New hobbyist - carnage after treating with ich x

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/19/2022 at 2:22 PM, Terri57 said:

I don't have a youtube account

Google owns YouTube; if you have gmail or another Google service, it’s the same login.

I’m sorry the endler isn’t feeling well. 😔 I hope all of this resolves soon for you.

Say, what do you feed the snail? Did you know they like boiled veggies? Cucumber, green bean, zucchini, carrot, cabbage, all kinds of stuff. As long as the veggies have no salt. And snails need a calcium supplement (for their shell). If you go out for the gang valve you can grab a cuttlebone from the bird section and break off a chunk and put it in with the snail. Cuttlebone is natural. It comes from the cuttlefish. It will float at first. The snail will occasionally graze on it and it will sloooowly dissolve and add a little calcium to the water for the snail. Or there is a food called crab cuisine that contains calcium. 
 

snails eating green bean:

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Terri57]

Yes! This is my guy when he was feeling well just a mere week or so ago. I did NOT, however, know they liked boiled egg. 😂

And funny enough I have cuttlebone on my shopping list for today. The crabs eat it, too. 

Look how stinkin' cute they are. I really hope he makes it. Endler, too. If I end up losing everyone, I honestly don't know if I'll try again. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/19/2022 at 3:00 PM, Terri57 said:

If I end up losing everyone, I honestly don't know if I'll try again. 

Don’t give up. This part of the hobby sucks. You just had bad luck. 
 

There is a lot of joy this hobby brings when there is no illness.

You will be able to come home and gaze at your fish tank and it will relax you.

On 8/19/2022 at 3:00 PM, Terri57 said:

boiled egg

They do like it, but it fouls the water more quickly than other foods. I’ve fed it to my newborn snails on their first days. 

[Terri57]

Newborn snails 🥰😍🐌

Just came home from PetSmart and MY ENDLER IS UP SWIMMING AROUND AGAIN! I can't believe it. Fingers crossed.

[Terri57]

It's the littler one. He was almost dead by the looks of it an hour ago, and now he and his friend are swimming all over the place. 🤷‍♀️

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

The endlers are pretty.

On 8/19/2022 at 4:37 PM, Terri57 said:

Newborn snails 🥰😍🐌

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Terri57]

Those little jelly things are baby snails?

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Little gold snails. 🙂

[nabokovfan87]

How are things going? @Terri57 @Chick-In-Of-TheSea Any more ich treatments, meds, or issues popping up? 

I just tried to catch up on the thread and wanted to check in. 

[Terri57]

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea those babies are unbelievably cute. I wish I could add more fish and snails right now, but not a good idea for obvious reasons. 

@nabokovfan87 Thanks for checking in! My snail is still just sitting there, but he comes out and goes into his shell periodically throughout the day. Hasn't moved from his spot. I am doing daily 25-30% water changes to get meds out without overstressing him and have put a cuttlebone in, but I don't think he knows it or cares at the moment. 

My fish: all neons are gone now. Doing daily 30% water changes to lower nitrites and hopefully eliminate them soon. One endler was on the verge of being a gonner yesterday after a water change, but after an hour or so he perked up and he seems to be ok today. Weird. Everyone else is hopefully ok. One cat is less active than the other 2, but they seem to be doing better since I added the airstone full time yesterday. Oh, and I got an adjustable dual valve so the bubbles are less powerful, which may be helping them out. 

Question: I have Tetra tropical flakes and Aqueon tropical flakes, and I swear I've never seen fish taste and then spit out more food than these guys. Or they will eat some, but then zoom up to other pieces all excited, smell it, and swim away. Any ideas?

[Terri57]

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea I just saw the pic of the snails eating a green bean. 😍 I SO want Greg to be feeling better... 🐌

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/20/2022 at 7:29 AM, Terri57 said:

Or they will eat some, but then zoom up to other pieces all excited, smell it, and swim away. Any ideas?

They might think they want to eat but they realize they are full, the flake might be too big and spitting it out and eating it again makes it smaller for their mouths, or they don’t like it. Sometimes my fish eat a piece of dead plant leaf that is floating and realize it’s not food and spit it out. Many people on the forum feed Xtreme Krill flakes. That food seems to be widely accepted.

York carrying her carrot around. She is rooting for Greg.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Terri57]

I'll look into Xtreme Krill Flakes. Aren't some fish herbivores and some omnivores? I think bettas are more insectivores?

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/20/2022 at 8:55 AM, Terri57 said:

I'll look into Xtreme Krill Flakes. Aren't some fish herbivores and some omnivores? I think bettas are more insectivores?

Yes they are. Most people feed their betta a food called Bug Bites.

[Terri57]

Yes, Arby loves Bug Bites.

Another question (aren't you glad you responded to my post? LOL!!): I have done 2 30% water changes since finding my dead neon and removing him from the tank. Nitrites the last 2 days read around 0.25. I did a quick test strip test this morning and it's still high, so I"m getting ready to do another water change in a few minutes. Do you have any experience with this?

