Lava

It's been a few days since I last had this post. Just wanted to update.
One Bala died the minute I treated the tank. The Bala that exibit's the problem still has the problem,although now on the other side of it's face. It has white spot/pimples and just on it's head only? Nowhere on the body, or fins. Nobody else is showing this. It's bothering me. The first day I treated for parasites, and now have changed direction completely. Head keep's saying treat for white spot so now that's what I'm sticking to and have been doing for the past two days. I really don't know as I've never seen white spot limited to only the head on a fish. Maybe I should thank my lucky stars that I don't see it on other fishes because my tank isn't heavily infected. I prefer to nip the bud before it get's too big so the minute I ever see anything wrong or different with my fish I'm reacting with something. Reminds me... gotta do some water change today and get treatment back in the tank again. Arggg I hate this stuff.

__________________
29g. Fun Tank 11 guppies, 2 Bala, 1 Siamese Algae Eater, 1 Kribensis, 1 Golden Oto.


14g. 4 young guppies, 1 baby guppy, 1 female guppy.
29g. Tangerine Male Cichlid, Blue Cosby Male Gourami, OB Zebra Male Cichlid, Black Saulosi Male

Tommy Gun

Hey Lava!

First, I apologize for your not getting any replies on this issue yet. I was actually posting to your thread when my account was deleted. I have a few questions that might help you get this sorted out...

Is there any chance that you can get a picture?

How large is your bala shark right now?

How long have you have it?

What are you feeding your fish?

How often are you feeding them?

What are your water parameters normally?

What substrate are you using?

What filtration are you using?

Do you use carbon filtration?

How much carbon do you use?

How often do you change it?

How often do you normally perform water changes?

How often have you been doing water changes lately?

Hopefully the answers to these questions and any other information you can provide and/or think of will get you headed in the right direction.

Lava

It's alright as things happen.

Pictures... I apologize. Kinda crappy for taking tank photo's. Especially when I'm trying to zoom as close as possibly to a fish who is determined to hide everytime I come up to the tank. My digital is 7 years old... back in the day when 1.3 mega pixel's were hot!





Approximately 3"



Around 4 weeks. If I could find the reciept I'd be on that to tell you the exact day.

These guys are fed a tropical flake food, every few days I spread 5 shrimp pellets along the bottom. Occasionally I treat with bloodworms, but mainly reserve those for my gourami.

I feed my fish twice a day. When I get up for work in the morning, and before I go to bed at night. A small pinch as overfeeding is just asking for water trouble. Preferably what they can clear from the surface and floating down in 2 minutes or less.

Here is where it get's dicey. I didn't even know about all the testing kits before I met this forum. All I can tell you is my pH run's in the 8's. Doing awesome on the info tonight.

I use small gravel only.

I have a actual under gravel filtration system. Kind of old school, but it functions quite well. Suck's all the goodies to the bottom through the gravel. Filters the water up from underneath and back up into the filter's and out through the carbons. I'm not saying you wouldn't understand all that, but just wanted to be specific with what I'm dealing with here.

Yes, however I don't have to measure it, being in plastic head attachments it's already figured out. I find that my carbon's are harder to find as it seems these new tanks have these short tubes and fat carbon filter attachments. Mine are tall tubes, and thin carbons.

I like to change them monthly if not bi-monthly at the latest. Same goes for my white tubes in the bottom.

I change anywhere between a half and a quarter of my tank on a month to two month basis. I haven't done close to a half in a few months... my reasoning for so much is because I had actual text book white spot attack and lost a number of my guppies including lava, and my fat little loach. I don't think I'll be buying from that fish store anytime soon. The 3 hour round trip drive isn't worth the diseases.

As of right now daily for the past 4 days. I change a quarter of the water in the tank for fresh to deal with me treating for ick.

I honestly fear it's another outbreak of white spot however at the same time I'm not sure. The spots do not appear to be moving. The spots on the right side are not as easy to see anymore, however the fish now has them on the left side. As you see in the above photograph from the side you can't even see them at all. Head on photo's show them the best on both sides.

I understand that it doesn't have to be showing on fish to still have potential for it to infect weakened or stressed out fish. Being new fish to the tank, it is more than possible that white spot was still evident in my tank from 3 months ago. Back then I treated aggressively with the blue and green stuff and it took me over two weeks to rid the tank of visible white spot, but I continued treatment for almost another week just in case and actually did not do any water changes for a while after that. I assumed that any residual treatment would continue to fight any surving creatures. My carbon's have only returned to the tank for a month before this cropped up. Seems they're spending more time outside the tank than in. I know it's not much help, but I really hope this will be able to be treated with something I have in my arsenal of fish medications. Hopefully without killing everyone in there.

