Looking for fish tank advice

[WelshOneEmma]

Hi there,

I have tried getting advice from a forum dedicated to fish but they haven't been much help, and it's really hard to find your way around it!

We have a 190l corner tank, with jewel filter (came with the tank). It is a coldwater tank, in the corner of a sunny living room. Has two lights in the top cover. We have a sand bottom, with some roman theme sculptures and a fake plant (real ones never last more than a day). We currently have 2 chinese goldfish, a fancy goldfish, 3 normal goldfish, 2 plecs, 2 loaches and 2 tiny minnows in there. We tested the water two days ago and the levels were as follows: Nitrate 5.0 ppm, Nitrite 0, Ammonia 1.0 ppm and pH 6.0. We have since done a 25% water change.

I noticed one of the goldfish had what looked like blood in it's fin, so treated with Melafix and this has since gone away. I then noticed that the smaller plec had lost the skin on the tip of its tail, leaving the bone sticking out at the end and have been trying to figure out what this could be. After the water change, my boyfriend added some anti-algae stuff to the water. One of the smaller (4 inches) goldfish had been hanging out at the top of the tank lately, and after the water change went mental, swimming really fast into the side of the tank, trying to swim backwards etc. Turning the lights off calmed him down.

When I turned their lights on in the morning and went to feed them, I noticed that the goldfish's bottom fins seemed shredded - like he had lost some of the skin in between the bones? they almost now looked like fingers. This had also happened to his tail fin, and he lost a load of scales at the base of his tail. We removed the fish and put it into a hospital tank. When I got home that night, the fish was at the bottom of the hospital tank, dead. Looked like there was internal bleeding.

The other fish in the tank seem fine, eating well and swimming around as normal, but I have just checked the levels in the tank and they are now through the roof (Ammonia 4.0 ppm, Nitrate 20 ppm, Nitrite 1.0 ppm and pH 6.0). We will do another water change. Any idea what could have caused the shredded fins?

 

[gary1621]

Hmmm, i'll go have a look through my fish book for you now... just wanted to ask what the temp reading is?
You said they are in a sunny room, and what with our good weather recently, it could be a factor

 

[WelshOneEmma]

Don't know what the temp is. Just a normal coldwater tank. In the corner of the living room, but no sun on the actual tank. It is lukewarm to the touch.

 

[gary1621]

Try and get a reading, you'd be surprised how high water can get and how quickly it can change. This can cause stress to the fish which weakens their immune systems.

Have you introduced any new fish to your tank?
They could have been carrying a parasite or some bacteria.

Bacteria and parasites are often present in a tank but they arent always harmful but with the temperature changes and the effects on the immune systems they are able to take hold and attack our fish.

 

[WelshOneEmma]

Nope, the fish that died was the one that was last introduced, 9 months ago. Most of the fish in the tank I have had for quite a few years ago. The oldest in the tank are about 9 years old. I have been trying to figure out what it could be, but it's not like anything I have seen before.

 

[Crazy Pet Lady]

I've been "fishy" for 30 years. I think your problem is probably water quality and the residents of the tank. Do not put algae control products in the tank. The plecos need algae and they also should have a piece of driftwood in there as they like (need) to suck on it for nutrition. A MUST. Then I would suspect that they (plecos) are sucking on your goldies at night. The algae control products also prevent real plants from flourishing. If algae is a real problem, get more real plants. (The plecos are probably eating the real plants, they need green.) Try supplementing them with algae wafers or another plant based food. Or turn down the lighting some. (one bulb instead of two) The Melafix is a great product, but should be used carefully, even tho it is "natural". A small amount of salt added to the water is also good, improves gill function, reduces stress and kills bacteria. Up to a teaspoonful per gallon. The tail looking like bones is the soft tissue being eaten away. You may have to remove the plecos to a different tank if they continue to hurt the goldies. Hope this helps. Peace.

