Troubleshoot my constantly sick tank, please

[hcky4206sic6]

I am very near to giving up on this tank of mine and am absolutely begging for help on this as I really do not want to get rid of the tank. I enjoy the tank but it seems like my fish are ALWAYS sick. Most recently I had a Bosemani develop a greyish dusty look to it and it died the next day. One of my Bosemanis ate a shrimp in my tank, so I figured it was that one and that was why it died. Now my other Bosemanis have this greyish dusty look to it and scratch once here and there. My other fish don't show this dusty look but some of them scratch, others don't. I just killed Ich in my tank about a month ago. Once I noticed the dusty look on the still living Bosemanis, I put copper safe and they have continued to live. I have live plants in my tank that have not been healthy due to poor lighting, but new lights are on the way to fix that problem. Is there any way the poor health of the plants can attribute to sickness? Can the eating of the shrimp have killed the one? Temperatures fluctuate between 78 and 82 in the tank. Could that constant fluctuation be stressing them out? How about lack of places for them to hide? Could that stress them out? I haven't picked up a lot of plants because of the lighting I have, but will be picking up more soon. I have a Fluvall or Rena canister filter which is rated for my size tank, so I do not believe filtration is my problem. Substrate is Seachem Fluorite, so I should be good there. I did notice some stringy white worm looking things when I vacuumed my gravel. They are not free floating or sticking to the sides of the tank. I think I said about all I could about factors that I believe may be contributing. Any and all help is very much appreciated. If there is something else that may be contributing to my constant misfortune that I may have left out, ask me about it... I really want to continue my hobby but near then end of my rope, my wifes rope, and the bottom of my wallet. Thanks

 

[fishman61]

Those stringy white worms come from over feeding your fish. I feed mine once a day and within a minute all the food is gone. Best to feed them a bare minumum

 

[twin_caleb]

ever thought that ich is still in their gills??? Can't see it really but it can kill them...but also (now I may be wrong) but I think rotting dying plants can raise the ammonia levels in a tank

 

[hcky4206sic6]

I have begun to feed the fish less as I researched where those worms came from... thanks for your input though. With the dying plants, last I checked, all my levels were fine. I will double check tonight to see if they have gone up. The plants have gotten a little worse due to the addition of the Coppersafe. Thanks for the heads up. Anybody else have anything to input?

 

[cichlid2006]

I am very near to giving up on this tank of mine and am absolutely begging for help on this as I really do not want to get rid of the tank. I enjoy the tank but it seems like my fish are ALWAYS sick. Most recently I had a Bosemani develop a greyish dusty look to it and it died the next day. sounds like a case of velvet to me. go to your lfs and look for the bottle that says it treats velvet.
One of my Bosemanis ate a shrimp in my tank, so I figured it was that one and that was why it died. Now my other Bosemanis have this greyish dusty look to it and scratch once here and there.
My other fish don't show this dusty look but some of them scratch, others don't. I just killed Ich in my tank about a month ago. Once I noticed the dusty look on the still living Bosemanis, I put copper safe and they have continued to live. I have live plants in my tank that have not been healthy due to poor lighting, but new lights are on the way to fix that problem.
Is there any way the poor health of the plants can attribute to sickness?
Can the eating of the shrimp have killed the one? yes if the shrimp had disease then it may have passed on an infection which would take hold faster than if the fish caught it externally.
Temperatures fluctuate between 78 and 82 in the tank. Could that constant fluctuation be stressing them out? yes this will be a major contributing factor to your illness problems. you need a heater to keep things constant. as you know the highest temp it fluctuates to then i suggest you get a heater and set it to the 82. that way it will stay constant.
How about lack of places for them to hide? Could that stress them out? yes again the lack of places to hide may be conrtibuting but it is not the whole cause. all these little things are adding up to a major problem which your seeing.
I have a Fluvall or Rena canister filter which is rated for my size tank, so I do not believe filtration is my problem. depends on the media you have and how you clean the filter. do you have at least one tray dedicated to bio media, ie bio-balls, lava rock, efhi-mech etc. if not then i suggest you do. only clean the sponges when you do filter maintenance and rinse the bio media in old tank water only.
when you do a water change make sure you use dechlorinator as chlorine/chloramine will injure fish, even tiny amounts can be bad.
I did notice some stringy white worm looking things when I vacuumed my gravel. They are not free floating or sticking to the sides of the tank. just planaria from the sounds of it. reduce the amount of food per feeding and gravel vac more often and do 25-50% water changes at least weekly. the planaris wont hurt your fish but they are an early warning system that your over feeding or being slack on the maintenence.

