Mbu not well-help!

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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Read this before posting!!

Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.

Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
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scpion
Fahaka Puffer
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Re: Mbu not well-help!

Post by scpion »

dolphin wrote:I have two large eheim canisters, and Im just in the process right now of putting in a third. My other half did a 50% WC today, I have just come home and Mince Pie is laying on his side and breathing heavy- Im absolutely panicking now- I dont want him to die a painful death. Hes definitely got a swelling on his right side, but everytime I try and straighten him up, he swims away only to fall to the bottom again. Ive also just tested the water again, the nitrate is still 160ppm, and now the nitrite has suddenly gone to 0.25ppm (it was 0ppm yesterday), ammonia is 0ppm. Ive jut put some stress zyme in as well.
Ok. wait. There is something very important u have to understand. Adding a addition canister WILL NOT help u in your case. Remember, Ammonia > Nitrite > Nitrate. If u do not read Ammonia, there is absolutely no reason to put in another for bio-filtration. Nitrate will not be removed by the media that is commonly found/used in our canister. Nitrate can only be removed by WC and with heavy planting. When was the last time the 2 canister was cleaned? If its not done recently, Pls do so immediately. I say again, if filters are not properly maintained, they are just Nitrate factories. No matter how many WC u do, with all the crap still stuck in there, your Nitrate is just going to shoot back up again in no time.
I am not a Troll, I am just pissed..!
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purplecandle
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Re: Mbu not well-help!

Post by purplecandle »

dolphin wrote:the tank has been going for two years- even though a 50% change was done this morning, is it ok to do another now?
Follow scpions advice above, and no a water change will not hurt. You need to get those levels down. Only way to do that is water changes. Hopefully permanent damage has not been done.
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Mbu not well-help!

Post by Pufferpunk »

I would do a 80% WC now & another one tonight. Do you have a Python?
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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