GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

[Flutter]

I don't think so as it will need to droop down onto the ground inbetween the faucet and the tank.

[LongGrain]

Its official, he stopped eating. He's completely black now, no green or white anywhere on him, no spots either, he looks like a tadpole, and just lays on the bottom all day panting. I think I've lost this fight.

[Pufferpunk]

Whatever length you think you need, plus at least 5'.

[LilGreenPuffer]

alrighty, well I'll have to get a bigger siphon, because last time I did a 25% water change, it took me like 3 hours to siphon out 9 gallons.

Do y'all just use a normal siphon/gravel vacuum to keep your sand substrate clean?

Are you placing the bucket for water collection lower than your tank? The farther below your tank's waterline it is, the faster the water will come.

[Nuclear_Glitter]

if you need to, just start dipping buckets of water out. Having ANY ammonia in the tank is killing him slowly. If you can't get the substrate clean, just scoop out uneaten food and use a bucket to empty out the water. The longer you wait the worse he will get.

[Pufferpunk]

For most of my fishkeeping career, I did WC with a hose & bucket, stirring the detritus out of the substrate into the water column, to remove.

[Pufferpunk]

For most of my fishkeeping career, I did WC with a hose & bucket, stirring the detritus out of the substrate into the water column, to siphon out.

[LongGrain]

updates.

WP:

ammonia: .1ppm
nitrite: .1 ppm
(these two were so close to zero when I tested yesterday that it could be user error with the test kit.
pH: 8.1
nitrate: 40ppm <--- WTF?! I had previously not been testing for these, because I thought nitrates were not usually an issue in new tanks.

no idea what is going on with that, I thought nitrates were mostly high in tanks that are already established. What do I do about this? why could this be so? I'm not a chemist, but it seems like my nitrate is way high for where my tank is at in its "lifespan"

water is super hard as well, I did the drip by drip test, and stopped after 23 drops and the solution still had not turned green. Guy at the LFS said hard water is generally a good thing in sw, and if I got to that many drops, that it wasn't worth continuing the test.

skimmer is now running. I'm using the bio bale until I pick up more rock/dr. Tims, which i'm ordering next week.

I'm on day 4 of melafix treatment. My water reeks like tea tree oil. I'm using FW melafix because I did not know there was saltwater melafix.

anyways, now that I've thoroughly described my water quality/chemistry.

My fish is doing better i think. He's not black anymore, his coloration looks way better and he's swimming around quite a bit more, still not nearly as much as you would expect a fish to swim, and he doesn't fan his tail out much. Still very skinny, still looks like a tadpole most of the time.

I stopped treating him for IP's because he wouldn't eat the food I treated. He actually won't eat blood worms like at all anymore, I got him to eat like one today, so I had to spoil him with some snails, which he still eats like a champ. So today he ate two small snails and 1 blood worm. I couldn't get him to eat any more than that.

taking it one day at a time I guess. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[LilGreenPuffer]

Advice? More water changes. Lower the nitrates; it seems like you weren't doing large/frequent enough water changes before. With the weak stream from your hose, you might not be getting the substrate clean enough - keep trying.

[Pufferpunk]

I'm glad he's feeling better!!!

Is there any detritus build up in the bio-bale? What's your WC schedule like? Are you cleaning under & around all decor?

Will he eat snails soaked in the meds? It'll kill them but maybe he'll eat them anyway. Are you adding garlic to the mix?

[LongGrain]

I haven't even done any water changes besides the 1 gallon I did 2 or 3 days ago.

I know I need to do water changes to dilute the nitrates, but I want to understand why I have them to begin with. By my math, my tank shouldn't even be old enough to start accumulating nitrate. Its only been running for like 2-3 weeks, and ammonia/nitrite never spiked over like .5 ppm.

I'm not stupid, I understand the need for water changes, but i'd like to know some of the science behind what is happening in my tank, as it doesn't align with the research i've done on what happens during a cycle. I don't want to blindly conduct 50% water changes every day without knowing why I have a problem in the first place. I don't over feed either, like when I'm feeding him blood worms, I literally put 1 in the tank at a time until he is done eating, then when he stops eating/gets full, I scoop the last one out so it doesn't sink to the bottom. When he gets snails I also make sure he eats the whole thing.

[LongGrain]

no, the skimmer has only been running for about 26 hours, theres nothing building up, not even protein in the collection chamber, just lots of clear water and white bubbles.

I did soak snails in the meds for an hour the other day and he ate them after I crushed them for him.

Its not hard to clean the sand or anything in the tank, I only have 3 rocks in there. and they are stacked on top of each other. I haven't done it in about a week though.

[Pufferpunk]

Leftover food hiding somewhere under the rocks? Especially with worms. You'd think with nitrate like that, the skimmer would be foaming some...

What test kit are you using? Are you sure you're shaking the heck out of the liquids, like it says?

[LongGrain]

the skimmer was foaming really bad earlier, it made my whole tank like a bubble bath.. I made a thread about it... You posted in it. Its mostly gone away now though.


i doubt there are many worms (if any at all) hiding in the substrate, I literally give him one single worm at a time until he is done eating, I almost never have any extra in there.

how much of a water change do I need to do? I'll do it right away tomorrow. I just don't know what kind of schedule I need to get on.

[Pufferpunk]

If you test again tomorrow & it is indeed 40, I'd do at least a 50% WC. Start mixing that SW now.