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Hi PLease help me if you can.

My problems started here:

http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/The%20Hospital/63596.html?200508291354 and have gone from bad to worse:

Water stats:
For the first time I had no Nitrates this am and ammonia and Nitrates also 0
ph 7
Its possible there may be copper in the water though - could this be a problem?

My Betta was fine this morning then after feeding this am, at midday he was upside down on the floor and have trouble keeping his postition in the water either swimming upside down or on his side. He looked pale and very poorly. He died about 4pm.

I have one emaciated looking young guppy who is now lying on the floor

All the others are behaving normally but my pregnant female guppies have grey patches on their sides.

My albino cory seems to have "papery" patches almost white and some red streaks around his head. He suffered from overheating (see history below) and was seriously overactive until the tank returned to the right temp.

My platies also may be turning darker inside, though its hard to tell. I have been out and bought some Interpet Anti bacterial, I also have swim bladder meds, in fact most meds that I inherited along with the majority of the fish, but I dont know which to use???

All the fish seem a bit constipated and many have a red gill area.

What should I give themplease? I cant decide whether to use the swim bladder remedy or the anti bacterial - or should it be something different?

History:
After getting 5 platies and starting to cycle the tank I had to rescue my sisters fish 7 days ago after the tank had only been set up a week, not ideal in an uncycled tank, I know.

I seperated my male guppies into another tank (they all seem to be fine) on Saturday as the main tank was overcrowded and used a new heater in the main tank which heated the water to 85F even though the gauge on it said 24C. I noticed after a couple of hours luckily, but I cooled the tank down too quickly, I have learned since.
I also planted several plants and the Betta was quite stressed after so I added some Stress Coat.

Please help. Thanks.

PS I have posted this on a couple of other fishy forums - I hope thats ok - in the hope of getting a quick answer from one of them as I am fairly desperate.

It makes me wonder what might have gotten into the tank.
Is there any way that something may have been sprayed, pesticides, airfreshener, cologne anything, near the tank?

It could be stress from the raising and lowering of the tank. It could also be the heater going crazy, and spiking the temp even more.

I would do a 20% water change now, and then for the next following week or so 10% a day, being sure to keep an eye on the temperature and other water parameters. Also as a safety net, be sure to add an airstone or two or more depending on the size of the tank, not the short small ones, but the longer ones...add it to the back and cover it pretty much with substrate/gravel to hide it...gives a nice atmosphere, but also adds oxygen to the water which could also be the problem...

I would also treat with some melafix though this in itself may not help, it won't hurt...

Just my quick thoughts while passing through, heidi

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

Thank you Houston,
I dont have any Melafix, I looked for some in the local pet shop but they just had the Interpet Anti. Int. Bacteria medicine. Should I use that?

Can you get Melafix from LFS or the vet? I have Protozin - is that any good?

I'll follow your advice, thanks again.

Melafix has just started to be sold in my LFS, it might be that yours hasn't caught up yet. (if you are actually living in the UK and not just fromt he UK if you understand!)

I have not had massive success with interpet. give it a go ? I can't remember what protzein is, its strong tho right? is it tablets?

It sounds like some thing short term has happened. i agree with Heidi. keep doing the WC (is your water ok straight out of the tap - no pH problems where is the copper coming from ?)

could the grey patches be the slime coat coming off? I know that happens in Goldfish. <-see what Heidi says to that?

Heidi!!!!!! come back!

GFG
ps

Melafix is for sale on Ebay?

scroll down to find the smaller bottle I had a fit when I saw the big bottle!

http://home-garden.search.ebay.co.uk/melafix_Home-Garden_W0QQfkrZ1QQfromZR8QQsacatZ11700

Last edited by goldfishgeek at 30-Aug-2005 17:22

_______________________________________
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.
Harvey S. Firestone

Yes, I am in the UK.
I have dosed the tank with the Interpet and increased the airflow - its got to be better than doing nothing and it wont harm the filter bacteria,.

Thanks for the link to ebay - dont know why I didn't think of that. I'll get some anyway as it sounds good for the future.
We have well water - so no chlorine etc associated with treated piped water, but our water leaves a blue stain on the bath - copper. I am waiting for the results back from the lab for mineral content and will fit a filter if needed. But that wont happen for a week or two yet.
My Cardinal does not look too hot tonight, fingers crossed.
Thanks to all for your help.

Last edited by shiftingsands at 30-Aug-2005 18:40

Copper poisoning could be a factor, but also well water will need to be tested for the presence of arsenic and cyanides (common in underground water reserves).Uk springwater in particular can have high levels of sulphides, which while of tempoary benefit to humans (people taking the "medicinal" waters in the malverns etc), the sulphides can be fatal to fish.

