HELP UMBEE SICK :(

[BayArea_510]

In a properly balanced system, the ammonia level should always be 0.0

Mardel sells a very accurate sensor that will allow you to monitor free ammonia at all times.
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2753388&cp=2767036.2769160

It's other things that need to be considered when it comes to water changes, such as pH, GH, KH, TDS, DOC's, etc. Think osmoregulatory stress, having an isotonic balance from one week to the next...... not ima post my ammonia levels after i come back from my lfs.

Perhaps instead of spending so much effort & time on purchasing every CA species out there, focus more time on learning & understanding some of the basics.

sorry but i learned from this website that ph doesnt matter so i guess they are right when they say dont listen and trust everybody cuz form my understanding as long as you do constant waterchanges with a shedule your water is good as long as ammonia levels are good,and that ph doesnt matter but thats just the stuff i learned over time from this site

but now that you mention it i have the exact same product in the link u posted i have the ph one and nh3 so ima start using them in my tank and where is the best place to put them midlevel tank or near top of the tank water for best results

also i went to my lfs and they said my water is good and that ph was good, ammonia good, nitrite and nitrate good , i didnt ask them for exact numbers because they would say if someting is bad and i bought maracyn 2 because it sounded better for what my umbee has

 

[RD.]

sorry but i learned from this website that ph doesnt matter so i guess they are right when they say dont listen and trust everybody

Then you obviously haven't been paying attention, or learning too much.

What people have stated on this website is that when keeping most species of CA/SA cichlids, the pH of ones tank water itself is typically not a concern, NOT that if your pH swings up & down every time that you do a water change, that pH is not a concern. Stability is what's important, and if your water changes are causing drastic changes in pH or other values, then you do not have a stable environment, which is what a couple of the previous posters were referring might be the case. (as this can cause stress)

The very fact that you place your trust in a LFS employee to monitor your water parameters for you, instead of taking a more personal role in the health of your fish, pretty much sums things up for me.

Good luck with your fish.

 

[BayArea_510]

Then you obviously haven't been paying attention, or learning too much.

What people have stated on this website is that when keeping most species of CA/SA cichlids, the pH of ones tank water itself is typically not a concern, NOT that if your pH swings up & down every time that you do a water change, that pH is not a concern. Stability is what's important, and if your water changes are causing drastic changes in pH or other values, then you do not have a stable environment, which is what a couple of the previous posters were referring might be the case. (as this can cause stress)

The very fact that you place your trust in a LFS employee to monitor your water parameters for you, instead of taking a more personal role in the health of your fish, pretty much sums things up for me.

Good luck with your fish.

i dont know how your lfs is but my lfs employees are friends to me , if they have a sick fish they wont sell it to me with out warning me and they are god people who i can trust , maybe your lfs employess are unreliable but mine are not

 

[anarekist]

welcome to the overstocked club. what you should do is a 25% water change every other day. and in the case of sick fish you should do 25% water change every day, add salt, raise temp.

you should probably feed your fish less, i power feed my tank twice every other day, once with lights on for the day trippers and once with the light out for the night stalkers usually on the day after a water change. this is fine since in the wild fish could typically eat maybe once a week.

 

[Madness]

i dont know how your lfs is but my lfs employees are friends to me , if they have a sick fish they wont sell it to me with out warning me and they are god people who i can trust , maybe your lfs employess are *** holes but mine are not

What he is trying to say is take a more proactive approach to the care of your pets. Sure your LFS may say that all is good, but it would be a far better approach if you yourself learned how to use a test kit, and learned and understood the readings of your water parameters. Not just take the word of someone that works in the fish dept. OK lets say that your tap water comes out at 7.8 ph, but the water in your tank is at 6.8 ph,(and you would know this if you tested the water yourself) and you do a massive 75% water change. Up shoots the ph, thus stressing your fish. By the next water change your ph has slowly returned to 6.8. (you would know this if you tested your own water). Not to mention the chemicals it sounds like you are just throwing darts at. Come on man, give the fish a chance.

Let me ask you these questions. 75% water change, is it straight cold water or warm? How old is your hot water tank? What do you use to neutralize the new water?

