doesn't have Garlic Guard on it anymore. He's the only fish in his tank, apart from a few snails, so it's unlikely (although not impossible) that something could have been introduced. Anybody have any ideas? Parameters: pH: 7.6 Nitrates: <20ppm Nitrite: 0ppm Ammonia: 0ppm Temperature: 76-78 Hardness: Soft-ish Buffer: Low

@Razberry910 Are you getting the sieve wet first before draining the brine shrimp through it? For whatever reason, that seems to be a critical step that I frequently forget to do.

@Colu Oops. Sorry forgot parameters. All normal Temp: 82 Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: ~20 I haven’t actually seen her try to swim. She just stays in on spot on the bottom. She kinda just scoots along, I think. Belly isn’t sunken. If anything, it’s kinda plumped up. I thought it might be a swim bladder issue, but didn’t want to stress her out more by taking her out and doing an epsom salt bath.

I noticed one of my black rams breathing heavily and laying on the bottom of the tank, not really moving much. She's upright, but definitely has trouble moving around. She'll stay in one spot for a bit and then move to another spot throughout the day, but it seems very difficult for her to swim. I moved her to a quarantine tank about three weeks ago, added salt and the med trio and let her soak in it for a week without feeding. That didn't seem to have an effect. She's still laying on the bottom of the tank and not really moving. I changed about 30% of the water and started feeding her again. I assume she's eating because she's stayed alive this long, but I don't really ever see her eat, no matter how long I sit and watch her. I'm not really sure where to go from here. She has no outward signs of injury or distress and looks otherwise fine. Any idea what might be going on here? What's my next move?

After a rather traumatic incident where about a third of my fish died during/after a water change and the reality of changing 250+ gallons of water per week setting in, I’ve had an idea… Between a cheap transfer pump pumping tank water outside into the yard and a garden house permanently hooked up to my laundry room sink, I’m getting pretty fast at water changes. But, I can’t help but thinking that it could be more efficient, especially when it still takes nearly an hour to water change each of my 125s once a week What if, instead of my usual method of draining the water down with a pump/siphon and refilling, what if I did both at the same time? I could start a siphon on one side of the tank and fill on the other (using dechlorinator of course), dialing in both with hose valves to keep the water level somewhere around the same. Run each for a set amount of time, depending on tank size, maybe gravel vac in the meantime and boom, you’re done. It’s pretty much just like what you fancy auto water change people are doing isn’t it? I realize your water is aged/dechlorinated beforehand, though. Advantages to this approach: Less stress on the fish hopefully, because the water level isn’t lowered. Also, less (albeit minimal anyway) bacteria die-off for the same reason. I can keep heaters and, more importantly, filters running the whole time, especially hang on backs or canisters if the don’t need cleaning. Again, reduced potential bacteria die-off. More gradual acclimation to fresh water if PH levels are different. I don’t know how long crushed corral takes to buffer, but at least it gets a head start, especially if it’s in the filter like mine is. Less risk of overfilling as long as inflow (mostly) matches outflow and I leave a couple inches of buffer. Possible disadvantages: Potential of too much water being changed out if I get busy with other things and forget. But at least I could set a timer to remind myself rather than just having to watch to see when it’s full and overflowing if I forget. Potentially somewhat wasteful of water and dechlorinator since I’m draining/filling at the same time. This could be mitigated by setting the timer for slightly more time than it would take just to fill and dosing dechlorinator initially and then again once the tank is done “filling” I’ve tried it on a couple tanks and it seems to work well. Has anybody experimented with this kind of approach before? Am I missing any potential pitfalls of problems that could arise?

What else do you have in the tank? My first thought was pleco eggs, but they usually like to lay in caves. On the lid would be weird, but not impossible. Mine crawled up into my AquaClear twice last month and laid eggs, so if there’s a will, there’s a way…

So, not only did he manage to get himself into the AquaClear, but he also managed to get a female up in there to spawn with him. That's some dedication...

No, I don't use Purigen in any of my tanks.

