Kat_Rigel

In my opinion, you don't have to do anything. Diseases must have a host to survive. In this case, the host is your fish. If this was my tank (especially aquascaped/nice rooted plants,) I would leave the tank alone without fish for 2 weeks, preferably 3 to be safe. Do not feed during this time (no need, because there's no fish. It would only increase nitrates.) Feel free to add ferts as usual. Maybe do like one or two water changes. That is exactly what I would do. In my opinion, all tanks have some tiny level of ich, some tiny level of bacteria, some tiny level of etc etc. Fish get sick when they are weak for some reason, with the most common reason being moving (shipping, coming home from fish store, etc.) or poor water quality. When one fish gets sick, now you have an infected individual that is making lots and lots of germs/bacteria/pathogens which means its more likely your other fish can catch it, especially if water quality is the culprit since they are all experiencing that stress. I suspect that moving the bettas to a new tank may have been the catalyst, which is just bad luck. Sometimes you don't do anything wrong and things just go wonky. I don't see that you did anything obviously wrong. Tl;dr Leave it for 2-3 weeks and it should be fine for new fish.

Whee, ok, now that I'm out of "urgent fish-saving mode," I can give everyone an update. My tank is back to 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, and 20ppm nitrate. I am very happy about this- looks like the filter was finally able to process the excess. I tested my tap last night and it was back down to 0ppm ammonia and nitrate as well, which means I can finally do normal water changes with my tap water like I usually do. The fish are very hungry (I have been feeding sparingly and they have been begging for food.) I'm not going to go full force feeding until about a week from now, since I do t want to risk fouling the water. I am quite sure that my tap was high in nitrate. I contacted the water company and asked if they added anything (email contact form, no phone number available.) Their response was to send someone to my house and check water quality. I received this notice on my door: It's hard to read, but it says, "We tested your water and found the Chlorine level @ 0.63 ppm & the monochloramine was 0.49. The water is normal and safe to drink. Please call for another appointment." So it doesn't directly answer my question- did you add any additives recently? But it was a very fast response (only 2 hours!) I'll give them a phone call when I get a chance (number was provided on the note.) I still have very green water, which is ok and probably one of the reasons nitrates went down so quickly, but the fish are active and acting normal again. I'm still seeing a little back end floating which makes me very nervous, but I'm optimistic the salt treatment will work. I was using 1tbs per 5gal as recommended on the package, but I think I will up it to the level 2 recommendation as shown on the Co-op site.

Oh DUH of course! Thank you!

Also, they ate with GUSTO this morning so that's at least a good sign.

This is a good point. Both the liquid test kit and the strips are equally old (maybe 2 years?) but not expired. I'll pick up some strips and maybe a new test kit at the pet store today (they'll be happy to see me for the third day in a row! 😅) You're right, tap should not be coming out at 80ppm nitrate. Good question. No prefilter sponge as these guys' poo is quite large and I want it in the canister. The canister has a sponge as the first layer (on the side, which all water comes through first.) The bottom layer is a course sponge (the Coop one, actually,) and the next layer is a little bit finer sponge. The top two layers are both bio rings (not sure the brand, I figured they all do the same thing,) and I also have some crushed coral at the top to assist with buffering pH and keeping the kH and gH good, although usually my tap is pretty hard anyway and I probably don't need it. Its another surface for bacteria, anyway. I can 100% see what you're talking about in the photo, but I can assure you it's just bubbles from the nearby airstone. I took a good look today and no signs of ich. I did a slime coat scraping two days ago and didn't see anything then either, but my microscope is really awful so I don't put much stock in that. I'd like to, but not if my tap is equally high in ammonia and nitrates! Wondering if I should use the store bought spring water instead. Testing of that showed much lower nitrate and 0 ammonia, which again throws into question the accuracy of the test kit. Maybe it IS ok after all??? Who knows. This is a very good point, and once again calls into question the accuracy of the test kit. I'll make some inquiries. I'm fairly confident we're not on well water, but we are relatively near farmland and can imagine we're in the same watershed. I'm wary of this just because I don't have a ton of space (condo) and I"m not confident in remineralizing the water. I'm not sure what I would use. Seachem Equilibrium? Sorry, can't add plants at all! In fact, I removed them in order to treat the fish with aquarium salt. I've tried keeping plants in there with this level of salt previously and it just kills the plants. (My poor swordplant is hanging out in a 5 gal bucket in the yard right now!) Unless there's a common houseplant that is salt resistant, I can't use this as an option. No mangroves readily available near me. I'm actually mildly pleased that I've got green water at this point- probably a symptom of high nitrates, but also a way for them to get used up. Not sure about green water's ability to survive in saltier water. Absolutely not! I need advice! Thank you for your time, I'll follow up on the things we discussed. (Mainly the water test.) Nitrazorb is an option but unfortunately plants aren't. See salt treatment That's what I picked up yesterday but then I balked because I was reading that you can't use it with amine based stress coats, and sure enough, I had just added some when I was freaking out. Tons of mixed information out there. Most sources say you can use both as long as you don't recharge the Purigen, some sources have a "friend of a friend" who has some horror story about using both and killing their fish. So I'm hesitant, but if anyone else knows better than me, please let me know! Ideally I'd do a big water change to minimize any Stress Coat remaining, but... yeah, well, here we are! As far as updates, I believe the floating has gotten a tad worse, and I think a second fish is also demonstrating back end floating. For what it's worth, I believe I've caught this early, but I don't like seeing things get worse. That said, you know how we are as fishkeepoers- "Oh god, is that white spot ich? Is he floating weird? Is he being lethargic? Do I see some fungus there?!" I might be overanalyzing. They are all still moving around and active, and I'll feed them today (minimally in case the nitrates really are an issue.) However, I think I'm going to up the salt, since goldfish can do well with high amounts of salt. Interesting side note, I recently picked up a highly recommended book from my local library, "Fancy Goldfish: A Compelte Guide to their Care and Collecting" by Johnson and Hess. According to folks from the Goldfish Council, this is the foremost book on goldfish care in the past 20 years. It says back end floating is usually due to high nitrates and a resulting bacterial infection. That's consistent with what I'm seeing, and suggests the nitrates are indeed high. If it is an infection, the salt should help take care of it. Will upload pics shortly. Tank is SO green 😶

