What could this be??

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.
kass
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Post by kass »

Sorry for your loss.
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Boxermom
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Post by Boxermom »

Aww, I'm so sorry. :(
dechlorinator is ok for chlorine and chloramines, but heavy metals like copper, lead etc. cannot be made completely harmless, as well as some organic substances. Heavy metals are only immobilized to a certain extent. contents harmless for humans can harm fish. So, the tap water remains a possible source.
She stated she uses AquaPlus, which also neutralizes heavy metals. I believe most of the most commonly used declorinators do.
Tina

Puffers: Auriglobus silus x1, Tetraodon travancoricus x1, Tetraodon turgidus x1, Tetraodon miurus x1, Tetraodon nigroviridis x2, Tetraodon baileyi x2, Tetraodon lineatus x1, Tetraodon palembangensis x1
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Corvus
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Post by Corvus »

Boxermom wrote:
She stated she uses AquaPlus, which also neutralizes heavy metals. I believe most of the most commonly used declorinators do.
It is impossible to neutralize heavy metals, whatsoever the producers promise.

They only can be immobilized, meaning they are bound (most often in chemical complexes) and remain in the ground. You can believe me that, I've worked in geochemistry with regard to residual pollution of former military camps.

The most modern way (if several years of time are available) to instantly remove heavy metals is to grow certain plants such as reed or mustard plant. They bind certain heavy metals while growing. Later the plants are ripped out, burned and the ashes go to the special waste dump. This one way of "natural attenuation". If it has to go fast, polluted material has to go to the special waste dump completely, which is much more expensive.
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Myaj
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Post by Myaj »

I'm sorry Pandora!

Completely disinfecting the tank and letting it run fallow for a while is probably a very good idea. I'm sure your next few weeks are going to be extremely busy anyways!
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Pandora114
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Post by Pandora114 »

Yeah and we just got some snails from the LFS to get a breeding...Bubbles got one per day but we lost too many due to the wrong type filter / water changes to make a sustainable population

So by the time we have a real decent feedable snail pop going on, we'll have another fish.
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