Yeah, there's a sponge filter running the whole time. Eventually, the water does get low enough that its below the aeration level of the sponge filter, but it doesn't last for long. I had the temperature set pretty much where it always is when I water change (about 75). Tank temp should have been about 78-80, so not too big of a change. Again, though, on the water changes I did earlier in the day, the water turned out to be more like 66-67 once the faucet had leveled out. I didn't figure that out until I was filling my last tank. I mean...as best as I could, using the ACO test strips. I have found them to be pretty inaccurate (at least the batch that I got), but I would think if it was high enough to kill fish in 15 minutes of exposure, it would have registered at least something on the test. Lost my big albino bristlenose this morning. That one hurts. I was trying to breed him. He was huge. He was freaky looking. He loved zucchini. RIP, Big Tuna... 😞

Tonight started like any other Thursday night—with a water change on my 125. I drained the tank down using a siphon through the FX4, gravel vacced a bit, scraped the glass, removed the FX4 and proceeded to clean it at the kitchen sink while the tank filled through a hose attached to my laundry room sink with water about 5 degrees cooler than the tank temp. Maybe I let the siphon go a little bit longer than I usually do, but I figured a little extra water couldn't hurt. It wasn't too much more than I usually do, though. I can only drain so far since the intake on the FX4 is so gigantic. By the time I had gotten done cleaning the filter, the tank was almost full. I dosed the proper amount of Seachem Prime (about two capfuls-worth for what I figured was probably a 70-80 gallon water change--again, not terribly unusual for this tank.). I put the FX4 back under the tank, and hooked it up, waiting for the siphon from the outlet tube to fill itself back up before turning it back on. Suddenly, I look up and see about half my fish are acting really weird. About half of my neon tetras are floating around like they're dead, my Boesemani rainbows are spiraling and swimming upside down and my Colombian tetras are looking discolored and sluggish. Some may have been near the surface, but I feel like that's not unusual for this time of day or after a water change. And they didn't really seem to be what I would call "gasping" for air. The platies, bristlenose, rummynose and angelfish seem relatively unphased, however. I test all my parameters using both an API master test kit and ACO test strips on both my tank water and my tap water. Nothing seems too out of the ordinary. I do another dose of Prime to hopefully dechlorinate/detoxify things further if that is indeed the issue. Within 15 minutes, I've lost 9 out of 12 Bosemani rainbows and one neon tetra. The dead-looking neons seem to have recovered, but now a few of the rummynose are kind of spiraling and having trouble swimming and my one big bristlenose seems to be breathing really fast. I added another airstone in case lack of oxygen may have been the issue, but I can't really see how that could have been the case. I can only think of a couple things that could have cause this, but none of them are big enough of a red flag to convince me that's what the problem was: Adding Prime too late on such a large water change? My water does have some ammonia in it (about 0.5ppm out of the tap), but I don't know if that would have made that much of a difference. I had done about a 50% water change earlier in the day on the 75 gallon in my garage (also with Boesemanis in it--about 70 of them) where I didn't put Prime in until later also and didn't have a problem. And I feel like this isn't the first time that I've forgotten to put Prime in until the end. Normally, I add half when I initially start filling and half when I'm finished. Stirring up a gas pocket in gravel while I was vacuuming? I was under the impression that this only happens in tanks with fine sand and it's important to either have some fish that are going to stir up the substrate on their own or you need to do it manually when you clean the tank. It's a moderate to heavily-planted tank, so I don't gavel vac too often (maybe once every two months when things get gross) and even when I do, I really don't go too much below the surface because the gravel underneath my top layer can be a slightly different color and it bugs me when it shows through. Lack of oxygen? There's a sponge filter in the tank that I leave running while the FX4 is draining specifically to keep things oxygenated during water changes. The water level goes go briefly lower than the top, but only at the very end when the water level is low and was probably only that way for 5-10 minutes. They've been without oxygen longer than that when the power goes out and once the tank was filled, a bunch of my plants were pearling. Some kind of contaminate on my hands/arms? I don't use lotion or anything like that one days when I know I'm going to be water changing and regardless, I wash my hands fairly frequently and thoroughly on water change days anyway. And, as I said, I had done water changes in my garage earlier today without any issues and I can't think of any thing that I would have come in contact with in those few hours between. And for it to happen so quickly after I had my hands in the tank? Some kind of contaminate in my water? But, again, big water changes in the garage just a few hours before on multiple tanks, one full of Boesemanis. So...what the heck happened here??? I'd feel both better/worse if I knew what I did wrong, but honestly, I can't pinpoint one thing that would have made that big of a difference. My routine was 95% the same as it is every other time I do a water change on this tank (weekly) and clean the FX4 (monthly). Anybody got any bright ideas here? What went wrong?

Maybe a few days? I'm like you, I feel bad for them being isolated for so long.