Almost ready to give up!

[BettaObsessed]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I now have Will one of my CT's laying on the bottom of his tank. Have checked levels and there was a little nitrate but not high, everything else was at 0. Ph is same as usual. Have done a 50% water cahnge and he's still there. There are no visable marks or spots on him. Temp is at 29 and I have added some salt.

I'm starting to feel like every time I turn around I have another sick fish! :confused:

[Matt_95]

It coud be the water, Do you age it? I know in Brissy the water is often unpredictable, sometimes we even have amonia (spelling) in the water. Thats why I use rain water now.

It can happen to anybody, I've had periods when it seems I have gotten every fish disease known to man on my fish. I seem to have no luck with Hm boys, everytime I get one something happens to his tail I almost swore off them :(

Edited April 25, 2011 by Matt_95

[Fletch]

Not sure what more you can do.....if you have aged water at same temp, I would do 100% wc.

Maybe just slow down on getting more fish untill you have it all under control and your fish are healthy and happy again.

[BettaObsessed]

The water is aged for around 24 hours before I put it in the tanks and heated to around 27 degrees. I checked the ph, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia and temp in the tank he was in. After a 50% wc he is looking better. The male ct in next to him looks like he has fin rot or fungus so he has been taken out and treated with salt and betta fix.

If it wasn't for the 4 new ones getting sick within 24 hours of getting them home it probably wouldn't seem so bad. At the moment I have 7 sick fish so its really frustrating!

[Bettarazzi]

It's hard to give advice from a distance, without actually trying to keep fish in your water conditions. Based on the information you've provided these are the things I'd be trying:

1. Age the water for a week. It should have aeration and I'd be putting a carbon filter in it. There could be things in your water which you don't have test kits for which could nevertheless be bothering your fish. Carbon might remove it if it's chemical. Corner box filter filled with carbon would serve both aeration and filtration purposes. Don't forget to replace the carbon. Check manufacturers instructions for how long. I expect it would need to be changed every month. It might seem like extra work but you'll get used to it once a routine has set in. And you could trial it for a couple of months to see if it makes a difference.

2. Quarantine all new fish for at least 2 weeks and medicate preventively. I know many people will object to using medications when either the fish haven't presented symptoms or when the cause is unknown. However with so many cases of illness in your fishroom I think it is a worthwhile precaution. You could try something mild to start off with like Melafix. Or go for something a bit stronger. If I had sick fish that often I would be putting all new fish through a course of Protozin, wait 4 days, then a course of Myxazin. And while they are in quarantine treat them, their water, and surrounding areas as if they are contaminated and contagious. So that means, sanitise or sterilise (as appropriate) all equipment and hands before and after contact.

Do you buy fish from different shops? Any patterns of illness? It's possible that a particular shop may not have the best practices and diseases are spreading from those fish.

[melbournebetta]

...what he said

And you haven't mentioned if you are testing for carbonate hardness? This was my un-doing when I started back at betta keeping, all my kids got rot.

Stable ph at 7, no nitrate, ammonia etc... but my water was waaaaaaaaay too soft... I dissolved my first spawn and some of my best fish.

Learnt that lesson the hard way... just incase it's something you've missed.

-Ness

[Yanagi]

Maybe you should tell us more details. When you're water changing or topping up, how do you heal the water you're adding? Does it come out of the hot water tap? Do you use salt with all water changes or only as a medication treatment? I agree with Razzi on the quarantine and aging water techniques.

[BettaObsessed]

I have one of the new females in the sorority tank and seems to be doing fine against the suddenly aggressive females in there. The other 2 and the male are all still quarantined.

At the moment I don't have a big enough tank to age water for a week. The tank I have is only just big enough for the daily water changes witout including the weekly ones. I have been adding a little salt when I do water changes. I have those API test stips which show GH at 180 and KH between 40-80. So maybe that is the problem? How do I lower the GH? What is the acceptable level for these?

Not sure what you mean by heal the water Yan? Since setting up the tank that I use to top up the tanks I have been using cold water, before that it was warm (hot & cold) from the tap and added water conditioner.

I think the problem with Will was I had forgotten to do my wc on that tank so the nitrates were a little higher than usual. Took him a couple of hours to recover but he's been fine since.

Is 29 degrees too high? Most of my tanks are between 27-29 degrees.

[Yanagi]

Sorry typo, I mean heat the water. Yeah ok, hot water from the tap is full of copper and other nasties. Boil water if you need to heat it up for immediate use. This could very well be part of your problem.

Top up sounds good.. Assuming you have a heater in your reservoir tank, lol. Are you still using water conditioner or just aging the water? Salt is good.

Sounds like you need to work on a process of elimination to figure out what the issue is. Your water is hard, could be part of the problem as well. Sorry my memory isn't working right now, your pH is quite high as well, isn't it? Like 8.2? For a temporary solution you can get some bottled distilled water or RO water and dilute your tap water with it to a softer level should also bring down your kH and pH. 70ppm GH, kH seems okay for now. I think that would be my first step.

I prefer my tanks 26-27c. I didn't really see a benefit when I had it hotter.

[BettaObsessed]

there is a heater in the reservoir tank, water is around 26-27 degrees in there. PH is fine now that I have the reservoir tank set up. It has a large piece of dw in it which is lowering the ph to around 7.0. That was the intention of setting up the reservoir tank, to lower the ph without chemicals before I put it in the tanks.

At the moment all fish are looking ok. No more clamped fins. Working on getting fins healed now before putting all back where they should be. There are still the 2(?) new females that I will keep quarantined for another week before putting them into the sorority tank. Still not sure that one of those is definately female, she had a nice bubble nest going this morning when I got up. Also have another female that is in the sorority tank that is extremely aggressive and is taking chunks out of all of the other girls fins. Will put their pics up in another thread to confirm gender.