 

[BayArea_510]

What he is trying to say is take a more proactive approach to the care of your pets. Sure your LFS may say that all is good, but it would be a far better approach if you yourself learned how to use a test kit, and learned and understood the readings of your water parameters. Not just take the word of someone that works in the fish dept. OK lets say that your tap water comes out at 7.8 ph, but the water in your tank is at 6.8 ph,(and you would know this if you tested the water yourself) and you do a massive 75% water change. Up shoots the ph, thus stressing your fish. By the next water change your ph has slowly returned to 6.8. (you would know this if you tested your own water). Not to mention the chemicals it sounds like you are just throwing darts at. Come on man, give the fish a chance.

Let me ask you these questions. 75% water change, is it straight cold water or warm? How old is your hot water tank? What do you use to neutralize the new water?

i understand th eph swings and idk how to stop it if it is happening ima start monitoring my ph to see how much it swings
water is a mix of cold and warm , hot water tank? idk but i let my hot water sit in buckets for an hour
, i use prime before and after filling tank up

 

[RD.]

What he is trying to say is take a more proactive approach to the care of your pets.

Exactly. It has nothing to do with a LFS employee being an *** hole, or not, it has to do with taking some responsibility for your own actions, and your own fish, instead of having someone else hold your hand & tell you what to do.

Things such as using a quarantine tank & a proper quarantine protocol for new arrivals, no matter where you got the fish. Ensuring that aggression levels in your tank are kept under control, and stock levels are within reason. Ensuring that your water quality is always maintained, and that all of the water parameters are kept in check from one week to the next. Basic fish keeping 101.

As stated previously, IMO your problem isn't large water changes, it's the constant adding & subtracting of fish on almost a weekly basis, without proper quarantine, and without the proper space to keep them all. Quite frankly at the rate that you've been going over the past several months I'm surprised that you haven't wiped out your entire fish room.

To quote Jason again;

Time to man up and be responsible for the fish your keeping.

 

[Madness]

The reason I ask about the water tank is because I had serious issues 2 Summers ago. I was noticing that some of my fish, and it seemed like the weaker ones were getting ill or not doing well. I checked all the parameters and was clueless. So I called my water company, and they came out and tested my water with their equipment. Come to find out that my tank was spitting out high levels of different metals, and that treating with Prime was not doing much to the readings. Kordell makes a product called Rid Metals, and Hikari has one called Ultimate, after treating with 1 of those and the prime, the levels dropped significantly. But not enough for my liking. At that point I started doing multiple changes at 25% of straight cold water. Doing this did drop the temp a couple degrees, but not enough to harm the fish or cause an outbreak of Ich. When the temps drop below freezing, I use water from the sink but take precaution with filtering the water and treating it before it goes into the tanks. Since doing this, I have not had any issues.

Just a thought.

 

[BayArea_510]

Exactly. It has nothing to do with a LFS employee being an *** hole, or not, it has to do with taking some responsibility for your own actions, and your own fish, instead of having someone else hold your hand & tell you what to do.

Things such as using a quarantine tank & a proper quarantine protocol for new arrivals, no matter where you got the fish. Ensuring that aggression levels in your tank are kept under control, and stock levels are within reason. Ensuring that your water quality is always maintained, and that all of the water parameters are kept in check from one week to the next. Basic fish keeping 101.

As stated previously, IMO your problem isn't large water changes, it's the constant adding & subtracting of fish on almost a weekly basis, without proper quarantine, and without the proper space to keep them all. Quite frankly at the rate that you've been going over the past several months I'm surprised that you haven't wiped out your entire fish room.

To quote Jason again;

i use a 30 g as a quarinteen always for 1 week to ensure the fish eat healthy and are fine, my aggresion levels are low and there is no real agression when i stick a 3" fish in my 180 there is a chance it gets picked on or not so what i usually do is stick them in the 72 g , and i dont add or subtract on a wekly basis , i may add or subtract a fish once or twice a monh , but in my recent case i ahad to move all the fish from the 72 to the 180g