__________________
29g. Fun Tank 11 guppies, 2 Bala, 1 Siamese Algae Eater, 1 Kribensis, 1 Golden Oto.


14g. 4 young guppies, 1 baby guppy, 1 female guppy.
29g. Tangerine Male Cichlid, Blue Cosby Male Gourami, OB Zebra Male Cichlid, Black Saulosi Male

Tommy Gun

Hey Lava - thanks for the info! I have a few ideas for you.....

First, I just want to remind you that fish don't always die because of some sort of illness or parasite. In fact, I am pretty sure I have lost more fish to other reasons that I ever will due to any ailment. The reason I bring this up is because I really feel that your live, and your fishes' lives, are going to be significantly simplified if you test your water. Granted, I realize that a lot of people 'get away' without them, but I am starting to think that your bala shark's problem is, at its core, related to your water.

Was the fish that died much worse than the one in your pictures?
*If not, then I really think the meds may have been a big contributor to that sudden loss.

What are you treating with again? How exactly are you using it? Do you have your water temp up? If so, have you adjusted for the reduced oxygen levels in the water? (meds can also reduce oxygen levels as well, so this is definitely something to look at if you haven't already).

That's ok. How long has the fish had these white spots?

Is there any sort of hole associated with the spots or are they definitely bumps?

If you look real close, do the white spots look sort of 'hairy'?

I agree. You might want to try cutting back by only feeding them once a day. There are at least two ways in which you can overfeed your fish: 1) You add too much food and a lot goes uneaten (not your problem though) and 2) Your fish are eating more food than they have to and hence, are making more wastes which degrade water quality in an aquarium. I realize that your fish probably act as though they are starving every time you walk by the tank, but in reality, this is probably more of a conditioned response because they recognize you as a food source.....sort of like Pavlov's dog. I was once in a very similar situation as you and cutting back to feeding once a day helped a lot. I also think that if you are going to go without the aid of a test kit, you need to more frugal to an extent.

I am glad that you explained that even though I am pretty familiar with UGF's.....I do that to people all of the time. Anyways, even though it would be relatively easy to say that your UGF is one of the most effective methods of biological filtration, there are drawbacks to using them and you hint at one....allowing too many of those 'goodies' to accumulate is going to lead to water quality issues. This is probably why they have fallen out of favor so much; they are hard to maintain without having to rip the tank apart.

I am not trying to imply that you are not maintaining your filter right or anything, but it is yet another thing to think about.

Believe it or not, I think this is your true problem. As you say, it may not be worth the risk to buy fish from a store that is so far away because it is stressful and the fish become more prone to illness (although I bet the same thing can happen if the store was next door). This is definitely the key....keep stress to a minimum.

One of the larger stress-factors our fish endure are water quality issues and I have to be honest, changing half to one quarter of your tank's water volume every one to two months is definitely not a lot for most of us. Without having water test kits, you really can't be 100% sure, but I would think that if you increased those water changes to be 25% every week, you will see a drastic improvement. Even if you are very lightly stocked (which, judging by your signature, your really aren't), changing water replaces important trace elements and such that you fish really need. With that being said.....

.....I suggest that you put that arsenal away and focus heavily on improving water quality. I cannot really tell from your photos, but I think that your fish might have 'hole in the head'; which is caused by a few things, including poor water quality and poor diet. The reason I asked if you are using carbon is because too much carbon can strip the water of those needed trace elements and hence, the fish is not getting all it needs to be healthy. Here is what I propose you should do....you can take it or leave it:

1. Stop dosing any and every medication you have been for the past few days.
2. Either pick up some water test kits (even the cheapest test strip version would be better than nothing) or find an LFS that will test the water for you. Be sure that you set aside some of that water before doing any of the below....maybe even take two samples of water to the LFS so you can see a 'before and after'
3. Replace your carbon and put it back in the tank if it is out right now
4. Perform a series of water changes over the next two or four days at a rate of 25% each so that you are doing a slow, 100% water change to remove the meds.
5. While you are doing these water changes, be sure to vacuum as much detritus from your gravel as possible. If you can clean under your filter, do that as well.
6. Begin feeding all of your fish a more varied diet. Even if you are feeding two or three different brands of flake food, there is a higher chance that each formula is a bit different and your fish is getting more out of what it eats.
7. Only feed once a day, preferably at the same time. IME, your fish should catch on to that timing and will eat everything and just about anything you give them
8. You may also want to look into using a Vitamin C suppliment. By many accounts, the best thing to do is soak some food in a liquid vitamin C suppliment so that your fish ingest it before it is dilluted throughout the water and becomes useless (another reason why #6 is a good 'trick')

In reality, you would want to do more water changes when you have an Ich problem becuase you can actually remove some of the white spots after they have fallen off your fish (hopefully before they reproduce into hundreds of new ich protozoa). In short, water changes will almost always be your best friend and if anything, you probably want to find more reasons to do them, versus finding reasons not to do them. Like I mentioned before, poor water quality - which happens over time because the life processes occuring in the water - can lead to stress and open the door for more problems (e.g. hole in the head).