Hey guys, fishkeeper of 10yrs or so here and I need some advice. I suspect I am stuck with two bad options. Let me explain. I have 72gal bow front aquarium with 3 fancy ranchu goldfish. All was well until a few days ago when I did a big 50% water change. It's a little drastic but I am trying to groom these guys and there are some hormones I need to get out of the water to make sure all of them grow well. Anyway, I noticed the following day that one of the fish was acting very blah- not as animated, and also a little floaty on the back end. I checked with Aquarium Coop test strips and it showed ammonia, nitrite both at 0ppm, nitrate at about 10ppm. Thought I was overthinking it. The next day when I came home from work, there was an explosion of green water. I said hang on, this is not consistent with my water readings. Tried the Coop test strips as well as some Tetra test strips, they still showed ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and nitrate 20. I busted out the liquid test kit and lo and behold, ammonia was 1ppm and nitrate 80ppm!!! (Nitrite still 0.) I checked my tap water and it turns out it's coming out of the tap at 80ppm nitrate and 2ppm ammonia. The ammonia in the tap is a little lower today- 0.25ppm- but nitrate is still 80ppm out of the tap. PH of tank is 8.6 and remains unaffected. Since the fish is showing symptoms, I removed all plants and treated with aquarium salt. So, I can't use plants to decrease nitrates, and I can't do a water change with my tap water. I treated the water with some Prime, API Quick Start, Stress Zyme, and Ammo Lock. (I know the Ammo Lock is only a temporary solution.) I'm not happy with the situation, but it is what it is. My question is this- should I do a water change with store bought water, which risks changing the pH and stressing the fish? (I bought a bunch of spring water and it does have some minerals, but my water is 300+ on both gH and kH, the spring water is about 100. PH is about the same as mine though, 8.4. Should I get a big container, place my tap water in it, and try to "off gas" the nitrates by running an airstone? I don't think this will work- otherwise the nitrate level in the tank would already be decreasing. Or do I just leave the tank as it is, since the ammonia (which is more toxic than nitrate,) has decreased? I have also considered adding Purigen but haven't used it before- it says it removes nitrates but mostly via organics. Not sure it will work. I can see some extra slime coat on my distressed fish. So far the other two aren't showing symptoms but I certainly do not have a healthy tank right now. Current parameters: 80ppm nitrate 0ppm nitrite 0.25ppm ammonia PH 8.4 KH and gH both 300+ (very hard) Bare bottom tank/no substrate, no plants (salt in the tank) Fluval 407 canister filter with bio media and sponges All of my other tanks are fine- they are HEAVILY planted and have more sturdy fish like ricefish and platys. EDIT: Forgot to post temp! 79.1*F This is per the breeder's recommendation in order to groom the fish. Tank has been set up since February, fish in since early April. Black and orange male a little back floaty. GREEEEEN! And cloudy.