 

[WelshOneEmma]

I've been "fishy" for 30 years. I think your problem is probably water quality and the residents of the tank. Do not put algae control products in the tank. The plecos need algae and they also should have a piece of driftwood in there as they like (need) to suck on it for nutrition. A MUST. Then I would suspect that they (plecos) are sucking on your goldies at night. The algae control products also prevent real plants from flourishing. If algae is a real problem, get more real plants. (The plecos are probably eating the real plants, they need green.) Try supplementing them with algae wafers or another plant based food. Or turn down the lighting some. (one bulb instead of two) The Melafix is a great product, but should be used carefully, even tho it is "natural". A small amount of salt added to the water is also good, improves gill function, reduces stress and kills bacteria. Up to a teaspoonful per gallon. The tail looking like bones is the soft tissue being eaten away. You may have to remove the plecos to a different tank if they continue to hurt the goldies. Hope this helps. Peace.

We have tried keeping plants in the tank, but they only ever last a few days at most. The goldfish destroy them (I have tried keeping plants since i got the goldfish, only had the plecs maybe 2 1/2 years) so we have given up on plants. We do have some structures in there that have some algae on that i have seen the plecs munching on. We also feed them the plec wafers. I sometimes put peas or cucumber in the tank for the other fish, but make sure to remove any left over bits. We are doing another partial water change tonight. I very rarely use the melafix, and now the fish is better we have stopped using it. It was only that one goldfish. The thing that was most disturbing was the swimming full on, head first into the sides of the tank. Was very strange. Thanks for everyone's advice so far!

 

[Redeye]

I maintain fish tanks for a living for about 6 years now, and have always had fish tanks all my life, I grow corals for extra income.
IMO, goldfish should only be kept with goldfish and other pond fish that can survive well with ammonia readings. Ammonia is highly toxic at any level, Goldys can deal with it, as can most Carp and catfish. It may not be whats killing, but the stress of it will lead to declined health of all fish in tank (domino effect)
You can run some Ammonia absorbing media in your filters or just simply remove the loachs.
Add some salt, it's AMAZING what salt does to gold fish
Use Aquarium Salt, 1/2cup per 10g (sorry, don't know conversions)

 

[Pure]

As long as there are plecos in there do not, I repeat do not add any salt!

I'll post a bit more later. There has been some good and some bad advice given here.

edit: Ok sorry I was in a rush earlier. I also should have said less than accurate advice not bad advice.

You have a few things going on here. For starters if the smallest goldie is 4 inches in a 190L (50 gal) tank plus the plecs you are way over stocked. Goldies, as I'm sure you know are massive waste producers as are the plecs. At most you should have no more than 2 full grown fancy goldies and maybe 1 plec. The comets (standards) need to go. Your tank doesn't''t have enough swimming room for them to be happy and not to mention they should be allowed to get to full size and that is well over 12 inches. Since I'm on the subject of your stocking, the loaches really need to go as well. Unless they are hillstream loaches they are tropical and not meant for cold water. They are also a schooling species and really should have more of the same species to really be comfortable. I'm not picking on you about your stock just trying to inform you.

The blood in the fins and then in the body (internal bleeding) is a symptom of ammonia poisoning. Wile gold fish can deal with ammonia levels better than most fish it will eventually take it's toll. The shredded fins could be a couple of things. The plecs may not have liked him hanging out in their territory. Or more likely, the fish was on his last leg and wile sitting on the bottom the loaches decided to take some nips out of him. Most species of loaches (you didn't specify what species these are) are notorious fin nippers and your little guy not being able to get away from them fell victim to them.

You need to figure out where your ammonia problem is coming from. My thoughts on this are 3 fold. First and for most your stocking is more than your filter can handle. Second you need to check your tap water. Some tap water is treated with chloromine (chlorine and ammonia combined) and once dosed with chlorine remover it will leave ammonia behind. These 2 things alone or combined are probably the reason for your pre water change readings. And finally the addition of the algae remover cause a die off of what algae you had in the tank adding to the load of the filter resulting in the level spike after the water change.

