KittenFishMom

The bruising was all on his underside. I think it would be tricky for him to hit that area with much force. I was watching them earlier this evening and everything was fine and normal. I enjoy watching the corys swimming around like little busy bodies, tasting everything with their barbels. The peppered corys were much happier swimming around the tank than the other 3 I have with the tetras. Those 3 just hide in the same corner unless they smell food.

I did not find anything unusual. No sign of a leech. The tank has a lot of little snails. I am guessing a bit of snail shell got stuck while he was digging around, and punctured a blood vessel. The tank seems back to normal. I'll check it one more time before I head to bed.

There is a small flagfish, a male betta and 2 other corys in the tank. I haven't seen the betta chase any of them. the flagfish is small than the coys and has been with them since before I brought them home. At the store they said the flagfish thought he was a cory, and I think they were right. I am wondering if he got a sharp bit of something stuck in his gill. Stressed fish put out chemicals to alert other fish of danger. That is why I took him out of the tank as fast as I could. I'm going to go check the tank and then see what I can see under the dead corys' gill plate.

He is gone. He made several dives when I first saw him. I'll clean my glasses and look at him under my craft light magnifier and see if I can see what happened. I have cleaned lots of fish, I'm not squeamish. I'll take photos if I find anything.

I was just checking my fish before bed and one of my corys was upside down on the surface of the tank. He appears to have a bruise on his gill and on his underside in front of the gill. It is swollen. The other corys were swimming franticly, so I netted this guy out and put him in a dark mug with tank water, took pictures and covered the mug to give him darkness. I am trying to get photos from my phone. No bandwidth here at the cottage. I'll add the second picture shortly. Water was fine, ammonia 0, nitrater 0 nitite 0 temp 81.5f This is the tank that I found the leech in.

I take my eye glasses off. The spots on the glass disappear and the fish look furry.

@OnlyGenusCaps Which ones sink?

Well, I want to build a scud tank like Torrey's, and she has bio balls in the bottom. I am also researching setting up a sump for my 120 tank this spring. I might build a sump for my 55 tank. I'm setting up a tank to cycle and was thinking a bag in there might help, but then again, if I take it out later, it might take with it any benefit it had while I was cycling the tank. I was thinking about putting an air stone under some, and covering it with rocks to make a bio-filtering bubbling pile of rocks as part of a build. I think it could look a bit like an upside down waterfalls, but you never know. I'm sure the kitten would love to chase some into my path as I walk around. The possibilities are endless. Plus they seem like a handy thing to have on hand Probably sinking ones would be good.

I'm ordering some "bio balls" and given the wide selection, I wondered if there is any real difference between the different sizes and styles and colors?. Has anyone out there got a favorite? All opinions are welcome! Thanks

@Odd Duck I think you are right.

I want one of these for my native aquarium that floats. this one sits on the bottom ☹️

Is it one of these?

I have a new sponge filter and with set up a tank to start cycling. I hurt my back, so am waiting for my husband to finish with the snow fall to help me clean and move and fill the tank. I have reached out to an ichthyologist via email, waiting for reply.

@Greg Stewart I am removing the leeches. I was wondering if I needed to move the fish out of the tank with the leeches. I don't have a good place to put them right now, but I could put them in a new, uncycled tank or in with my tetras and corys which would be rather tight.

Cornell vet school is very good. I can see who is studying leeches in the bio department too. I did that with crayfish. didn't think of it with leeches. Thanks. Cornell is in Ithaca, very close. Thanks

@Native Keeper Do you know which kind of leech this one is? I have been doing a bunch of research. A lot of leeches are harmless. I just can not tell if this one is. I had a few leeches on the fins of some of my native fish early in the fall. The fish did not like me removing the leeches, but the fin completely recovered and I probably haven't seen one since October. Suddenly I saw one on the glass in the betta tank, about a week ago. I killed it before I looked at it. Tonight I saw a very small one on the glass, and this one on the feeding ring. Bunched up, it is about the size of 3 grains of rice side by side. Is it a harmless leech or a dangerous leech? I have been googling all evening and I can not find it on the web. I don't want to stress my fish by moving them if the leech is harmless. I also don't want to try to remove leeches from fish if I leave them there. I would guess that the leeches would be in the sponges filters. Guess which tank has my extra sponge filter incase I need to set up a tank in a hurry. Right, the tank with the leeches.

Wait till you see my aquarium oak tree... it may not be for some time....