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/20/2022 at 5:55 AM, Terri57 said:

I'll look into Xtreme Krill Flakes. Aren't some fish herbivores and some omnivores? I think bettas are more insectivores?

Fish tend to eat what is available.  I just mean, I have seen betta's eat flake foods a ton.  The spirulina is good to help keep their guts clean, like feeding pea protein or brine shrimp.

There's a pretty infamous episode of river monsters on the topic when it comes to a fish that was designed to eat a specific shaped seeds and nuts that dropped from the trees.  Once that food was gone, they went after a different kind of food with a similar shape.  The episode is on Pacu.

 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/20/2022 at 9:02 AM, Terri57 said:

Yes, Arby loves Bug Bites.

Another question (aren't you glad you responded to my post? LOL!!): I have done 2 30% water changes since finding my dead neon and removing him from the tank. Nitrites the last 2 days read around 0.25. I did a quick test strip test this morning and it's still high, so I"m getting ready to do another water change in a few minutes. Do you have any experience with this?

Yep, keep doing water changes daily to get the nitrites down. Meds can crash the cycle as they process through the filter. You’ll want to use a dechlorinator such as Prime when you change water because it renders the nitrites nontoxic.

This video is a great breakdown of the cycle if you haven’t seen it yet.

And yes! I’m having a great time in your post. We are getting things resolved one day at a time, and side chatting about snails and crabs! ☺️
 

 

[Terri57]

On 8/20/2022 at 8:52 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

York carrying her carrot around. She is rooting for Greg.

Oh, my goodness, York!! This is about the cutest picture I've ever seen. It looks like it came out of a book. His curly antenae... Greg says thank you for the well wishes. 

[Terri57]

On 8/20/2022 at 12:18 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

The spirulina is good to help keep their guts clean, like feeding pea protein or brine shrimp.

That makes sense about the spirulina helping to clear them out. My betta likes thawed, frozen blood worms, other fish too but not as much. I have some Hikari sinking pellets, Betta Bug Bites and Bottom Feeder Bug Bites, too. I'm going to probably get a bottle of the Xtreme Krill Flakes to try it out. Clearly I'm just trying to do anything and everything to keep these poor fish happy. 

[Terri57]

On 8/20/2022 at 1:11 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

This video is a great breakdown of the cycle if you haven’t seen it yet.

I will watch this one. I have watched probably 15 videos on the nitrogen cycle as I was preparing to set up these tanks. DIDN'T know about it with my original 3.5 gallon when I put Arby (Betta) in there with just a dechlorinator. Then about a week later I learned about the cycle, came across Kaveman Aquatics' video on fish-in cycling, and did that, and thankfully it went great. Arby's tank cycled and he was doing great until I gave him ich. 🙄  I cycled the 14 gallon for a few weeks before putting fish in, and the water parameters for both tanks were pretty much identical. Now I have the nitrites and nitrates being stubbornly present in the 14 gal. 

BUT, here's my newest "aha" from watching and rewatching videos yesterday (this may be obvious to you guys, but it wasn't to me): I basically need to "recycle" the tank. As I've been doing my 30% water changes, I've been adding enough Prime to the refill buckets to dechlorinate the amount IN the buckets, and was hesitantly adding in a few drops of Stability to the buckets also in the hopes that a few more beneficial bacteria might help. 

NOW I'm thinking I need to look at it as if I'm doing a whole new fish-in cycle, right? Like, add in enough Prime and Stability to cover the FULL 14 gallons, not just the refill gallons, and hopefully in a week I will have a nicely re-cycled tank.

What thinks ye?

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/21/2022 at 8:34 AM, Terri57 said:

add in enough Prime and Stability to cover the FULL 14 gallons

Yes to dosing the full volume of the tank with Prime during water change. I’m not sure about Stability. I don’t use that one. 

[Terri57]

On 8/21/2022 at 9:11 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I’m not sure about Stability.

Stability is the beneficial bacteria in a bottle. If I am re-cycling, I should probably add bacteria as if I were doing an original fish-in cycle, I'm thinking.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Found this. I think maybe go with half doses? That’s what I do with Fritz Zyme 7 when my cycle crashes.

Link

On 8/21/2022 at 8:34 AM, Terri57 said:

I have watched probably 15 videos on the nitrogen cycle

Yeah but this one has PEANUT BUTTER M&Ms! 🤣💛💚💙

P.S. You are quoting posts like a champ now! 👍

Edited August 21, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Terri57]

On 8/21/2022 at 9:15 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Yeah but this one has PEANUT BUTTER M&Ms! 🤣💛💚💙

YES! I just watched it. He's so good! AND he was giving me ideas to create videos and post them on my Google Classroom pages for student on how to write constructed responses so they can watch it at home if needed. #teachermoment #thanksCory! Now if only there was a reason to use M&Ms to write paragraphs...

On 8/21/2022 at 9:15 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

maybe go with half doses

See...me, too...that's why I was putting in smaller amounts during water changes. I'll read the post, thank you.

[Terri57]

Man, getting frustrated that the. nitrites aren't decreasing. But I guess it'll take time. It took time to cycle initially.