Need some urgent help, please!

[bassbonediva]

Hey all. As I've mentioned before I have nine female bettas in a 46gal bowfront tank. They were all doing really well until this morning. My crimson female is swimming on her side and acting kind of lethargic. She's usually one of the more fiesty of the females and will nip my finger if I put it in the water, but this morning she just struggled to swim up to the top to get some air, then drifted back down. She's also turned a very dark crimson, which usually she's more of a bronzish-red than pure red. The only thing even remotely different in the tank is that I floated one of my small males in the tank in an acrylic pet carrier (with a lid) because the water in his tank was too cold and I had no way to heat it, and he got out sometime during the night. All of the females are ignoring him completely, however, so I don't think that's it. Not sure what my levels are at (used to last of my test kit when I set up the tank and haven't had the money to go get another kit), but my water is crystal clear and I have a Penguin 170 filter running on the tank. Any thoughts would be immensely appreciated! Thanks!

 

[OrangeCones]

It's hard to say without the test results. The water being 'crystal clear' is not an indication of healthy water.

If you cannot get the water tested at a local fish store or get your own kit again, I'd do daily water changes to try to dilute what may be causing distress.

 

[sheamurai]

Just a thought, but if she was the feisty one she was probably the dominant female - and sticking a male in there perhaps being as they both would likely try to boss the other, maybe she got the short end of the stick and is wilting. I'd try seperating the male out again. I had one male react like that to being bullied - just went listless and looked like he was just giving up. I got him his own tank and he went back to being feisty again. I'm not sure if just separating him would be enough if thats the problem, if you can I would try taking him out for a day and see if she perks up.

 

[bassbonediva]

I'm not too sure she was the dominant female, to be honest. She tended to hide more than the others when they were in their smaller tank (18gal). However, she may be the dominant once since she's one of the few of the larger females in the tank that hasn't had her fins nipped at one point or another. I'll try taking the male out and see if that helps. I'll also see if I can get my water tested at the local fish store. Thanks, guys! Everyone else in the tank is still doing great, except for my crowntail female is now acting kind of listless as well. Hopefully I can get this sorted out.

 

[bassbonediva]

K, so I got my water tested at my local fish store and it was WAY out of whack. pH was horrific, as were nitrates and nitrites. So, I'm working on getting the tank balanced out. Hopefully that'll take care of my girls not feeling good.

 

[sheamurai]

Glad that you found the problem. Seems to be that whenever there's something wrong going on in your tank, the first thing you should do is check water quality. The more I read on here the more evident that becomes.

 

[bassbonediva]

I've been using the stuff the fish store recommended to balance my pH and everything was kosher for the first couple of days, but then I got home from school and work today and my tank is WAY cloudy! Is that normal?

 

[ValRasbora]

it might be a bacteria bloom. did you cycle your tank? and is your pH too high or too low?

 

[bassbonediva]

My pH was really high, which caused my nitrates and nitrites to be through the roof as well. The water is kind of starting to clear up on its own, but now I'm getting brown algae a little bit and the water looks almost muddy. I let the tank run for about a week before I put the fish in, which I know isn't the best, but I've NEVER had a problem with any of my tanks before and I always do the same thing (have a Hex5 and had an Eclipse 1 18gal system before I got the 46gal). I lost the female I was worried about yesterday morning. I went to feed them and she was dead in the bottom of the tank. None of the other fish seem affected, though, not even my oto cats, which everyone claims are uber-sensitive to everything. I'm getting a little frusterated since it seems like what was supposed to help fix my tank made everything worse.

 

[RexyTexel]

You shouldn't be messing with your pH. Using chemicals to push it up and down tends to make your fish even more sick or kill them. I usually tell my customers to leave it alone(I work at Petsmart) also don't let them sell you any sort of clarifiers or pH "stablizers" like pH up/down. It's un-needed.

I've never read pH having any sort of relation to nitrates/nitrites. Those levels go up when you're not cleaning your tank out properly and enough. I do weekly water changes and have almost never had a nitrite or ammonia spike. Freshwater(as in water changes) is some of the best "over the counter" medicine for fish. Especially when it's something like an ammonia/nitrite/nitrate spike. Did you remove the filter cartridge and change it out for a new one when you added the chemicals to your tank? That could have likely led to your milky water. It's a bacteria bloom because by removing the filter cartridge you're removing the main source of bacteria that break down the ammonia and nitrite. So now your tank is going through a "mini cycle"

 

[bassbonediva]

Great. Well, I stopped using the pH balancer right away because I thought that might be part of the problem. I'm going to strip down the tank completely 'cuz it's REALLY dirty now (there's a white filmy dust covering everything) and start over.

 

[beckyd]

Not recommended. The white filmy dust is all the minerals your ph lowering chemicals pulled out. A total water change could cause too big of a ph change for your fish and kill them. It also forces you to recycle from scratch. Do partial water changes-10-25% for several days in a row and let everything calm down. The minerals will redissolve and the white dust will disappear. The ph will gradually go back up, but at a safe speed for your fish to acclimate. Keep your nitriates/nitrates in order with water changes and leave the ph alone from now on. Lower ph has stability problems anyway. And keeping stable ph that is different from your tap water is really tricky for your fish. Its not worth it. My betta is surprisingly healthy and content with a ph around 8.

 

[Newman]

you dont have to start over. in fact that would just take longer. let everything settle down in terms of ammonia and nitrite, and then water change out the nitrate. then add some snails to clean up the gunk that grwos everywhere and after that youre ready for fish.

while its cycling keep adding ammonia and checking those levels. when you see your ammonia dipping to 0 then add a few drops daily and test. if for some reason you start getting aroun 4-5 ppm then stop adding ammonia and wait. ammonia should just go down to 0 instead of rising as a result of daily adding of ammonia. start testing nitrite as well once the ammonia starts to drop to 0. those will likely be high for a few days. keep adding ammonia like i mentioned (this is important as you can tell) and soon the nitrite will drop. when youre still adding daily drops of ammonia and are getting 0 ammo and 0 nitrite, do a huge water change and wait a day. add a few drops of ammonia again lol. and test nitrate on the second day. it should read low. if it doesnt read below 20ppm then do another water change and wait another day again. check then. when theyre lower than 20 ppm you ARE READY FO FISH *BOUNCINGS
I call this training your bio filter for a large bio load by constantly adding 5-6 drops of ammonia daily (depends on the size of your tank. i added 5 frops daily for a ten gallon and it all worked out) this allows you to add fish to a filter thats actually ready for all the crap they can produce *laughingc

So theres little need to start over. best of luck to you.

 

[Newman]

and i dont even know why i wasted my time and gave you all that advice when you still have fish in your tank... DOH
i shoulda read more carefully. just do water changes =/

 

[bassbonediva]

K, about the snails (if you still recommend them)? What kind? I had a black mystery snail in one of my tanks (my old 18gal) and a gold mystery snail in one of my other tanks (my Hex5) and right after I put them in their respective tanks, I had massive amounts of green algae. Removed the snails, scrubbed down the tanks with white vinegar and hot water (and all the decorations...even had to change the gravel in the Hex5 it was so bad) and no more algae. That's why I got the oto cats, to help control the algae. I had a pleco, but he fouled the filter in the 18gal (it was an Eclipse 1 system) and made the tank absolutely filthy, not to mention he went from being about 2.5in to outgrowing the tank at 5in in about a month.