@mountaintoppufferkeeper Thank you for the additional insight! I did have some uncertainty about the possible cross, even with the genus difference, as you mentioned. A lot of the goodeids are getting reclassified over and over again as we learn more about them, which made me wonder about how closely related the fish actually are. VERY interesting example with the sturddlefish, I'll definitely be reading that article! Shocking that such different species would cross!

AHA! I knew there must be more proof than just the genus. Thank you so much for this info, I will definitely be looking into the organs you mentioned to educate myself further. Oh, and side note to @TheSwissAquarist- I have much more respect for people who say, "whoops! I made a mistake!" than people who dig in their heels. No harm here!

Thanks, all! Seems like we mostly agree that while quite unlikely, it is remotely possible that it's a cross. I'm intrigued by the idea that the Limia perugaie I have is a pseudohermaphrodite- that would be strange too, but somehow I think more likely. I'll follow up with some folks more educated than I to see if if I can garner some answers. Last question though, anyone know where I can look up how many chromosomes each species has? I keep finding a lot of papers on the Limia P., but none regarding their chromosome count. I'm certain someone out there knows; certainly the researchers writing those papers had access to the information. I thought there would be some sort of database. Anyway, thank you all very much! I appreciate the insight.

Hm, I don't think the limia I'm seeing is female, as it does have a very prominent gondopodium, and it has a shiny iridescence that I havent seen on females. (I'll check again og course- Ive been fooled before!) BUT that did give me another idea- this tank is VERY densely planted, so perhaps there is a female hiding in there that I just haven't seen? I'll take another look at the suspicious LP to confirm its sex. But do yo uagree that it's very unlikely that the two species crossed?

Hi all, I have a question regarding livebearer crosses, specifically Limia perugiae and Characadon lateralis. I was chatting with a friend at my fish meeting yesterday and mentioned that my lateralis fry tend to have a spot of the dorsal fin, which my friend's did not have. When I got home and looked in my tank, I could see some lateralis that looked like the adults, and some with a paler complexion and that dorsal spot. I also realized that I have a single Limia perugaie male in there, and... there is a prominent dorsal spot on that fin. I didn't think twice about putting them in there together because they are in different genus, which means they should not be able to breed. I am wondering if the fry with the dorsal spots are crosses of lateralis and perugaie (I hope not!) I am trying to look up how many chromosomes each species have but haven't had any luck. (If they are different, there's no way the spotted fry could be a perugaie x lateralis cross.) I'm a little upset because I have ZERO interest in crossing these species; lateralis is a goodeid. Does anyone have any insight into this? Tank contains: male Limia perugaie, Characadon lateralis colony, male Limia nigrofasciatus, Corydoras aeneus, Kyathit danio, heavily planted. There are no female limias. Above: Adult Characadon lateralis Above: A normal lateralis fry Above: Limia perugaie male. Tough to see that spot on the dorsal fin but if you look closely, it's there. Above: The suspicious lateralis fry with a dorsal spot. The pale body would be consistent with a cross. No lateral spots makes me suspicious as well.

Ok well, quick update on this. The fry was delivered and although it doesn't look very good, I'm surprised it's alive at all. Mom looks unphased. So, just another interesting thing at the fish tanks today!

Hi all. I have some Characodon lateralis (a livebearer goodeid and CARES species) and I find fry periodically. I found some yesterday morning, and this morning I found this female with a fry halfway delivered. The fry definitely looks dead to me and I'm not sure what to do. I isolated her to monitor if she progresses through labor at all but I dont see her straining or anything. Since she'll die if the fry is left in, I was considering anesthetizing with clove oil and seeing if gentle pulling would remove it. It seems like I should try this sooner rather than later so that the fry has not decayed to the point where it can't be extracted in one piece. Has anyone seen this with any livebearer species? I am not surprised that the fry is so big, as that's normal for this species, but clearly something went wrong because the babies should not be white! That looks like dead fish to me. I'd like to save the mother fish if I can but I'm very aware that she might not recover.