You might be able to gain a lot of insight into the Ich subject by checking out SM Jay's article by clicking HERE.

So, to sum all of this up, I truly believe that your problems might very well stem from the water itself - which would help explain why you lost one fish after dosing medications - and if for no other reason, increasing your water changes and reducing your use of medications will probably allow your fish to combat ailments on their own. It is important to know that using some medications can actually un-cycle your tank, reduce oxygen levels that your fish definitely depend on, and can kill your fish as easily as they can kill bacteria, fungus, parasites, etc...

I hope this helps a little. I apologize if you already knew a lot of this or if it sounds like I am trying to insult your intelligence since that is the least of my intentions - I just wanted to cover as many bases as I possibly could.

Lava

Was the fish that died much worse than the one in your pictures?

No actually the fish that died did not show any of the following symptoms of the other fish but instead was acting oddly. Appeared thinner and seemed at times it's swimming capabilities were lost.

What are you treating with again? How exactly are you using it?

I am using Ick Guard. Jungle I believe. I do treatment daily following a water change.

Do you have your water temp up?

Tank is currently running quite low at 68. Being the coldest room in the house doesn't help. I usually like it to run at 76.

If so, have you adjusted for the reduced oxygen levels in the water?

No I have not.

That's ok. How long has the fish had these white spots?

No more than a week. I started treating as soon as I noticed something was going on in the tank.

Is there any sort of hole associated with the spots or are they definitely bumps?

I didn't see any hole or hole's... had a gourami years ago with that condition. They actually look like definate bumps. Looks like the fish is breaking out in acne.

If you look real close, do the white spots look sort of 'hairy'?

The one's on the right do not even appear to be fungus like. There is one spot of on the left side that sticks out higher and may have small hair like things, but I'll admit is very hard to see if so.

I agree. You might want to try cutting back by only feeding them once a day.

I will take such advice, and I'll look into buying some test kits.

I am glad that you explained that even though I am pretty familiar with UGF's.....I do that to people all of the time.

This is probably why they have fallen out of favor so much; they are hard to maintain without having to rip the tank apart.

I knew that you were because I read the article that you wrote, however figured I would explain anyways. I don't have a problem with purging the whole tank as I call it and am very willing to do it. The only problem I do have it is time consuming and is about a 3 hour process.

I am not trying to imply that you are not maintaining your filter right or anything, but it is yet another thing to think about.

No I didn't believe you were either. I upped the aeration in the tank. I actually had the bubbler running both my 29 gal and a air stone in my 14... I'll pull out one of my smaller motors and set it up to run the 14 seperately. I assumed that it was recieving enough aeration and water flow, but very possibly not.

Believe it or not, I think this is your true problem. As you say, it may not be worth the risk to buy fish from a store that is so far away because it is stressful and the fish become more prone to illness (although I bet the same thing can happen if the store was next door). This is definitely the key....keep stress to a minimum.

The only reason I like the store a hour and a half away, being in one of the largest city's in MI, they have a wide variety of fish to choose from. Especially in the guppy section. The downside is the drive bother's me because I always fear the fish may get cold.. and/or stress like problems will arise. Out of 8 guppies I purchased there, I only have one that is left.

The store next door is 25 minutes away. We recently aquired a new fish store within the last 2 months and I look forward to the fish he has. The guy is actually where I aquired my cichlids.

The list is a lot to digest but worth the material. I'll work on changing water out, cleaning the entire tank, putting the carbon's back in. Infact to be honest I think I'll break the whole thing down tonight and clean it. I have enough buckets to maintain the same water from the tank so that I'm not making drastic changes to their water so quickly.

When I get over to MP next I'll see if the LFS has testing kits. I'm sure they do... however asking the college kids for advice is like asking one of my family members. As novice as I seem sometimes I do thank goodness know more than they seem to know. Still have plenty to learn obviously.

Honestly thank you for taking the time out and responding to this. I do appreciate it. I'll keep you updated and let everyone know how things go.

__________________
29g. Fun Tank 11 guppies, 2 Bala, 1 Siamese Algae Eater, 1 Kribensis, 1 Golden Oto.


14g. 4 young guppies, 1 baby guppy, 1 female guppy.
29g. Tangerine Male Cichlid, Blue Cosby Male Gourami, OB Zebra Male Cichlid, Black Saulosi Male

Tommy Gun

But almost immediately after your adding some meds or starting a treatment? I think that is a pretty good sign that it died from water issues whether that be from dosing too much meds, too many meds at once, or from a rapid change created by your beginning treatment. Perhaps this fish was more stressed out than the rest and that was simply the straw that broke the camel's back.

