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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.

I had the same thing happen with two pairs of black rams. The first pair I never really expected to pair off. I had just removed them from the tank once I saw the other pair pairing off. They were pretty prolific and spawned several times and did a decent job raising up their fry. They seemed fine until one day, I noticed the female hiding and looking sick/injured while the male chased her around. I separated them entirely by putting her in another tank. Just last week, I started introducing them again by moving him from the tank he was in into her tank, but keeping them separated with a mesh basket. I think I may have kept them separated for too long, though because I think that she actually laid eggs while he was in the basket and he obviously wasn't able to fertilize them and they are looking pretty fungus-y. She even seems to be chasing him around a bit to try to get him to fertilize the eggs, but he doesn't seem to be having it. They can at least be in the same tank together, though. I'm thinking the different environment probably helped. I'm hoping keeping them well-fed and doing some cooler water changes will trigger them to spawn again. I've been calling them Monica and Chandler. The other pair on the other hand... They can't seem to be in the same tank together. They had initially paired off when I got them, so I put them in their own tank together. The spawned quite a few times, but always ended up eating their eggs or their fry. I finally end up removing the eggs and attempting to hatch them myself, with fairly catastrophic results. I couldn't ever get them past that first week stage until I finally did and a dead snail in their little grow out box fouled up the whole batch and killed all but one. Around that time, the male was constantly chasing her around and being really aggressive, even after trying to move them to a new tank hoping that a change of scenery and some dither fish would help. It didn't, so now they are separated, probably for good. I might see if I can pair up the fry from Monica and Chandler with one or both of them, but I'm still waiting for them to grow out. I've been calling this pair Ross and Rachel and their one, single surviving offspring Emma. Still hoping he'll run to the airport and they'll end up together, but right now, I'm not holding my breath... All that is to say that yes, you're not alone. I've been struggling with it for a couple months. At least in the case of Monica and Chandler, a change of scenery seemed to help. If you don't have any other tanks to work with, you might try seeing if you can catch the male and separate him out in the mesh box and let the female recover in her natural environment. Then, once he's in there, rearrange the tank a bit and Jedi mind trick him into thinking he's in a new tank. You could also try some dither fish if that's not already happening. Otherwise, you unfortunately just might be out of luck.

To start off, want to be clear. I’m talking about doing this with an EMPTY tank. No fish will be in the tank during this time. I’ve got a 20 high that I was previously using to breed swordtails. My water out of the tap is soft and acidic, so I had used crushed coral and seiryu stone to buffer it up. The swordtails have since been sold off and I’m needing the tank to grow out a spawn of angelfish, who are currently in a tank of straight tap water. I’m sure they would do fine in the harder water, but I don’t want to keep bouncing them back and forth between waters since my LFS has the same soft water. I’ve removed the crushed coral and the seiryu stone, replaced it with a large piece of mopani wood and done several large water changes(including a close to 100% change today), but my PH and hardness are staying pretty high. I’m sure it will probably take some time, but is there anything I should be doing (or not doing) to help the transition along? I have some other driftwood I could throw in there that seems to release a lot of tannins, but I also don’t want to crash things and have to play catch up. Anybody have any experience here?

Thanks for weighing in, @Cory. To be perfectly honest, I have not found the test strips to be very accurate, especially when it comes to pH, at least the bottle that I received in June of last year. Even on my livebearer and cichlid tanks where I used crushed coral, it doesn't seem to register much above about 6.8. I've also found nitrates to read quite a bit lower than other tests as well. Again, could just be the batch I received. I have no doubt that others have good luck with them, but I usually take the results from my strips with a fairly big grain of salt. In either case, I posted the picture of the strip because I was too lazy to write out parameters and as a way to show that everything was pretty much within normal ranges. The two tanks have similar substrate, hardscape and plant life between them and the pH on both reads 6.8-7.0 on an API test. Obviously my water is pretty soft, but my pH stays pretty steady.

Posting for posterity, just in case anyone else has a similar issue. I ended up separating the pair and treating the female with ParaCleanse and a bit of salt. She is currently in a planted tank, so I didn't want to go too crazy with the salt. I think I did two tablespoons for her ten gallon tank (so 1 tablespoon/5 gallons). She's looking a lot better and the spot on her head is nearly gone and her tail has returned to normal. Fingers crossed that I'll be able to introduce her back to the male without any issues...

