Sick Fish....HELP!!

excal88

Actually, there are a few natural ways of lowering your pH. One is the addition of drift wood, and letting the tannins leak out into the water. It'll make the water brown though. Another is the use of peat moss, or a peat ball, and you let it soak and it'll bring down your pH as well. Finally, which is the way that I use, is the mixture of RO or distilled water with tap water. I use something like .5-1 gallon of tap water for 4-5 gallons of RO/distilled water. I mix the two, use my dechlorinator, and then when I do water changes I use the mixture. It'll slowly bring down the pH, but it'll take some time. My tap water pH was between 8.2-8.0, and since using the mixture its gone down to 7.4 or so.

These are natural ways of lowering your pH, and as mentioned, I would not use chemicals as they drop the pH too fast and do not last.

In terms of the cause being a fish disease, that could be the case as well, but you should ask Byron or bettababy. They have a large information pool, so they should help you out in this case if its a fish disease or not. Best of luck!

Michelle9843

My tank seems to be looking at little better. At least no more dead fish over the weekend. I went to my LFS and took in some water as well as the dead fish. They were SHOCKED to say the least, my water was ok considering. They said for my area the PH is normal and everyone here has high PH as we have a very high PH content in our tap water so the fish should be adjusted to that pretty well. As for the nitrate it's come down a little and they said since I have an undergravel filtration system and had to remove the carbon filters to do meds it will bounce around a little as it's not getting as much help, but to keep doing water changes each week after medicating. They advised me to change meds at this point since the ich was getting better and only 1 fish still had signs on it and the tail and fin rot was getting worse. Now they gave me Melafix to use along with some medicated fish food to kill anything internal to see if that helps as I can use both of these together. The fish seem to be acting better as well. Not sure if it's the meds or just weeding out the sick fish?

Yes, we adjust new fish we purchase with a similar process we float them for about 20 min or so to let the water temp adjust, then change out half the water in the bag with tank water and let them sit again for another 20 min then change out half again for another 10-20min before adding them.

Over the weekend we purchased a small tank to use as a QT tank as I have been advised to do this with ANY new fish I purchase. Especially since my tank was doing great until my last purchase of fish...lol We only purchase 2-3 fish at a time, and things were good until the last set we purchased.

As far as the undergravel question you asked, we do a gravel cleaning every month normally, but were told to do it about every 2-3 days while medicating for ich to help remove it from the gravel.

Here is our current set-up:

55gallon with underwater gravel filtration with 2 tubes w/ carbon and 2 additional powerheads for water filtering flow
2- Blue Gourami
1- Gold Gourami
1- Dwarf Paradise Gourami
1- Dwarf Gourami
2- Cory Cats
2- Rosy Barbs
4- Platy's
5- Tiger Barbs
6- Head & Tail Lights
1- Red Tail Shark

Temp Housing: 1- Tinfoil Barb (Baby) and 1- Bala Shark (Baby)
**We are currently in the process of cycling a larger tank for these two so they will not stay in this tank long.

Michelle9843

OK, so after some great questions and a wonderful LFS "new friend" It seems I had a few issues but all is FINALLY well. The PH doesn't seem to be the issue, the test strips I was using was and a few pieces of rock. Upgraded to a liquid test kit (much better) and removed 3 pieces of ordametal coral rock I had in the tank and we are back in business. Ph is now between 7.2-7.4 depending, but looking good and steady. The fish have been treated with Melafix and a Internal Parasite Food Medication and they seem happy and health. Also corentiened the last fish with signs of Ick and after 2 weeks is doing great back in the main tank.

The only issue I am now having just started recently (last 2-3 days) my most active Paradise Gourami seems to be hiding and his colors are getting darker??? I had a "fish friend" tell me he's fine?? He's eating but is not nearly as active as he use to be.

As for the bio-load with this many fish in a 55 gallon, my tank seems to be handling it ok for now. We have invested in 2 canister filter systems just in case though. I will post some new pictures as soon as possible.

Since this tank's issues started we have now also set up a 30 gallon (soon to be Angel Tank) and a 75 gallon Salt Water tank. Can't wait!!

Michelle9843

Well the tank seems to have corrected itself finally, everyone is happy and health and water is still stable across the board. Doing water changes 1 @ 10% per week and it seems to be doing very well.

MadeInHell

Yeah your PH is very high, it needs to come down if you wanna save the fishies!!!!