my comments are in red.
if i remember my light reading correctly the decaying plants shouldnt pose an ammonia problem. when they decay they create tannins which are generally good unless you have hard water fish.
unless the ich parasite is visible on the fishes body then you dont have an ich recurrance. if it came back or was still there then it would be all over your fish and not in the gills like twin_caleb stated. for info on how the ich lifecycle works and why it doesnt sit in your fishes gills read here http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168667

hope some of this helps you and good luck!

 

[Pharaoh]

What are the params of the tank, specifically? How often do you service the filters? How often do you do water changes? How much one is changed at one time? Do you use dechlorinator? How many fish are in the tank? How big are the fish that are in the tank?

 

[carcrazy]

I also use rena xp3 filters on a couple of my tanks and they work great. I have them full of biomedia and clean the foam prefilters once a month. I also rinse the trays of media in tank water (removed from the tank) at the same time. I do 10-15% water changes each week except for the tanks with rays and arowana, they get 30% water changes 2-3 times a week and I always add prime water conditioner.

I think plenty of water changes is your best method of keeping a healthy tank.

 

[hcky4206sic6]

my comments are in red.
if i remember my light reading correctly the decaying plants shouldnt pose an ammonia problem. when they decay they create tannins which are generally good unless you have hard water fish.
unless the ich parasite is visible on the fishes body then you dont have an ich recurrance. if it came back or was still there then it would be all over your fish and not in the gills like twin_caleb stated. for info on how the ich lifecycle works and why it doesnt sit in your fishes gills read here http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168667

hope some of this helps you and good luck!

Thanks for all the info.

The temperature fluctuations happens depending on how cold it is outside, honestly. My house can drop in temperature pretty quickly. I have the heaters set at 78 so keeping it that high is never a problem. It's when I have the heat on in the room---especially when I have the wood burning stove kicking that the temperature fluctuation happens. I can possibly see this summer if I have less sickness problems... if so, I can probably attribute a large amount of the problem to the temps.

As for the filter, I do have ceramic rings in one of the trays... I feel I had a better response in the tank with those than when I had the bio-stars. If there is something better I can use, by all means let me know.

I have reduced the feeding amount significantly, though I have not been able to do a large water change just yet because of the medication I put in. I didn't want to take all of it out too quickly. I know coppersafe is very concentrated, so possibly changing water wouldn't affect it's strenght too much?

As for your input Pharoh:

What are the params of the tank, specifically? How often do you service the filters? How often do you do water changes? How much one is changed at one time? Do you use dechlorinator? How many fish are in the tank? How big are the fish that are in the tank?

-The parameters are ammonia: 0.0 nitrites: 0.0 and Ph: 7.0
- I usually service the filter about twice a month. One time I will take care of the fine filter, the other time I will clean out the whole unit itself. I never changed the coarse filters since I have had this filter (1 year or so) Is that bad? They just never look dirty so I figure they don't need to be changed. The carbon is changed every 4-6 months as per manufacturers recommendations. I never rinse the ceramic out of fear I will lose all my good bacteria.
- Water changes are done weekly with a 20% water change. Dechlorinator is ALWAYS used.
- Right now I have 3 Rainbow Bosemanis, 3 Round banded barbs, 5 neon tetras, a dwarf neon gourami, King Tiger Pleco, and 5 Rasboras. I have a snail and 1 spawned snail that have been removed to keep them from being killed by the copper safe.