I found this leech in my 10 gallon betta tank. I have 1 male betta, 1 young flagfish and 3 peppered corys and a bunch of little snails in the tank. I have been looking at all the fins on all the fish and have seen nothing on the fins. I found the first leech in the betta tank about a week ago. I haven't seen leeches in the other tanks. I have been watching them and their fish closely, too. I have a cycled 10 gallon tanks with 10 small tetras, 3 corys, an adult guppy and 4 young guppies. I have another cycled 10 gallon tank that is pretty maxed out with guppies. I have an empty 10 gallon tank I could start to cycle. I have been studying the photos on AquariumScience.org 10.13.4 Aquarium leeches, but it doesn't look like any of the photos to me. Is this the kind of leech I need to worry about? If so, should I move the fish, and if yes, which tank should I move them to? Note: the leech is in the bottom of a standard deli container. It is the round blob on the wall on the container. I added that photo so you could see how big it is Thanks for your experience and advice.

@ScottieBI was thinking that as they put out leaves, they would take up a lot of nitrogen from the water. But if it isn't a sure thing that they would be safe for the tank, I will just use a vase instead.

I don't grow them to eat. I grow them so they eat nitrogen.

The fish stores are apt to have cycled tanks and know what kind of space and care your fish need. It might be less stressful for you and the fish to have a knowledgeable fish store person get them all at the same time, rather than trying to set up times for many people to come to your fish to look, but decide they don't want them after all. It sounds like you are in a situation that is already stressful enough. I hope things improve quickly.

This is a wonderful thread. I feel a bit like I just finished reading "Dr Spock" when I was 8 month's pregnant. I will be watching my fish very closely for a long time. Is there a list of medicines that are good to keep on hand, on the forum some place? A list of sites that sell the different medicines would also be helpful. I have the ACO quarantine trio and several medicines that I have never opened, but thought I should have hand. It would be good to know which problems can wait for a medicine to be ordered, and which benefit from having the medicine on hand. I am trying very hard to go the "high quality water" and "a wide variety of high quality food" route to avoid medications. But as a newbie, I have made mistakes and know I will make more mistakes. Thank you for writing up all this information so that it is at our finger tips 24*7

I have started passing the word around to see if anyone is interested in my native fish, so I can move them out of the 55 tank sooner than spring and start the cleaning now. All the native fish are growing and look healthy. If I can give away some, I can move the rest to a smaller tank for a few months. The only person I heard from wanted to feed them to his turtles. 😒 I am also feeling a bit overwhelmed by the project. Will I need to toss all the plants I have in the 55 native tank, including my turnips? Is there a way to make the plants safe for the tropical fish? I have the same question about the small snails. I was planning on using lake scuds to seed the 55 tank. but am now not sure that will be safe either. Will buying them online be any safer? Will I need to boil the gravel and rocks? If so, for how long? I have a cart full of driftwood & rocks that I gathered that is sitting outside in sub-zero weather, drying and getting sun bleached and wind blown. Will that need to be boiled too? It has all been in the lake a long time and the bark has all been washed away. I did move plants, snails and scuds into the tropical tanks from the lake. The fish in the tropical tanks also all look healthy and are growing well. I don't see any symptoms of anything in those tanks. I have set up leech traps in my 3 tropical tanks, and they were empty after 24 hours. I baited with frozen fish food (bloodworms & shrimps). I'm wondering if I will need to throw away or boil everything in those tanks before I move anything to the cleaned, cycled, planted 55 tank. Is moving these tropical fish to the new tank safe? If it isn't, what can I do with them? The newbie mistakes are always so frustrating, and discouraging.

@Buckman Thanks for getting back to me. They will be going into a 55 gallon tank, once I can move the native fish out and clean it. I have Easy Green liquid and root tabs. I put a tab in the pearl weed and baby tears they are in their net pots in a 2.5 tank. I was planning on rooting the bulb in a net pot of substrate. It arrived as a bulb in wet rockwool with leaves that fell off, in the mail today. I would like to see if I can get some growth on it before moving it to the 55 tank.

If you carry your water in buckets for water changes, like I do, I am thinking a smaller water change than normal might be easier on you and still help the fish. Maybe 3 gallon instead of 5 or 1 gallon instead of 3. Doing some of the change today and some more tomorrow and some more the next day might be in both you and your fish's best interest. It also might not feel so overwhelming. You don't want to take more water out than you are confident you can replace. You need your filters to continue to work etc.