I don't know about you but as a fishkeeper of a number of years I tend only to test my water when a problem arises. About 10 days ago I noticed a huge outbreak of whitespot in my tank with Clooney, the worst affected fish were the Clown Loaches and Clooney due to their lack of scales and therefore less protection against the parasites. So I tested my water:
ammonia 0.0
nitrite 0.0
Nitrate 120 yes bloody 120ppm
I do a weekly 75% water change and this is a reading after the water change
I am clearly overstocked which leads me to a question, what is my best option. I plan to reduce Clooney's feeding to once a week now but I am now faced with these options
Daily 75% water changes
getting rid of Clooney?
or the best solution I think is to get another tank in my hallway for the other fish and leave Clooney on his own and still have the large water changes to deal with. Do you think that this will be adequate though for Clooney in this tank?
Once again I have highlighted why these gorgeous fish should not be available to the general public as very few people can care for them properly. I wrote in my article that it would be down ot my inability to care for him properly that will end his life. I hope that this is not the start of that downhill trend
I have added Nitrate Minus and a nitrate removal sponge to the Jewel filter and once I get the nitrates down to a decent level I will see if they can hold things at bay. Once I acheive the desired level I will see how much feeding time impacts on the Nitrate level. I have tomorrow off and not at work till this afternoon today so I plan another 75% water change as I did yesterday on both days which in theory should be a 225% water change, thus bringing the levels down considerably.
I am gutted, I've had the clowns loaches 6 years and the two biggest are no longer with me, my first tropical fish, so its a bit sad, but they had a good life in a nice big tank I suppose.
At the moment the tap water is reading 15-20ppm but that is higher than normal. I'm hoping that I can get it down with large changes and then keeping it down with the nitrate sponge will work and then get anothre tank or rehome the others.
posted this week:
For the record guys I have just received Nitrazorb but with my mammoth water changes I have got the nitrates down to a more acceptable 30ppm. Its not ideal I know but a definate improvement. The whitespot is still pretty bad in Clooney, I just hope the salt and high temp will do the trick. Will keep you posted guys
Hoorah I received my package from Aquatics Direct only to discover they sent me phospho-zorb and not the nitrazorb I ordered. I need to get a return code before I can send it back but SKY have "updated" my email account which at present has gone so well that I do not appear to be registered with them anymore. Its a good job I don't have that Incredible Hulk disease I can tell you.
I also got a bottle of melafix which I shall add once I have taken the carbon out, which at the moment is getting rid of the meds I used. I have now gone with salt and higher temp and here's where I have another gripe. Throughout our so called summer I sometimes had to reduce the temp in the tank from 30°C as it was overheating, now I want to raise the temp it seems my heater is not any good. Its the standard Juwel heater and is less than one year old, but it has no dial or temp scale so you never really know what temp its set at The manual has a rather ambiguous "the middle setting is about 25°C" but there are no discernable clicks to tell you how much you are turning it up by so you have to do a little bit at a time and check the temp, I have been doing this for the pat 3 days and at 29.4°C it seems about right.
So throughout all this grief Clooney is still hanging in there, I think he has eaten one mussel in about 14 days and is looking quite skinny and the whitespot still seems very prevalent on him and my Black Ghost Knife fish, these poor scaleless fish really don't do well with this disease. I understand that while the systs are on the fish I cannot treat the disease but there does seems to be more appearing. Hopefull now the salt will do its job and kill the free swimming phase
Just to make sure I am getting it right I have used aquarium salt at a dose of about one tablespoon per 20 Litres or 5 gallons, I built this up over a few days as not too shock the fish or in case it affected the filter bacteria. Does that sound correct? I am following the info on the puffer website
Your input would be appreciated.
Alternatively I could build one of these http://fogonazos.blogspot.com/2007/01/a ... rical.html
The only problem is due to the high temp he is breathing hard but with the added aeration from 2 venturi pumps and the fitler outlet pointing at the surface he does not need to gasp at the surface. 
and to those who have offered suggestion and advice thank you for taking the time,
I have tried frogbit before but it dies in my tank, maybe too much surface movement and it does bet sucked into the filter easily. I will crack this though, thanks for the advice