I recently added halimedas into 2 of my tanks, after about 2 days they turned all white and crumbled. So I took these out and trimmed some of the macro leafy algae (dont know the name) which produce some sappy stuff where the cuts were made. The next day, the fish (yellow damsel) in one of the tanks became jittery and kept swimming in one place as though gapping for air and refuses to eat. The other fish (maroon clown) in the other tank refuses to eat and seemed irritated by something in the water though not gapping. I tested both tanks and the water seems fine, temps are around 77-78...I did the test twice on both just to make sure. Could the sap from the macro algae be the culprit? I will have to wait until tomorrow and see if my fish(es) are still acting the same. By the way, I did a water change after I trimmed the plants.
Jittery Fish
- Thread starter Master Er
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Anonymous
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hard call but very observent on your part. Halmedia will do that and if other macros in your tank died I wouldn't doubt an ammonia spike. We have our test kits but the fish have gills - much more reliable indicater of a problem. Do another water change tomorrow and hope that the spike wasn't bad enough to damage their gills, and they will recover. It could also be a toxin released by the algae but the same advice aplies, with maybe an addition of carbon to remove any potential threats. good luck
I will do that...I myself think that the halimedas arent the culprit.....maybe the sap from the pruning...however i did prune my macros before and it didnt affect the fish. But it wasnt as much pruning as I did this time. Could temps be the culprit....for the past few months my temps have been in the upper 70's to low 80's and at that time i had my heater set at 76 and ambient temp was around 82 then.....but for the last few days its been quite cold...ambient temps have dropped to 71 so for now I just upped my heater to 79. What temp should I tweak my heater to? My maroon isnt as jittery as the damsel, he does accept some food but not as much as before....with the cold coming in, maybe his metabolism is slowing down...but with the other fish I dont know....i'll find out tomorrow.
After looking closely at my yellow damsel, he was very pale and because of the color, I didnt notice this before and I finally realized that it was struck by ich!!! Though I knew that it was ich, I hit the books just to see what the causes were. And one of the causes was the temps. I brought down the salinity a bit and adjusted my temps 1 notch up from 79 to 80. Its a cheapo fish but I would like to try the garlic method on it. Does anyone know how many cloves of garlic I should use for a 2.5 gallon tank and for a NanoCube 12DX (approx. 8-9 gallons), my maroon clown may have ich already for all I know, but just isnt as bad as the damsel since my cube runs a bit warmer compared to my pico.
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Anonymous
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ich and other diseases are generally caused by some sort of stress......environmental usually like water conditions or tankmates, hopefully the garlic or some other "cure" will work but it indicates a problem causes stress possibly because of 2 agressive fish in the same small tank??? I would look into removing one or the other myself IMO
Master check above there is a sticky on ich Incysor is the one to answer this ........ I did a fresh water dip on my damsel ( when I had them) it worked and helped to rid it I also used garlic from walmart the gels puncture 1 gel soak in the food for 15 minutes , now it is proven that these are not as good as fresh garlic but that is all we had the ick was gone in about a week or at least from the fish , I also added another airstone to help with the breathing aspect for about 3 days (others opinions may differ on this) but here is my reciepe for ick
1 geltab (cut end off squeeze out)
, place on food if you use brine as a treat to get him to eat , if you use pelets soak in a little tank water .
now again this is the method I used along with fresh water dip
with the fresh water dip I used 1 minute incriments and distilled water at room temp , net the fish place him in a cup of tank water take him to the fresh water , set a timer for 1 minute in that minute you will be busy . Dip him in the fresh water it will look bad as he will go to his side rince the container containing salt water with hot tap water empty go to the tank get fresh salt water by now the timer should be beeping , place fish back in fresh salt water rinse fresh water dip cup in hot tap h20 refill fresh h20 dip fish repeate steps above 3 times for a toatal of a 3 minute fresh water dip . Return fish to tank let lights out for a while like 1- 2 hours or do right before bed ..........Now this is the method we use for ours some may disagree and say it is mean but we have had great succes with the fresh water dips and garlic combined method . Yes I am sure that it stresses the fish to be diped but it does help and I havent lost one by doing it , you may need to dip upwards of 1-2 weeks daily . The other method I have heard about is using a seprate dish /container placing matched salt water in and useing kick ich or copper treatment leave fish in for a couple of hours and return to tank . doing this daily till no more signs of ich are apparent . And never place copper in the display tank as inverts , and corals will react poorly to it .I have also read that ick is present in every tank but it is the fishes health and ability to fight it off ..
1 geltab (cut end off squeeze out)
, place on food if you use brine as a treat to get him to eat , if you use pelets soak in a little tank water .
now again this is the method I used along with fresh water dip
with the fresh water dip I used 1 minute incriments and distilled water at room temp , net the fish place him in a cup of tank water take him to the fresh water , set a timer for 1 minute in that minute you will be busy . Dip him in the fresh water it will look bad as he will go to his side rince the container containing salt water with hot tap water empty go to the tank get fresh salt water by now the timer should be beeping , place fish back in fresh salt water rinse fresh water dip cup in hot tap h20 refill fresh h20 dip fish repeate steps above 3 times for a toatal of a 3 minute fresh water dip . Return fish to tank let lights out for a while like 1- 2 hours or do right before bed ..........Now this is the method we use for ours some may disagree and say it is mean but we have had great succes with the fresh water dips and garlic combined method . Yes I am sure that it stresses the fish to be diped but it does help and I havent lost one by doing it , you may need to dip upwards of 1-2 weeks daily . The other method I have heard about is using a seprate dish /container placing matched salt water in and useing kick ich or copper treatment leave fish in for a couple of hours and return to tank . doing this daily till no more signs of ich are apparent . And never place copper in the display tank as inverts , and corals will react poorly to it .I have also read that ick is present in every tank but it is the fishes health and ability to fight it off ..
http://www.nanotank.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1809
if you do the fresh garlic method....IMO i would only use half of a clove. i use a full clove for my ten gallon. it worked great, got rid of ich fairly quick. good luck
if you do the fresh garlic method....IMO i would only use half of a clove. i use a full clove for my ten gallon. it worked great, got rid of ich fairly quick. good luck
I would say for till all signs are gone then for a month after (you may get away with a 1x a week for a month ) then go with garlic as a prophylatic treatment 1 x a month that is what I do others opinions may vary from that . So what we did was treat daily till all signs are gone then we treated for a full month after all traces were gone .....
Yeah you mentioned that...well I'm fine with garlic, I cook and use a lot of it.....somehow I am quite happy that my fish has the ich....i've always wanted to try this garlic treatment, i'm really curious about it. I just hope my fish makes it....I believe it will, with all of your help...who can beat that.