@Dmmurray I'm glad this post was able to help you! It's been a while so I may forget some of the details. As I recall, the heavy salt treatment worked and Tater got better. I didn't treat with any other meds. Unfortunately it crashed the cycle and she got ammonia burn- that was the black parts I was seeing on her body. I let my regular water changes slowly bring the salt level back to normal, and I added API bacteria starter as well as API stress coat daily. The most important update on this though is that I actually had a fish vet come out and look at her. It was expensive, but worth it to get the answers I needed. The answer to "just a weird breed or sick?" was actually BOTH! The temperature increase while I was on vacation caused the first issue, but after she recovered I still saw her floating oddly, so I called in a vet. The vet took one look at her and immediately identified her as being severely inbred. She pointed out the bent spine- ranchus should have a nice semi-circle back. She also said all fish, even ranchus, should be able to to float normally (not with their head or tail sticking up.) Tater couldn't do this probably because of her poor genetics. Now here's what really gets me. The vet took her out to take some x-rays.(Yes, x-rays!) And said she usually sedates the fish so they don't get stressed out. Tater was unusually calm and did not need to be sedated. She didn't even stress when on the x-ray table. The vet said that Tater was, er, mentally impaired. Like, her genes were so bad that she was born with mental retardation (I don't use the word retardation lightly- I mean it in the medical sense.) So, considering all the problems Tater was having, it's likely the first fish I brought home likely died from poor genes too, and couldn't handle the stress of the move. The vet recommended sinking foods only, especially Repashy, and a slightly higher temp (like 75*F) to help digestion. She was showing air in her intestines but likely had a deformed swim bladder which would never allow her to swim properly. We kept Tater fat and happy as long as possible, but eventually she was unable to stay right-side up and got a sore on her belly. Rather than let her suffer, I decided to put her to sleep. (This was about March 2022.) She was such a joy and I certainly see another ranchu in my future, but next time I'll buy from a well known breeder and look for good genetics.

Wanted to follow up once again in case someone has this issue in the future. After the first, weaker treatment didn't seem to work, I went with the Aquarium Co-op recommendation to apply Maracyn daily (1 packet per 10gal) and 1tsp of Ich-X per 10gal. To be honest, I forgot to add it on day two (whoops) but after that I applied the Maracyn daily for 4 days (total of 15 days.) For some reason I kept forgetting the Ich-X and applied it only on days 1 and 4. (No clue why, just forgot.) No water changes during this time. I don't see any more lesions and all of the fish have survived. I plan to do a water change today and need to keep on it to prevent any future infection. (Thats the lesson for me here- don't get lazy. If you can't do the work, don't keep that many tanks.) Here's a picture of my fat happy healthy fish, because it took forever to get one that wasn't blurry.

Hey all, this question didn’t gain much traction so I wanted to follow up with what I decided to do. I went with Aquarium Co-op’s recommendation for treating fungus, which is one packet of Maracyn and 1tsp of Ich-X per gallon, letting the fish stay in this for a week. Today is day 5 and I don’t see any spread on the adults that I was worried about, but I do see a new lesion on the top of the head of one of the fry. I see that more aggressive treatment calls for repeating that dose daily, but I don’t see anything about water changes. Anyone know if I should be doing water changes daily if I take that route? The next step for me, if the meds don’t work, would be a salt treatment.

Hey all, I have a colony of Chapalichthys pardalis (the Leopard Goodeid) and I've had them in their tank for about 8 months now. All was fine and they were even breeding, so I was quite pleased. (Great little fish btw.) I had one fish a week ago present with something that looked like hole-in-the-head. I thought that was mainly a cichlid disease, so I suspected also that it could have been trauma from aggression from tankmates (they chase around a lot but I've never seen them actually fight.) The spot had gotten quite a bit worse over about 3 days (it spread and showed obvious deformity to the head, but wasn't exactly deep.) I isolated it and added aquarium salt and erythromycin... it went from very active and behaving normally to dead within minutes of putting him in that isolation tank. 😕 I had even animated him to the temp, used dechlorinator, and half of it was water from his old tank. So not sure what was going on there. Here is the fish that died: I thought it was perhaps a fluke- an older adult with a weakened immune system- but now I can see the beginnings of the same spot on two other adults in the colony. This suggests to me that I should treat the entire tank, but with what? Does anyone have experience using aquarium salt with goodeids? It ought to be ok. I have had bad luck in the past adding erythromycin to QT tanks. This is the second time that I've had a fish die within minutes of exposure. (I know we talk about the fallacy of treating a sick fish with a med, and yet sick fish dies anyway, but it is not normal for this to happen so quickly.) Behavior has been 100% normal. 20gal tank with what is now 4 adults and about 8 large fry. Planted tank witha sponge filter as well as a Fluval U1 underwater filter. Params: 70.2*F, pH 8.0 (normal for my hard water), nitrate a bit high at 50ppm (got a little overenthusiastic with the Easy Green,- I'll do a water change), nitrite 0 ppm, hardness GH 300+, buffer KH 300+, Chlorine 0ppm. All of this is pretty normal. I have been struggling with excess mulm in the tank lately but unsure if that would cause an issue. I do weekly water changes from 30-50%, using Prime to dechlorinate. No ides what has caused this. I contacted the breeder I purchased them from and he said he had never seen it in his colony and recommended metronidazole if it is hole-in-the-head, which like I said, I'm not sure. But it certainly seems like something infectious. Please help! This is an endangered goodied species and I will feel very bad if I lose them. (Well, I'd feel bad regardless.) Please be clear in your answer if you have experience treating goodieds or if you've just mined info from the internet. I am trying to figure out if they are particularly sensitive to meds or something. Thank you! Current fish: pardon this blurry pic, of course they won't cooperate 🙄