My tank is an 80 gallon long. Yes an 80 gallon long, lol. I have been questioned on this many times. The measurements, roughly off the top of my head are 6 feet long, 18 inches wide and 24 inches tall.

Hopes this helps you two, and everyone else, help me diagnose my problem.

 

[cichlid2006]

Thanks for all the info.

The temperature fluctuations happens depending on how cold it is outside, honestly. My house can drop in temperature pretty quickly. I have the heaters set at 78 so keeping it that high is never a problem. It's when I have the heat on in the room---especially when I have the wood burning stove kicking that the temperature fluctuation happens. I can possibly see this summer if I have less sickness problems... if so, I can probably attribute a large amount of the problem to the temps. You need to keep it higher because it fluctuates. the heater needs to be set to the higher end of the fluctuations rather than the minimum. even though the temp never goes below 78, when you heat the room it shoots up to 82 then goes down again to 78. thats a 4 degree variance in a short period of time. I would bet this is one of the major causes of your "sick" tank.

As for the filter, I do have ceramic rings in one of the trays... I feel I had a better response in the tank with those than when I had the bio-stars. If there is something better I can use, by all means let me know. i use ceramic rings in my filter too. good little things.

I have reduced the feeding amount significantly, though I have not been able to do a large water change just yet because of the medication I put in. I didn't want to take all of it out too quickly. I know coppersafe is very concentrated, so possibly changing water wouldn't affect it's strenght too much?

As for your input Pharoh:

What are the params of the tank, specifically? How often do you service the filters? How often do you do water changes? How much one is changed at one time? Do you use dechlorinator? How many fish are in the tank? How big are the fish that are in the tank?

-The parameters are ammonia: 0.0 nitrites: 0.0 and Ph: 7.0. fine
- I usually service the filter about twice a month. no need for this. the less you disturb the bio the better. so keep filter maintenance to an absolute must. i clean mine out every 6 months or so when i notice either reduced flow and/or more particulates and i never have a problem.
One time I will take care of the fine filter, the other time I will clean out the whole unit itself. I never changed the coarse filters since I have had this filter (1 year or so) Is that bad? no thats fine. a sponge only needs replacing when it no longer has its springy quality.
They just never look dirty so I figure they don't need to be changed. The carbon is changed every 4-6 months as per manufacturers recommendations. take out the carbon. you dont need it. keep it out when you do meds at least. if its been in when you have treated then thats why it didnt work. but there is no need to run carbon unless your removing meds. if you decide to use carbon then it needs replaced every 4-6 WEEKS not months or it will become useless and leach chemicals back into the water.
I never rinse the ceramic out of fear I will lose all my good bacteria. good, if it gets full of crap then take the tray out and swish it in a bucket of tank water.
- Water changes are done weekly with a 20% water change. Dechlorinator is ALWAYS used.
- Right now I have 3 Rainbow Bosemanis, 3 Round banded barbs, 5 neon tetras, a dwarf neon gourami, King Tiger Pleco, and 5 Rasboras. I have a snail and 1 spawned snail that have been removed to keep them from being killed by the copper safe.

My tank is an 80 gallon long. Yes an 80 gallon long, lol. I have been questioned on this many times. The measurements, roughly off the top of my head are 6 feet long, 18 inches wide and 24 inches tall. wow your understocked if anything. dont see that very often.

Hopes this helps you two, and everyone else, help me diagnose my problem.

thats my take on it anyway.

 

[Pharaoh]

Those dimension are more like a 125G gallon tank.

I agree with the post above. You might be rendering the medications useless with the carbon in your filters. Carbon is stricly for removing impurities or medications.

I would step up the water changes and up the temps in the tank to stop the fluctuations.