Help

[TJfm1990]

Hi all. Maybe you can help. I have many tanks and one is a Molly tank. I have 4 gold dust and a couple balloon + a handful of adolescent gold dust. I breed a variety of fish. The issue in this tank began following the Nor’easter that hit the East Coast last week. We lost power for 12 hours. I did my best to keep water flow by doing small water changes and pouring water in. It got chilly but not cold enough to kill. We hear via a wood stove. I had an ammonia spike like crazy. I have been able to get it down to 2ppm. PH is correct. Nitrate and Nitrites were also high but currently 2 ppm and 20 ppm. I have lots of live plants, 4 lava stones, am running a sponge filter, an Aqueon filter and a aqua clear filter (I added this recently to try and help. My poor fish are in really rough shape. I did a ick and general cure regiment that ended 3 days ago (I added the new filter and put fluval Zeo-carb in a media bag in there. I can’t figure out what is wrong with them. They are inactive at the start of the day when level are high, I do a 70-90% water change and have been using stress guard, stability (I’m guessing my bacteria died off when the filters weren’t running), prime, ammo lock, stress syme, stress coat and fluval cycle to get the tank back to being cycled. Every day the levels go down a bit. 
 

I’ve lost 4-5 ballon Molly and my gold dust look like they are falling apart. They are eating (I’ve been feeding before my water change). But 3 of 4 are losing weight rapidly. Their color is fading, their scales appear to be missing. Red gills, shimmying, I’ve notice white stuff hanging off them, fins clamped, and  some scales on the larger are shinny like glitter. I have a juvenile bristle nose who seems fine. I have mystery snails in there but a few died and the rest have this white stuff coming off of them. I’ve been researching and researching and know the ammonia is playing a part. But as to the other issues…. It seems like it could be so many different things. The smaller Molly are doing better. I want to move them but am unsure if moving them could cause issues in another tank (my hospital tank is in use for quarantine. I’ve used Cory’s suggested 3 med quarantine approach and had them in quarantine for over a week and they seem fine. Should I move them to my guppy breeding tank? If so.. should I move the larger Molly to that tank or the smaller guys? If the tank crashes completely as it appears it is… should I use the hardscape (rocks and wood with plants attached / unattached plants in another tank? Or remove the plants and boil the wood and stone? Also suggestions about what to do with my pleco in there? 

 

As mentioned I breed a variety of fish. I live in an area rural area and the closest stores to get fish and aquarium stuff are an hour or so away / big box stores. I’ve made a nice little business of breeding, buying used tanks and stuff on the cheap and selling folks around here ready to go tanks with seeded filters and what not. We also sell hard scape items and my fiancé makes resin aquarium decorations and makes them aquarium safe so we can offer people customized decorations. I also carry all sorts of medications and water treatment stuff and do aquarium maintenance + house calls for stuff like ick outbreaks so folks don’t have to buy bottles of stuff. It’s a good gig / business plan. So I’m nervous about moving anything from this tank to other tanks and risk infecting another tank. Any help would be appreciated. I’m lost on this one. 

[TheSwissAquarist]

@Colu

[TJfm1990]

Sorry, what does that have to do with the issue ink dealing with / questions I asked?

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

@TJfm1990 @TheSwissAquarist was just tagging Colu who is our resident medication helper :-) 

[Colu]

On 3/24/2023 at 1:55 AM, TJfm1990 said:

Hi all. Maybe you can help. I have many tanks and one is a Molly tank. I have 4 gold dust and a couple balloon + a handful of adolescent gold dust. I breed a variety of fish. The issue in this tank began following the Nor’easter that hit the East Coast last week. We lost power for 12 hours. I did my best to keep water flow by doing small water changes and pouring water in. It got chilly but not cold enough to kill. We hear via a wood stove. I had an ammonia spike like crazy. I have been able to get it down to 2ppm. PH is correct. Nitrate and Nitrites were also high but currently 2 ppm and 20 ppm. I have lots of live plants, 4 lava stones, am running a sponge filter, an Aqueon filter and a aqua clear filter (I added this recently to try and help. My poor fish are in really rough shape. I did a ick and general cure regiment that ended 3 days ago (I added the new filter and put fluval Zeo-carb in a media bag in there. I can’t figure out what is wrong with them. They are inactive at the start of the day when level are high, I do a 70-90% water change and have been using stress guard, stability (I’m guessing my bacteria died off when the filters weren’t running), prime, ammo lock, stress syme, stress coat and fluval cycle to get the tank back to being cycled. Every day the levels go down a bit. 
 

I’ve lost 4-5 ballon Molly and my gold dust look like they are falling apart. They are eating (I’ve been feeding before my water change). But 3 of 4 are losing weight rapidly. Their color is fading, their scales appear to be missing. Red gills, shimmying, I’ve notice white stuff hanging off them, fins clamped, and  some scales on the larger are shinny like glitter. I have a juvenile bristle nose who seems fine. I have mystery snails in there but a few died and the rest have this white stuff coming off of them. I’ve been researching and researching and know the ammonia is playing a part. But as to the other issues…. It seems like it could be so many different things. The smaller Molly are doing better. I want to move them but am unsure if moving them could cause issues in another tank (my hospital tank is in use for quarantine. I’ve used Cory’s suggested 3 med quarantine approach and had them in quarantine for over a week and they seem fine. Should I move them to my guppy breeding tank? If so.. should I move the larger Molly to that tank or the smaller guys? If the tank crashes completely as it appears it is… should I use the hardscape (rocks and wood with plants attached / unattached plants in another tank? Or remove the plants and boil the wood and stone? Also suggestions about what to do with my pleco in there? 

 

As mentioned I breed a variety of fish. I live in an area rural area and the closest stores to get fish and aquarium stuff are an hour or so away / big box stores. I’ve made a nice little business of breeding, buying used tanks and stuff on the cheap and selling folks around here ready to go tanks with seeded filters and what not. We also sell hard scape items and my fiancé makes resin aquarium decorations and makes them aquarium safe so we can offer people customized decorations. I also carry all sorts of medications and water treatment stuff and do aquarium maintenance + house calls for stuff like ick outbreaks so folks don’t have to buy bottles of stuff. It’s a good gig / business plan. So I’m nervous about moving anything from this tank to other tanks and risk infecting another tank. Any help would be appreciated. I’m lost on this one. 

I think it combination of things they got chilled that coupled with the high levels of ammonia and nitrite has affected there immune system leaving them susceptible to secondary infections I would keep doing daily water changes and just add prime and stability adding all these other water treatment can stress your fish out and dramatically lower the levels of desloved oxygen if you can get holed of some cycled media from your lfs or another tank that will help speed up the cycling process  I would also add some aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 2  gallons salt speeds up the removal of ammonia from your fish blood  and also provent the uptake of nitrite  and it will aid Gill function and add essential electrolytes and I would add some Indian almond leaves as they have antibacterial and antifungal properties  add another air stone to increase levels of desloved oxygen i would monitor for the next couple of days @TJfm1990

[nabokovfan87]

can you measure the temp of the tank?