Oh my, if you give that stuff CO2, you're going to have a forest overnight! 😂 Very easy to grow, certainly no CO2 needed. Easy Green works just fine, although I tend to overstock my tanks a bit and that is usually enough for it to get nutrients. But yes, I'd recommend Easy Green.

I have a Dwarf aquarium lilly bulb that was going well for a while- even sprouted off two new plants! At some point the leaves died off and I assumed I could leave the bulb in there and wait for it to sprout back up, but it's been like 6 months with no signs of growth. The bulb itself does have one soft spot, but is mostly pretty firm similar to when I got it more than a year ago. Could this bulb benefit from being dried out, or placed in the fridge for a bit? Perhaps that would kick start the "hey, it's spring! Time to sprout!" Similar story for my Dwarf tiger lotus, although that one was never very strong to begin with, as well an aponogeton species. Will drying these out or fridging be a good choice?

I love hornwort and have it in all of my tanks. I think everyone has their one plant that they like as cover for fry and this one is mine. As long as you have enough nutrients in the water column, it will grow gang-buster. If not, then it sheds needles like a Christmas tree and can be a real pain. Depends on your setup, but I have found it quite useful. I am always taking extra and selling it to my LFS.

Any tips on how best to clean a sponge filter that has gotten very clogged? I have a heavily overstocked tank with mystery snails and guppies; although it's overstocked, plants, plenty of water changes, and multiple filters have kept everyone happy and healthy. I am currently using a HOB as well as a sponge filter, but both the sponge filter and the intake sponge are so bogged down with gunk that simply squeezing them out isn't cleaning them. I've tried rinsing under running water,, the washing machine, washing machine with vinegar, washing machine with soap, and nothing has really helped. The gunk is really embedded in there. Now yes, I could lower the stocking level to prevent this happening again. But the current question is whether I can save these sponges, or if I have to buy new ones. I don't mind buying them again, but I strongly prefer to reuse in order to reduce waste (if possible.) Thanks for any tips. PS Yes these are Co-op filters and pre-filters, but I do not fault the product for getting clogged. It's due to the crazy stocking level in my tank and all those poopy snails!

Wow that is really cool! I wonder what started them growing in your tank? Did you add anything recently, or maybe water parameters just met the right conditions at some point? Very interesting.

I recently discovered that there is an aquatic vet in my area, Dr. Jessie Sanders. She has some really interesting articles on her website, including stuff like "Your goldfish isn't constipated" and "what's with the magic green peas?" Both super interesting, and it calls into question "common" aquarium knowledge (which turns out to be fallacious.) I would love to hear her talk, either on the podcast or in the online club. Here's her article about peas: https://cafishvet.com/fish-care/feeding-goldfish-peas/ I must admit, after reading a few of her articles, I'm a bit of a fangirl. Haha

I have successfully used a similar product (or maybe it's the same from a different Chinese manufacturer...) I use an old iphone4S usually- it takes good enough pictures and I won't be too sad if I lose it (I can't trade it in for money anywhere now, it's too old.) I haven't used it long term but I have to think it would be ok. As someone mentioned previously, adding a desiccant packet might be helpful in a long term setup. Looked a little off with the light coming in, but overall I could see what was going on and I thought it was cool. One bonus is that keeping the camera underwater will help keep the camera cool, rather than being in the sun constantly. (Ricefish, guppies, cherry shrimp, platys)

I'd suspect that's true but I don't want to give you the impression that I've done it before with those other species. I bet it can be done. I suspect TDS is less important than clean water and good overall husbandry.