The algae remover was probably also the reason your guy, who already wasn't doing well (weakened immune system) to "freak out" Those algae removing products are poison and wile listed as "safe for aquarium use" really should never be put in a tank with other living organisms. Had you not had bullet proof fish to begin with you would have probably had much worse results when using it. I know I have.

To fix this you need to get rid of some of the fish and do an initial 50% water change stopping during refill after 25% of the water is returned and waiting about an hr before doing the other 25%. Then keep up daily 25% water changes until your ammonia readings are 0.0ppm. If your tap water has ammonia in it, the levels won't be high enough to cause much damage provided your filter is not over worked to begin with. It should be able to handle the added ammonia and convert it to nitrate before any of the remaining fish show signs of stress. Plants are a good way of removing nitrates but as you already found out won't really work with carp. They will eagerly shred any plants you put in there. Some plants like anubias and java fern might make it. But both are such slow growers they don't help with nitrates.

Some thoughts on salt. Carp and African cichlids are one of the only species/genus of FW fish that seem to benefit from the addition of salt. But IME regular water changes are just as good. The salt just seems to allow the fish to tolerate poor water quality better. As for the plecs. Well they come from an environment almost void of all mineral content. I've seen salt kill plecs. Commons, as they have been bred in captivity for so long are more tolerant of it. But that doesn't mean it does them any good. The use of salt is a highly debatable subject but for what it's worth, for all other FW fish besides the 2 I mentioned there is more out there showing it having no effect or actually doing harm than there is documented cases of it doing any good. In fact the only proven thing it has been shown to help are external parasite infestations, like an ich outbreak.

Provided with the proper conditions (good water quality) This is the potential size your fancy goldies have. I doubt you will see this as your fish are most likely already stunted to some degree.

 

[WelshOneEmma]

Wow Pure! You seem to know fish!

We had actually done a 25% water change before I saw your edited reply. We will do another in a couple of days. We always use Tap Safe and Stress zyme in all our water changes. We have also replaced all filter media.

With regards to the plecs, when we bought them we stated the size of the tank etc, but nothing was mentioned about them being too big for the tank, and that there shouldn't be more than one, but that's Pets at Home for you. This is the first problem I have had in two years. I actually think it's the English fish, as that was the one that died. The welsh fish have been going strong for 9 years now, and have travelled all over the country and survived (that was a joke before anyone jumps on me, well, to a degree anyway). We will carry on trying to cycle the tank and when spare cash allows, buy a new, larger tank. Everytime i buy a new tank, the fish get bigger! Although the biggest fish is only about 6 inches. My favourite fish, Eve (another 'common' goldfish) was about 8 inches long and died of cancer a few years ago. Was devastating. (for the record we had her lump biopsied, but it was in an area where they couldn't remove it).

Thank you everyone for your help.

 

[Pure]

Thanks Emma, I try. There is a lot to know. Running my breeding projects gave me one hell of a crash course.

Tossing the filter media was a bad idea as long as you are seeing any ammonia, no matter how small. Now you have fresh media that is going to take about a month to recolonize with bacteria. Next time just give it a good swish in the used tank water. For now don't gravel vac or clean the filter until you are no longer seeing ammonia/nitrie. Tossing filter media is how you handle high nitrates but doesn't help with ammonia.

Also toss the stress zyme in the bin. It's only really useful application is when shipping or transporting fish. In a tank it does more harm than good. Especially if you are having cycle issues. Stress Zyme/stress coat are aloe based products that once put in your water will begin breaking down adding to the ammonia, adding to the stress on your bio filter. And lastly the benefits of this product can be achieved with regular frequent water changes. Just use plain ol dechlorinator. Nothing more.

In my original post I forgot to mention, that using that ammonia locking filter media is often a bad idea. It does work, but often what happens is once it is full it can't absorb any more ammonia. The now over abundant ammonia in the water can't be immediately converted to nitrates causing another spike. That is usually handled by the filter within a day or so. Sometimes longer depending on the previous load on the filter.

