When is the last time you cleaned it? Also do you have gravel or sand for substrate? Thirdly do you have any hollow decor? Like fake sumps or logs in your tank?
Help for my Midas, Please??
- Thread starter snshn56
- Start date
cleaned the filter this last weekend, no decor except rocks, and a medium sized bubble thing. that is why I am scratching my head. nothing in there basically except my fishie. 6 years old and never any problems! I am stumped!!!! a very little bit of algae on the back of the tank. gonna clean that today. like I said though, very little. gravel on mixed with a little bit of river rock. been in there over 4 years.
I just added a cap and a half of the prime. And going for a bike ride, then will try testing it when I get back in about 3-4 hours. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out. I will post my test results when we get back. I sooooooo hope this helps. If not, I guess I will try changing everything out in the filter, but didn't think I had to do anything but clean if off.
I just added a cap and a half of the prime. And going for a bike ride, then will try testing it when I get back in about 3-4 hours. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out. I will post my test results when we get back. I sooooooo hope this helps. If not, I guess I will try changing everything out in the filter, but didn't think I had to do anything but clean if off.
What do mean you cleaned the filter, lol I hope you didn't clean it clean it like using non tank water.
My advice is get another tank or container for the purpose of a hospital or temp home for the big guy. Do 100% water change in the 75 gal, clean the filter(add some bac cul when done), clean the gravel .... as if it's a brand new setup. Let it cycle for a few day. Test water make sure everything is a go and then transfer the fish back to the 75 gal. Less headache and the problem is easily solved. Constant water changes and medication and chemical treatments is going to stress the fish out even more just do a transfer.
I disagree with this. Not that it's wrong, just unnecessary imo. If it was ammonia I could justify this but for nitrates big wc's should work just fine
What are you taking out of the filter? There shouldn't be anything in there that you need to change, unless there's carbon, or some floss or sponge for mechanical filtration. As for the carbon, you don't need it for most scenarios. Leave everything in the filter the way they are. You are right, you don't need to do anything but clean in occasionally. Make sure that you are using tank water when rinsing your filter, and as an extra precaution, don't rinse you filter when you are doing a larger water change to avoid the risk of causing a mini-cycle if something goes wrong. As far as using a hospital tank and cleaning your existing filter, this is not a good idea considering you don't have an extra cycled filter. Although the massive water changes may be stressing the big guy out, it's way better than throwing a sick fish in an uncycled tank. Have you been keeping an eye on the ph at all? What has your regimen been for water changes prior to this?
Buy a $5 pot of pothos, cut it open, rinse off the roots(more difficult than you think), put the roots in water and let the vine drape...that should help. If the fish take an interest int he roots, you can put the roots in a mesh bag.
+1
Fish can endure high levels of nitrates (80-100ppm) for sometime, and as stated a 50% wc will bring it down considerably! Why add extra prime when u can simply replace the crap water with fresh?? The nitrates will leach back in soon after anyways
Wc when done properly will NOT kill ur fish, most of the pros on here do atleast 2x per week wc depending on stock, but thats what testing is for, when ur levels reach 40-60ppm do a wc to bring them down, plus the minerals in ur water are depleted overtime. Imo moving the fish will cause more unnecessary stress!
#1 S. Vettel
So basicly my advise is do 60% wc daily until you reach 10-20 ppm. Keep testing ammonia and nitrite as well to make sure you dont run into a mini cycle from all the water changes. Should both be 0ppm. Once your nitrates come down. Test them to see when they get to about 40ppm then do 60% wc and base your wc schedule on this. Also post pics everytime you test so we can keep helping
