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29 gallon - Danios
2 5 Gallons - 1 female betta in one and one male in the other
10 gallon - divided in two. 2 Male Bettas

Long story short.

Female betta was in the 29 but I quarented her when she got incredibly fat. She was porcupining - Treated with Parasite Clear now she's very active. No gravel in her tank, btw.

A week after I lost 2 danios, stuck to the filter, nothing seemed wrong. Then Jack ... Almost overnight he went from active to wouldn't leave the bottom, dead by the end of the day (He was in the 10).

The next day I lost Blue (5 gallon tank, male betta) who for days before was having trouble swimming and was always on his side (I thought it was swim bladder) in the same day I found another danio.

So I'm left with an undivided 10 gallon with Huff 'n Puff (male betta).. he started not leaving the bottom and was porcupined so I treated him with Parasite Clear hoping he'd be like the female. He's back to the bottom of the tank tho after a day of being active.. My husband says his eyes are bulgy.

In the 29 gallon is 5 danios .. one is showing a bent spine and one is very thin.

Does it sound like TB? Water changes for the last month have been weekly about 20%. All tanks have been running for almost a year. If it is TB, what do I do?

Last edited by clrentz at 12-Feb-2005 19:15

Last edited by clrentz at 12-Feb-2005 19:17

I like to consider TB dead last since it is relatively incurable.

Can you provide background and environmental data on the tanks? Parameter numbers are helpful, such as ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and temp. Tell us how long the tanks have been set up and a rough explanation of water change routine.

While it does sound like some type of pathogen, lets just rule out environmental issues.

Sure, bent spines can come about with TB. But if a fish is so badly infested with worms as to emaciate and not get nutrients, I'll be a spine could collapse there, as well.

Did you dose all tanks with the Parasite Clear? If not, you may want to consider it. Emaciation often smacks of intestinal parasites. Lets see how that does for starters.

You may also want to put everyone on a diet of Jungle Anti-Bacterial Medicated Food for the minimum number of days on the bottle. With parasites comes infection. That's just too many deaths to do nothing.

If water quality numbers are not where they should be, these would need to be corrected first.

The 29 Gallon was up and running about a week after Mother's Day so about May 14th. So it's actualy only been 7 months? Seems like forever. I'm not sure how accurate these results will be because a few days ago I bought a new filter, an Internal Fluval 3. It's running atm on the lowest setting with the Penguin 170 so I can remove the Penguin in a week or two. I noticed the arched back when I was attaching the new filter.

Preliminary results

29 Gallon
PH 7
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
KH 2
Nitrates - 0

When the betta in the divided 10 died I removed the divider, did a good cleaning and removed the filter. The filter media is now in front of the media for the 29. The bio wheel might have got stuck, but shouldn't the media from the 10 still have nitrates?

10 Gallon

Again, I don't know how accurate this will be as the filter has been removed and the divider. It was originally diveded into three housing Jack (dead), Blue (dead) and Huff 'n Puff (Ill). This was all done 4-5 months ago. When Blue started to show stress he was put into his own 5 gallon and the divider was taken out. H 'n P had the big side of the tank. Blue seemed fine a week later.

PH 6.9
KH 2
Nitrite 0
Ammonia - 0 Slight green tint
Nitrate 0

5 Gallon
This houses the female, it's only been up for a few weeks.

PH 6.6
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 2.0
Nitrate 5.0
KH 1

So how is that possible? She has no gravel and no filter (and heater of course). All she has is a flower pot thingy and a plastic plant.

Tap water
PH 7.1
KH 1-2

The last set has me thinking I need to go buy a whole new master kit. I hope I'm wrong! After typing this out I can also see how much stress these fish have had .. especially the bettas.

I hope this all made sense cuz it took me almost 2 hours to do all that testing!

Edited : Food, bettas eat Nutrafin Betta Food, danios eat Wardly Tropical flakes. Occasional treat is frozen brine shrimp.

Water changes are weekly, 20% for the 29 and for the now unfiltered bettas, as much as I can change without removing them. The 10 gallon has a few walmart plants and the 29 gallon has some as well. About a week ago I removed a bunch of plants.

Last edited by clrentz at 13-Feb-2005 11:25

Last edited by clrentz at 13-Feb-2005 11:27

Last edited by clrentz at 13-Feb-2005 11:33

Do what you must to get the ammonia and nitrite back to zero. You can use a product like Prime which will "remove" a certain amount, but don't go more than 2 drops per gallon in one day. Do that daily for a couple days, but then let it be. You may get a false positive ammonia reading and maybe not. Watch the fish.

Add some bacterial starter like Cycle.

I believe the kH needs a boost. But, I would encourage you to make a separate post in the water quality forum - just copy those values over and ask how much baking soda you should add to buffer that kH. It will alter pH and we don't want to go more than 0.2 in 24 hours on the pH. Therefore, find out if anyone in water quality has done this and how much. You can add the baking soda right to one of your water change bottles after shaking it up. However, to maintain your kH, you will need to eventually find the right balance of baking soda to add to your tanks during water changes. I'm not the best person to sort that out .