pics

[xander]

haley's still dark. solomon, how long do you think it'll be before she returns to normal?
Nitrates:5ppm
Nitrites & Ammonia:will be tested tomorrow, spend all my cash on the pH pen.
pH:7.4

Before and After water change regieme...note both were under the same lighting

Before Nitrates:130ppm

 

[xander]

and solomon, i noticed that some cuban gars on primitivefishes.com are really dark. is there the possibility that haley's alright, but is just gonna stay at this colouration?

 

[E_americanus]

you should have spent the money on the nitrite/ammo test as opposed to a pH pen. pH can be measured cheaply with a basic test, and knowing how high the nitrates are in your tank is generally useless.

test the ammo/nitrite ASAP and that will allow us a better estimate of recovery. if she is still very dark then there is still something wrong in the tank, especially since gars can change color quite fast. i had one Cuban that stayed dark for quite some time and appeared to be fine, although this individual later changed color back to "normal" when it was moved to a different tank.--
--solomon

 

[Nic]

still a beauty....hope it turns out okay

 

[xander]

Will do

i was told that if nitrates were at zero so would the other two

Edit: she's noticably lighter than when this first started

 

[E_americanus]

Will do

i was told that if nitrates were at zero so would the other two

Edit: she's noticably lighter than when this first started

not necessarily, and nitrates are never really a great indicated in FW systems. you're supposed to check that ammo and nitrite are zero, then move on. the point is that it doesn't really matter to a gar (and most other fishes) if nitrates are 0 or 100 or 200...whereas if ammo and nitrite are ANYTHING but ZERO you're going to see a reaction from a fish like a Cuban gar. again, this comes down to basic nitrogen cycle understanding and aquarium care; have you looked this stuff up yet? --
--solomon

 

[Weylin]

I suggest u get a bigger tank and see the differance... That could work.. Is she swimming around and eating well ?

 

[xander]

i read up a bit on some books.
what is stated is that the first stage is ammonia(waste) which rapidly converts to nitrites and then to the relatively harmless(unless exposed to long term sexposure) nitrates.

and the cycle is...
-Ammonia produced by fish
-Nitrosomonas bacteria converts this to nitrite(NO2)
-Nitrobacter bacteria converts this to nitrate(NO3)
-and then used by plants as fertilizer-then eaten by fish.

but that's about it...

 

[xander]

I suggest u get a bigger tank and see the differance... That could work.. Is she swimming around and eating well ?

i'd like to get a bigger tank too, but have some space constraints...
yes she's eating well(but has been cut down) and swimming ard

 

[E_americanus]

I suggest u get a bigger tank and see the differance... That could work.. Is she swimming around and eating well ?

bigger tank is definitely a must in the near future, but right now that won't make much of a difference with this problem...the current problem is toxicity due to improper tank maintenance (ammo tox, nitrite tox, and very likely pH fluctuation tox just to name a few).--
--solomon

ps - xander, i don't have time to type up all the aquarium basics right now, but i suggest you do more research and read up on it yourself. there are plenty of forums that have this info, and i would hope it's somewhere to be found on this one as well--