You really need to be doing 25% daily. As long as you are seeing ammonia your fish are in danger.

I also forgot..Dojo loaches make for an awesome cold water loach and do well in smaller groups, long term.

 

[WelshOneEmma]

I don't know what loaches they are to be honest. An old boyfriend chose them about 6 years ago. I wasn't keen as they look like eels. One has lost an eye now and looks like one of the eels from the little mermaid! Also, the goldfish are pretty much just plain goldfish, no real fancy ones, but like I said, they are welsh and therefore hardcore!

When i said replaced the filter i should have been more clear, we had replaced most of the media a couple of weeks ago, as it was due a replacement. When we did the water change and put the algae control in, my boyfriend removed the carbon one as thats what it said on the box. We have now put the carbon one back in. I will carry on with the daily water changes until we are back to zero.

 

[Pure]

Those are dojo's! Mine always would always burrow under the gravel. Great animals! Wile they aren't big fin nippers they will take advantage of an injured fish.

If you continue having ammonia readings, upping your filtration should fix it. We all over stock to some degree. That's why I wanted to stress to you that I wasn't picking on you. My 90 with all the plecs is over stocked. But I'm also running 2 fluval 404 canisters and 2 of the large penguin HOBs. My filtration is a bit over kill but it's because the Royal is a wood eater (the genus name panaque mean canoe eater) and if I don't have this much filtration the saw dust in the tank becomes a problem. It's really a matter of matching your bio-active filter media with your stocking level.

Keep me posted on how things go.

 

[WelshOneEmma]

So, trying to be proactive here. It's obvious I need to upgrade my tank. Assuming i keep all of them together, how big does the tank need to be? I currently have the following:

2x dojo's (plain old loaches). One about 4 inches, other about 4.5 inches long
2 x common plecs, one about 4.5 inches, the other about 5 inches
2 x chinese goldfish, about 9 years old, both about 6 inches long
1 x fancy fish, about 3.5 inches
2 x common goldfish, one about 6 inches, the other about 3.5 inches
2 x minnows (they are the only ones that survived, i think the bigger fish ate the other 12)

do i need a tank the size of a small castle for those?!

 

[Pure]

A 90 gallon would have enough capacity. But not enough floor space/foot print/swimming room. 90s have the same footprint as a 75 (4' by 2') just taller. Really to keep all of what you have at full grown size, you need a 125. 125s are 6 ft long and 2 feet deep. Plenty of room for everyone including the plecs.

With a tank that large you could add couple more fish.

The cheapest rout would be to split everyone up into 3 tanks. The one you have for the fan tails, and the rest into two 55s. Again you could add more fish to the 55s. 55s are commonly sold second hand. They are one of the most mass produced tanks out there so they are a dime a dozen. New ones here go for just 100 bucks. I can find complete used setups with stand, filter, etc for 150 all day long.

 

[WelshOneEmma]

A 90 gallon would have enough capacity. But not enough floor space/foot print/swimming room. 90s have the same footprint as a 75 (4' by 2') just taller. Really to keep all of what you have at full grown size, you need a 125. 125s are 6 ft long and 2 feet deep. Plenty of room for everyone including the plecs.

With a tank that large you could add couple more fish.

The cheapest rout would be to split everyone up into 3 tanks. The one you have for the fan tails, and the rest into two 55s. Again you could add more fish to the 55s. 55s are commonly sold second hand. They are one of the most mass produced tanks out there so they are a dime a dozen. New ones here go for just 100 bucks. I can find complete used setups with stand, filter, etc for 150 all day long.

Unfortunately we seem to be more expensive over here, even if second hand. We bought our current tank 3 years ago, and paid £360 (it was brand new). I think we will be looking at maybe £1000 for a 6ft tank. I don't fancy separating them and having multiple tanks around the house. On another note, just tested the water; ammonia is 2.0 ppm, nitrate 10 ppm, nitrite 0.5 ppm and pH is 6.8, so some improvement. Will do another water change now.