I've had good luck using a wire brush like this attached to a cordless drill. You just have to be careful getting near the trim if you're not removing it because it's definitely abrasive to the plastic.

For whatever reason, my two breeding pairs of black rams have decided that they hate each other. In both cases, the male is being really aggressive with the female and chasing her all over the tank. Last week I separated one pair. This week, I hadn't seen the other pair's female, but assumed she was tending to eggs/wrigglers as they had just spawned. But, yesterday, she finally came out and I saw the male chasing her around as well. I pulled her to a different tank as well. Now that she's not running away from the male, I can see some kind of white, discolored areas on her head and along her dorsal fin. Her tail also seems a bit ragged with white/translucent area at the tip. I don't really know what to make of it. Could she be sick or would it be the result of injuries from the male? What should be my course of action here? Water parameters attached. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Temperature is 82. Ammonia is 0

I've kept mine in for a max of about three weeks then moved them with a turkey baster. Even at that point, everyone was still getting along, I just wanted to move them to a separate growout tank. The one exception was when the parent spawned again while the babies were in there and the males got pretty territorial and was chasing the last generation of babies around. One thing to keep in mind, though, at least in my experience, so take that with as big a grain of salt as you like, is that even with feeding micro foods and having a well-established tank with lots of infusoria for them to eat, with the parents taking care of them, you're still going to lose a substantial portion of the spawn. That first few days is the hardest to get through in terms of survival rate whether the parents raise them or you pull them and raise them yourself. I've found that the ones who can survive on the micro organisms in the tank long enough to get onto BBS are the ones that will survive. The rest just won't. I've never seen the parents eat them. I think it was just a matter of them not being able to find enough food. I've hatched 5 or 6 spawns at this point and usually end up with about a 10% survival rate when just the parents raise them. I have an even worse record try to raise the spawn myself, though... I've also found that even small changes to the tank made while the parents are raising the fry will cause them to eat the babies as well. If I throw another plant in or rearrange the hardscape, they panic and eat their fry. Water changes can be hit or miss. Unfortunately at the moment, both my breeding pairs have decided that they hate each other, but if I ever am able to get another spawn, my plan is to leave them in with the parents with 2-3 weeks without changing anything in the tank, then move the parents to a separate tank and leave the babies to growout.

I had Ich-X in there for the full volume of the tank for quarantine purposes and then once I started seeing some white, fungus-y eggs, I put just enough methalyne blue for the tumbler itself (a few drops). It pretty much immediately dispersed into the rest of the tank, so I didn't put any more in. It was good to see, though, to know that turnover in the tumbler is good and that it doesn't just keep recirculating he same small volume of water. I could probably have pulled it out of the water a little further so that it kept the medication in the tumbler, but I wouldn't have had as much overall circulation and tumbling. I had been looking at those as well, but I wasn't sure if one would be worth it. I've ended up with plenty of in-tank breeder boxes over the past year and I didn't know how much more one of the Fluval ones would buy me vs. the standard ones.

Success! I’ve got a ton of angelfish fry that I’ve moved to a growout tray ala Dean’s fry boxes. I did get quite a few eggs that turned white and got fungus-y, but they were pretty easy (albeit tedious) to remove with a pair of planting tweezers. I tried to put some methalyne blue in there initially, but it obviously dispersed into the rest of the tank. I was also treating with the med trio at the time, so there was already some anti fungal in there. I guess there’s just no substitute for pulling the white eggs out because even with tumbling and multiple anti fungal meds, I still ended up with some. The thing that I found most interesting, though, was how fiercely the parents continued to defend the eggs, even when they were in the tumbler. They would puff up at the glass every time I walked by and would attack my hand whenever I took the tumbler out to remove white eggs or do anything in the tank. All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. If nothing else, it’s much easier to corral all the fry rather than using a hatching jar like I have been. I’ve got rams that should be spawning soon, so I’ll attempt to get their eggs in there next and see how it goes. I wish it was a little easier to use some preventative meds on just the tumbler rather than treating the whole tank, but if I have to pull eggs anyway, it’s not too much of an issue. I think I’ll definitely put them in a separate tank to avoid stressing out the parents, though. But for how difficult it sounds like hatching angelfish eggs can be, I think it’s definitely worth it to use the tumbler. I might pick up another one the next time I need to place an ACO order.

If you don't mind some holes in the hood, you could drill some in your desired spot and use some long black zip ties to hang it from the underside of the hood.