Water Chemistry/ Chemical Problems

[knobhill]

So yesterday, I am doing regular tank maintenance and check my 60g with 8 black ghosts and a 14" goldie pleco. The nitrates and nitrites are off the charts. The bgk's are eating, the pleco is picky to start with but everyone looks healthy. I do a 30% water change but use amquel plus to reduce the nitrites and nitrates with the usual novaqua additive and some a little salt. Keep in mind, I generally use Stress zyme as my bacteria additive and not the amquel.
This morning, I checked the tank and all the ghosts have white-film disease, the pleco is ok, and nitrates/ites are still high. I added some rally before I left for left for work and am trying to figure out what happened. I did have a similar case with bgk's getting white film...could it be the amquel plus??? When I go home, I am going to do a 40% water, and add more rally. Temp is 84.

Anyone have similar experiences or advice for this situation???

 

[ewurm]

Your fish are sick because your water quality is poor. Stress Zyme is a poor product, and you don't need it in a cycled tank. How often are you changing water and what do you have for filtration?

 

[knobhill]

I do 25% changes every 5-7 days. Filtration is a simple sponge filter, aquaclear 200, and a whisper 3. I just added the ac four days ago just for more turnover, when h2o quality was good....

 

[ewurm]

Did something die in the tank?

 

[knobhill]

Nope, nothing has died. I feed frozen bloodworms in the morning, and have a cucumber in there for the pleco. This is a quarantine tank; i received these fish about three weeks ago. The tank was cycled and had 4 small barbs in it for about a week. The only thing I can think of is the amquelplus causing the onset as a result of the poor water chemistry (which is a mystery to me as how that happened!!!) I feel totally screwed here...

 

[johnptc]

nitrites need to be zero ....bio filtration
nitrates need to be kept in line with water changes

i would feed less, change more water assuming the tank is fully cycled.....until the nitrires return to zero....

if not fully cycled its a different problem....