Wells can also have seasonal influxes in carbonate hardness and lime content in the uk during periods of heavy rain or drought, so if you havent had a complete biochemical analysis of your well water ( aquarium test kits will not detect heavy metals and compound toxins), you could try sending them to your local water board. Even wells will suffer some sedimentary deposition during seasonal changes in the water table, this too can radically affect water chemistry in the well, even the depth of water you draw water from will have different water chemistry , as you may disturb the sediment and the gaseos levels will differ with pressure and depth.


The water agencies in the uk have a commitment to human health issues, and may be glad to test a sample of water from your well- please note that they will not be so happy to test your tankwater so please no-one start thinking that would be a cunning idea . To be safe you may wish to revert to good ol tapwater, for which we have effective conditioners.

Your well water may not be fit for long term human consumption, and fish will be far more sensitive than that.Your fish might be doing you a favour - acting like a miners canary.

It is possible from the symptoms you describe that you have multiple problems- I would also check for the presence of gill flukes and whitespot, bearing in mind that since your well water may have unknown chemicals and compounds in it that may affect the efficacy of medical treatments, I would personally revert to tapwater for the duration of all treatments.


In addition its possible that the well has water reaching it into through cracks and fissures underground ( you cant assume that all of it has been filtered through rock) from other watercourses like rivers and streams, some of which may have living fish in, and so the well water itself could be a source of parasites, certainly most springs and wells in the uk will probably contain leeches of some sort, and these can be a vector for all sorts of parasites. Its easy to miss baby leeches that may be smaller than 1 mm long.

Basically the tapwater in the uk is heavily chlorinated , but this can be removed and at least you know when youve conditioned the water the chlorine will be removed, and your water will be freer of bacteria for the days it spent with chlorine in.It may also test lower for sulphides and heavy metals.

Basically the british tapwater is pretty good stuff, it tests better than most US, australian , and continental european tapwater, especially as concerns lower levels of nitrates and it often tests totally ph neutral.

If you live near major towns that suffer serious air pollution like london , bristol, birmingham, and even northern scotland ( thanks to the pollution having come over the atlantic from the americans and clipping the north coast on its way to devastate woods in the nordic states- gee thanx boys. not.) you may wish to use bottled waters as the nitrate levels may be higher, but even then thats not really neccesary.

Lets be honest, a lot of uk fishkeepers have only really started conditioning tapwater religiously over the last couple of decades , many of them having tropicals, marines ,goldfish and koi nearly as old as themselves ,so how bad can it be?

If your looking specifically for a good natural source of water , you could try collecting rain in a water butt, but even this has drawbacks as some species of fish may miss the trace elements and minerals, but again- these can be added .
A note of caution when collecting water from roofing to a water butt- depending on your roof you may get toxicity- brick, slate and terracotta roofs will be fine- but that old garage roof with tar on it or aluminium or tin roofing on it may give you trace toxins and heavy metals.

Being within atmosheric range of a major town or city may also affect the quality of your rain water, in some areas, particularly with heavy industry, the rain may catch carbon pollution and ammonia compounds as it falls, this basically makes it like acid rain- so again you have to be cautious.
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Hi LHG
Wow thanks for your detailed reply.
Our water situation is that there is no mains/pipe water in my area. I live in the wilds of West Wales in the Preseli mountains and everyone in this area of about 10 sq miles has to have their own water supply. So I cant reosrt to tap water- there isn't any. We are nowhere near any large towns/industrial sites thankfully, though Pembroke/Milford haven are about 60 miles away the prevailing wind ( South westerlies) means we very rarely get wind from the South East to bring pollutants from those towns. Most of the refineries are out of service now anyway.

We do have our water tested annually and the only slight concern was the levels of copper, all the other bio and mineral/heavy metal tests on the water are fine and we have been drinking it for 15 years. However the water does not come from deep down - BUT - we are almost at the top of the mountain and there is no artificial fertilizer/poisons etc aplied to the pasture above us that could drain down into the water.

Our dogs prefer to drink the well water rather than our rain water which we collected from the roof to flush the loo during the drought, so if the dogs dont like it much I figured that it was poorer quality than the well water.

However the well's supply, which we have to share with another large family, was becoming very unreliable. We ran out of water in March after the driest winter since records bagan I believe, and had none until beginning of August- NOT funny I can tell you - and we have sunk a borehole recently at huge expense.
We are awaiting the heavy metals test back from the bore hole sample and will fit whatever filters we need to have the healthiest water possible for us and my fishies.

Its very worrying as there is no guarantee of the water quality when you sink a bore hole - only quantity. We could have spent £5000 just to water the garden.

The tests should be back any day now, fingers crossed.