This is also a definite problem as well.

Don't you have a heater in your tank? If so, it might not be big enough. Water temp can be stressful for fish and as you know, that opens the door up for a ton of other problems.

Additionally, it has been proven that the lifecycle of ich will slow down as the water temp drops....meaning the white spots we see on a fish are going to remain there longer and this is a stage in which we cannot treat it effectively, or at all.

Dang.....I wish I would have gotten back to you sooner. If you haven't already done so, do not clean your entire tank or if you do, don't do anything that will kill off your current population of beneficial bacteria - for example, rinse all of your filter media out with tap water, replacing all of the bio filter (not carbon) media with completely new media, wash all of your substrate, etc... All that will do is leave you with a brand new, uncycled tank.

Trust me, "starting over" is the last thing you want to do.

We all have a lot to learn and I am sure we can all empathize with you.

Do you know what test kits you would probably benefit from the most?

Like i said, I am now getting even more convinced that your troubles are related to cycling issues and the subsequent water quality issues. I will all but guarantee you that once you have some test kits in hand, you will be able to see that very clearly. I don't really want to sound like I know everything and everyone else knows nothing, but my sincere advice to you is to remain strong and stave off all of those people who want to sell you some medicine or product to fix everything....I say this because most, if not all of those products only treat the issue and not the cause.

Don't get me wrong though, I am not trying to say that you should never treat for an ailment, nor never use medications to treat for ailments. I also realize that you have these white spots on your fish and may very well need to treat for that. However, at this point I think that there are a few different possibilities which would explain the spots on your fish so I am hesitant to suggest anything but possibly using the salt/heat method as a precaution against ich...which also helps with a few other issues as well. I also am hopeful that someone might come along and be able to help ID this issue better than I can right now. Until then, I would observe the spots as much as possible and like I said, maybe go for salt and heat treatment(s).

ggherbaz

from my own experience I would recomend you to change and add some things.

First: your filtration needs to improve, it will be best if you add HOB filter or a canister filter, the under gravel to me is one of the most deficient filters because the crap stays in the tank.
Second: Water changes needs to increase, I have a 100 gal. tank and I change at least 25 gal. a week.
Third: add aquarium salt and increase the temperature a little.
And last if you can change the flakes for freeze foods, your fish will love it and it will help you to keep a cleaner tank.

Note: the best way to keep a healty aquarium is to check parameters in a regular basics, buy a good test kit and test your water every week.

Lava

Update... I chose not to go with the whole tank cleaning shebang, yet, and instead have been doing 25% water changes daily. Just wanted to let you know TG.. I see improvement. The bala shark is no longer exibiting whatever in the world it was showing. My temp is higher now and I brought my tank up to between 76-78 degrees. Feeding fishes once a day now... nobody has died from starvation. and every tank get's a 25% water change now on Sunday's.. so this is working out better.

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Yes I do agree that other filter's are for sure easier. They suck all that brown slimey gunk up into the filter. I would like to note that I do also offer freeze dried foods.
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Now I just need to get the testing kits.

__________________
29g. Fun Tank 11 guppies, 2 Bala, 1 Siamese Algae Eater, 1 Kribensis, 1 Golden Oto.


14g. 4 young guppies, 1 baby guppy, 1 female guppy.
29g. Tangerine Male Cichlid, Blue Cosby Male Gourami, OB Zebra Male Cichlid, Black Saulosi Male

Tommy Gun

Quote:

the under gravel to me is one of the most deficient filters because the crap stays in the tank.

I know that this is your opinion and I definitely respect that completely. However, it is also easy to argue that UGF's are the best form of filtration...if you can keep them clean enough. Obviously the "trick" would be to limit how much detritus is entering the tank and settling on the bottom; which is always the case. In fact, I would say that no filter is really going to help remove detritus from a tank and if it does, that stuff is still in the water as well. This is why vacuuming is so important.

That is good to hear. Trust me, a lot of us are quick to start thumbing through information on diseases when we see our fish sick or die when it could just as easily be a water quality issue.

You might want to consider sticking with the daily water changes until you can get some test kits since you don't really know if your tank is cycled or not. This way you are playing it safe. You could also see if your LFS will test it and give you numbers, but if there is any ammonia or nitrIte in the water, then you would need to compare a series of test results to see where things stand. From there....

Quote:

Water changes needs to increase, I have a 100 gal. tank and I change at least 25 gal. a week

...you can determine how much and how often you need to do water changes because it isn't going to be the same for everyone, nor every tank. Since your tank looks to be heavily stocked, you might need to do more than 25% a week or maybe do 25% twice a week....whatever works out right.