Several problems!!

18 years ago

My Aquarium is:

- a 40 gallon freshwater fish tank running for 8 months now with no major problems, until now.

- Has 7 cardinals, 2 clown loaches, 3 female platys, 2 male platys, 1 three month old baby platy, and 8 one month old baby platy's (in a breeder container, but in the same tank 40 gallon tank). None of them are new, or recently added. They have lived in the tank for at least 6 months.

- has live plants and rocks

- the temperature fluctuates between 80F and 85F degrees. We have a tiny a/c window unit that (when all the windows and doors are blocked off) barely manages to keep the room at that level on a scorching day.

- The pH is high. But the rest of the water levels are 0 or normal.

- We do a 30% water change every 2 weeks.

The problems are:

- the 2 rocks we have appear to be growing black algea?? Should I just remove the rocks?

- We've lost 2 male platys. The most recent (2 days ago) was "sick" for about 2 weeks. He started off swimming a little sideways and we thought it was a digestive bubble and moved him to our Quarantine Tank; with aquarium salt, and treatment for 5 days with the Safeguard tablets (just in case), and only fed him live food every other day. His swimming and equilibrium problems progressively got worse and then his fins clamped shut and eventually he stopped swimming and died. The other one died about 2 months ago with similar behavior, except we didn't quarantine him or treat him. We're not sure what was wrong with him? It wasn't Ich, we've seen and treated that before.

- Now in the main tank, 2 of our other platy's appear to be losing scales! And one of the platy's that is losing a scale (a female) has a dark mark (possible an ulcer, or scratch) right before her tail fin, and I'm concerned about it.

- Also, one of our loaches has almost no fins (the other one is completely healthy). He has his side fins and his tail fins, but the rest have been bitten off by the other loach. I'm concerned about him and infection and he looks paler in color than the other loach. Should I be concerned?

There are so many things going on, and having just lost another fish - I'm concerned there's some bacterial or fungal problem in the main tank. Any advice?

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Comments (2)

darkruler
18 years ago
Well you shouldn't have kept those fish in a breeder trap but released them into the tank.I would suspect that your loach will get an infection unless you keep the water clean.I change water in all my tanks once a week.The black you are seeing on the rock might be BBA.What is your WPG?Whats your fert schedule and co2 levels?Once i have answers to these questions i can further help you.Oh and to help keep the tank cool freeze some water bottles with tank water and float them in the aquarium to help lower the tank.80* should be just about right
birdwidow
18 years ago
My first guess on the Clown with the missing fins would be a bacterial infection, not attacks from the other Clown. But water changing only every other week may be the real cause of your problems.

The best means of mantaining a healthy tank is frequent water changes, the more frequent the better. If you think about the total, a 10% change daily is better than a 50% weekly. Or, a 25% change 2 X wk, is still better than 50% 1 x week, because the fish are swimming in their toilets and toilets need to be flushed after every use.

That's why breeders with many tanks eventually go to flow through systems with automatic drain-outs & refills, as it allows the "toilets" to flush on a continual basis, just as it does in nature.

As for cooling down the water: A bag of ice cubes made from fresh conditioned water is always handy to have around when the ambient air gets hotter than the desired tank temp. Or, fill a bunch of small heavy weight zip bags and stack them in the freezer until you need them. Just open the bag and set it in the tank and as it melts, the ice will slip out, melt and add some fresh water to the tank.
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