R.I.P to my male peppy

R.I.P to my male peppermint bristlenose, not to sure what happened to him he was fine this morning when I left for work and than I come home and he was just sitting there with a big white patch on his tail and than his fins where gone and could see red blood under the skin or grazes or something and the female trying to eat him so I gently moved him and than he just slowly stopped moving and started floating but still breathing so he just passed than poor guy

mate, bad luck. I just had a look at the pic you sent. Looks like it could have been velvet or maybe finrot. What are the nitrate readings?

There all fine 0ppm and 0ppm and 0ppm, yeah he was fine this morning than when I got home real sick, I'm having the worst luck ATM with my fish

Brandon1993 wrote:

There all fine 0ppm and 0ppm and 0ppm, yeah he was fine this morning than when I got home real sick, I'm having the worst luck ATM with my fish

I'm so sorry Brandon!

Was he from the same tank that has the white spot/ich breakout? How/with what are you treating that? Even if he wasn't, it's all to easy to contaminate your other tanks before you even realize you have it in the first one, so I'd keep a close eye on any other fish. If the tank is now empty, don't add any fish for at least a couple weeks -without a host the ich parasite can't complete it's life cycle and will die off.
Oh, I just reread and see there is a female in the tank. Best keep a very close eye on her.

What kind of test kit are you using? If the tank is truly cycled you really shouldn't be getting a zero nitrate reading unless you just did a massive water change, like 95%, but even then there is usually a trace amount. Have the nitrates been consistently zero?

Again, so sorry about your luck, it can seem overwhelming but I'm sure you'll figure it out and get things stabilized. Keep posting updates so everyone can help if possible. We've all been there

Sarah

Hey Sarah
No he wasn't from the same tank, he was in his own tank with a female and I've been trying to trigger them, the tank that had the white spot is my fry tank and than it had a ph increase as well because my tap waters ph went up so I lost a few fry and the white spot seems to be going away, I'm using waterlife maxzin or something like that, I use the api test kits, one question again if the tap water is showing a high ph high range ph level, how can you lower the ph before putting it into your fish tank as that's the only water available to me at the moment

Brandon1993 wrote:

Hey Sarah
No he wasn't from the same tank, he was in his own tank with a female and I've been trying to trigger them, the tank that had the white spot is my fry tank and than it had a ph increase as well because my tap waters ph went up so I lost a few fry and the white spot seems to be going away, I'm using waterlife maxzin or something like that, I use the api test kits, one question again if the tap water is showing a high ph high range ph level, how can you lower the ph before putting it into your fish tank as that's the only water available to me at the moment

What is the PH of your tap water? I have well water and it fluctuates with the season, (pretty alkaline in summer, neutral to slightly acid in winter) but it's not off the chart, so I don't try to fight it. The fish adjust fine. The problem with artificially adjusting the PH is that it doesn't stay, you have to keep trying to hold it where you want it. That can cause rapid changes, and that is really hard on fish- it's much better to have it stable, even if it's not "ideal". And don't test your waters PH straight from the tap- it needs to sit for a day or two for an accurate reading.
If you feel you must lower the PH, you can add peat, either in the filter or in a media bag hung in the tank. It's tricky though, it can lower it too much or too fast, you have to monitor things closely. There are also methods of using peat to treat water outside the tank to use, but again, unless it's extreme I'd leave it alone.

I'm still concerned with your lack of nitrate. It indicates the biofilter isn't active, or you are keeping the tank so clean there is nothing feeding any nitrifying bacteria. In either case you may be experiencing mini-cycles, which are stressful for fish.

I don't know what other kind of water issues you may have in your country or particular area? Is the water extremely hard? Chlorinated? Fluoridated? Can you collect clean rain water? Does it rain enough there for that?

That's all I can think of for now, Sarah

Well I must be keeping it to clean because I always want it looking nice, what should I do to ge the bio up in my tanks and how do istop them from being to clean, ill find out what l them are, they used to be 7.0 but one day they went up to just over 7.6

The tank that's effected has been set up for about 6 months but I do make sure it's clean, how do you clean it enough but not to much

Hi Brandon

If you read the thread "two bristlenose died " under Bristlenose Issues there is a lot of information about encouraging the growth of nitrifying bacteria. Another aquarist was getting zero nitrate readings.

As for the small rise in PH, I wouldn't worry or attempt to change that at all. 7.6 is not bad at all, mine gets well over 8 in the summer months, and even the 100% wild blood Peru angelfish adjust and even spawn at that.

Sarah

Alright will do, we'll last time I did a water change my fry started getting spirals and crashing and dying so I had to get some water from doug, so that's the only problem with the water ph, thanks for your help again your so helpful

I read that, very helpful I have been slowly taking out small amounts of gravel at every water change as mine is to deep and I vaccum all over the tank, I have never cleaned my filter but I took the carbon and zeolite out as the medication said to, when I've done medicating ill put some new media in the ones that I took out, and get some established gravel or media from someone and let the bio build up, any suggestions on what else to do

Brandon1993 wrote:

I read that, very helpful I have been slowly taking out small amounts of gravel at every water change as mine is to deep and I vaccum all over the tank, I have never cleaned my filter but I took the carbon and zeolite out as the medication said to, when I've done medicating ill put some new media in the ones that I took out, and get some established gravel or media from someone and let the bio build up, any suggestions on what else to do

If you've been regularly removing a thin layer of gravel off the surface I would stop. If the gravel is too deep, I would just remove as much as you need to all at once from the area nearest your filter intake, and spread it out again to the correct depth.
You definitely don't need zeolite in a lightly or normally stocked tank, that will just deprive your bacteria (and live plants if you have them) of needed food. Zeolite is useful as a temporary aid in a very heavily overstocked tank until you can lighten the bioload.
You mentioned medication. What type and when? If it affects the bio-filter (many do) then you will have to basically almost start over cycling the tank once you have removed the medication with carbon and water changes. Other than for removing medication, you don't need carbon either. Put some extra sponge in where the carbon would go if possible.
A very small bag of peat in your filter generally won't cause a rapid drop in PH, but it does soften and acidify it a bit as well as adding organic substances that Amazon fish like, similar to what bog wood does including tinting the water if you want to try that after the medication is cleared. Don't use peat and carbon at the same time.
Good luck and keep us posted, Sarah

Hey Sarah, well I have been ducking it up through a hose and than leaving it so ill just take out as much as I want, my tap water went up because the filter is out of date so ill get a new filter for my tap water than the ph of that should be ok again, I have a eheim 2028 and I'm not sure what's in it, what would be the best filter media for it, it has 3 container kind of things for media and than a sponge kind of thing goes in between each

And I can move them all to an established tank till I get this one established and get the bacteria up with better media

You may want to fill the first media compartment the water enters with something cheap and disposable (filter floss, pond filter fiber, whatever you want really) and then the other two with sponge, going from larger pore to a very fine pore sponge last. You can also use ceramic rings, but IMO you can't beat sponge for bio-filtration, so I don't use those much.

Sarah

Can you use the ceramic rings as well as the sponge because ATM it has like balls than a sponge kind of thing on top every compartmen

Just checked my levels and the no2-0ppm no3-0ppm ammonia-0ppm ph-7.0

Brandon1993 wrote:

Can you use the ceramic rings as well as the sponge because ATM it has like balls than a sponge kind of thing on top every compartmen

Sure... any of that is good. Just take care to only rinse it or squeeze it out in tank water, (it doesn't need to be ultra clean, a bit of build up is desirable) and never let it dry out. You should be fine.

Sarah

Alright easy thanks for your help and your always so helpful