Some help with my 30 gallon.

I have a 30 gallon tall tank with a stock of: 1 angelfish, 1 blue gourami, 3 penguin tetras, 1 rescued black phantom tetra, 2 sailfin mollies, 2 bronze cories, and 1 asian bumblebee catfish. I'm needing both some suggestions and some help with multiple things and I'd appreciate some help guys, thanks.

issue 1) parasites?

2 penguin tetras, both sailfin mollies, my black phantom, and my angelfish all have pretty severe fin damage. Not sure if it's finrot or not but the other day I saw my angelfish had a clear mucus coat on his excrement, and today I saw one of my mollies have slightly white (brown-white) solid waste. They all eat and behave fine but I'm wondering no of there is a correlation, I haven't watched the others poop yet so I don't know if they all he it but I'm worrying there may be a parasite going around. I can't get any of them to hold still long enough for a picture (I guess it's good they aren't sluggish though). Should I treat somehow? I have API general cure from when I treated my75 but I'm worried because I think my asian bumblebee catfish is pretty sensitive to about any and all meds. Or should I just keep doing water changes. Also, if the description sounds like parasites how do I prevent it from spreading?



issue 2) high nitrates

for the last few months I've had nitrates 60-80 with weekly 50%s but they still wouldn't go down. So I decided to get very serious about it 2 weeks ago. I've been doing 50% changes every 3 days for the past 2 weeks and it IS helping but very slowly. Is there anything else I can do to help get them down (other than getting rid of fish).



issue 3) is there such a thing as to much bloodworms?

Ever since I got my asian bumblebee catfish 6 weeks ago he has been a very active friendly fish (unusual for his species), I even made a thread on it yesterday http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...74862-Asian-bumblebee-catfish-grow-out-thread . I have been having to alternate between some flake & 1 bloodworm cube And 2 bloodworm cubes ever since I got him because he eats EXCLUSIVELY bloodworms which agai is unusual since they normally eat pellets as well. Is there any other food I could try to mix up his diet and so the other fish aren't forced to eat bloodworms every night?

I tested nitrates a few hours ago and they were only 30 ppm so hopefully they stay down. Still not sure about the other things yet though.

Drstrangelove said:

1) Parasites. Post in the disease forum.

2) Nitrates. Nitrates are the end result of putting protein in the tank. Food ==> Protein ==> ammonia ==> nitrite ==>nitrate. Use less food, or food with less protein or remove the nitrates faster. Less food could mean fewer fish or removing uneaten food faster. Less protein means different foods. Removing nitrate can be more or larger WC, adding organic waste adsorbers (e.g., purigen) or using plants (e.g., pothos.)

3) Yes, the saying "Too much of a good thing" is in fact base in the adage that 100% of a good thing can be bad. Feeding exclusively one food (unless it's a 'perfectly balance' food) can lead to nutritional deficiencies, dietary diseases, conditions, etc. Fish will rarely if ever starve themselves to death. Stop offering one exclusive food, offer something else that's palatable and he will eventually eat it.

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I could try feeding brine shrimp tonight and see if he takes to that. I've heard they are part insectivore (the Asian bb cat) so I could try to find some Kind of insect and my LFS he would eat.

alexanian said:

1- sounds more like a bacterial issue, try treating with Epsom salt and raise the temp. Dissolve 10mg of epsom in a glass of water and add it to the tank water. Lots of clean water.
2- high nitrates (in addition to stress) might have been the cause of your fish becoming susceptible to the bacteria infection although 30 ppm doesn't sound bad. Keep up the water changes, feed less, remove any uneaten food, clean the filters.
3- Stay persistent with a different kind of food, fish can go for a week without eating, so even if the bb cat doesn't take the new food at first don't give in immediately.

Another thing is that almost all of ur fish like to be in groups of 6-8 individuals of the same species, in lesser numbers they might stress. I'd recommend getting rid of the angel, keeping the gourami with mollies and pick one or 2 species of the tetras and get more of their kind. However solve the disease issue first.

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Thanks for the advice. I'm not sure I can add any salt with my bb cat (just another 'advantage' of having the). I can't really find anyone to take the fish, have no friends with tanks and my LFS only takes fish I bought from them (which I didn't).

pops said:

with that stock you need to be doing 80% water changes twice a week, new water primed for size of tank, not water replacing. only way to keep nitrates in control in a 30g with that stock.

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2 80%s!!!!!! Ok well that's not gonna work, especially in the summer. I'm going to my LFS on Monday or Tuesday so what fish should I get rid of? Fish I definitely want to keep are the angelfish, the gourami, the cories, and the asian bb catfish. So if I took back all the tetras would that be enough, if needed the mollies as well.

after saying that what would you say for a stock list?