1 Sick fish and 1 wounded fish. Any advice one how to help them get better?

[fishmommie]

Keep vacuuming.

I agree with all your comments but the vacuuming. While the tank is cycling, as little disruption of BB growth is best. If she vacs, she's losing BB - even if a small amount. Once the tank is cycled - absolutely - vacuuming is a must.

[Stlouisfish]

However, if any food falls to the bottom because it doesn't get eaten, it can rot and add to the ammonia in the tank.

I wouldn't worry about vacuuming personally.

[Krispyz]

Keep vacuuming.

Do water changes.

Both of those keep your water clean, which is the biggest treatment you can give for either. There are a number of chamicals, like some antifungals, that may come up later... but right now your best bet is clean water.

How are the ghost shrimp? Every fiber of my being says they cook before the molly would shows signs of ammonia poisoning. Was the Molly in the 10 gallon? Is the Molly old... the last fish of a previous molly setup? The platy/molly/sword stock has been a bit weak... 10 years ago the Molly would have been the last fish standing (swimming?), under normal circumstances.

The second filter is a good suggestion, especially if you keep the pleco. Even better is finding a new home for the pleco with the second filter. I do not always concur with the filtration "requirements" cited here, a second filter is always a good option for a lot of different reasons.

The ghost shrimp are THRIVING. Both of them have molted at least once since we got them and they were the first things I put in the tank.

The Molly was in the 10 gallon tank with the others, but he's really young. I got him from Petco on April 23rd and he's only about an inch and half long. I know he was with other fish at Petco, but I don't remember which ones...

[moghedan]

I am staying with the vacuuming comment.

You have to take water out for the water changes. The worst of the contaminants are on the bottom.

If it was a special case, and the tank held some super low bioload tetras, or just the shrimp... maybe. Livebearers and a pleco? I do not think there is any way to convince me that what you lose is more than what you gain from vacuuming.

[moghedan]

Back to case on topic...

Has there been major advances in Ghost Shrimp hardiness? If the shrimp are thriving, his water chemistry cannot be off enough to be a true issue. I am used to them turning pink long before the ammonia is high enough to hurt fish severely.


The Molly is from PetCo. Okie. There is a reason that the fish at PetCo that cost $2 will cost $6 at a good LFS. You have to accept that certain things are going to happen, sometimes. That said, at that conversion rate, if you have better than 33% survival rate, you are doing well, from a financial perspective.

The Molly was probably diseased when purchased. The treatment is the same... clean water. However, don't worry as much about the root cause and keep an eye on the remaining guppies.

From what I have heard here, I would say your cycling with fish is coming along just fine.

[Krispyz]

Back to case on topic...

Has there been major advances in Ghost Shrimp hardiness? If the shrimp are thriving, his water chemistry cannot be off enough to be a true issue. I am used to them turning pink long before the ammonia is high enough to hurt fish severely.


The Molly is from PetCo. Okie. There is a reason that the fish at PetCo that cost $2 will cost $6 at a good LFS. You have to accept that certain things are going to happen, sometimes. That said, at that conversion rate, if you have better than 33% survival rate, you are doing well, from a financial perspective.

The Molly was probably diseased when purchased. The treatment is the same... clean water. However, don't worry as much about the root cause and keep an eye on the remaining guppies.

From what I have heard here, I would say your cycling with fish is coming along just fine.

It's definitely a possibility that our Molly was already unhealthy. I tried to pick out the healthiest and most active one of his breed, but you never know. We haven't lost any fish, yet. The Molly was going to be our first, but he's been holding on surprisingly long. The way he was acting last week, we didn't think he would last this long. Hopefully he will get better in a QT tank. I've read most of the stickies now and with the advice given here, it's going to be lots of water changes, lots of testing (I've got a good drip kit coming on Amazon prime now), and hoping for the best.

You mentioned livebearers specifically... is there any particular reason livebearers would have a higher bioload than non?

[Krispyz]

Update:

Well, you all will be happy to know that, with the help of Craigslist, I found a lady in the area with a 125 gallon tank that was willing to take my BN pleco!

Unfortunately, this morning I lost the wounded female guppy. I think her wounds were infected with fungus, as they were starting to look fuzzy. And now another of our females has a wound on her side (I'm pretty sure it's still from the same male that wounded the other, we just didn't notice it). I do have a bottle of Maracyn, but I don't want to dose the entire tank with that and I don't have an available quarantine tank, since my dalmation molly is in that. Not sure what to do except massive water changes to try and keep the levels down...

[mommy1]

You have fish in the tank and you need to vacuum the gravel regardless of cycling, otherwise the nitrate levels could rise to toxic levels just like the ammonia and nitrites. Keep doing the larger water changes and lightly vacuum the gravel at least once a week. If the fish are showing signs of infection, not just wounds but infection, you can use the Maracyn, but what they really need is a cleaner environment, and that means water changes and gravel vacuuming.

[Krispyz]

You have fish in the tank and you need to vacuum the gravel regardless of cycling, otherwise the nitrate levels could rise to toxic levels just like the ammonia and nitrites. Keep doing the larger water changes and lightly vacuum the gravel at least once a week. If the fish are showing signs of infection, not just wounds but infection, you can use the Maracyn, but what they really need is a cleaner environment, and that means water changes and gravel vacuuming.

Yeah, the female with the wound looks pretty bad. It looks infected. Here's a photo from this morning. It looks like there's fungus growing around the outside of the wound. I did put in some maracyn, but not a full dose (I still haven't found confirmation that it's okay for shrimp or snails).

I'm doing lots of water changes. The last couple of days I've been doing 2 50% water changes every day (once in the morning, once in the evening). When I siphon, I do it from the bottom of the tank and the siphon is pulling food particles and poop from the substrate, but I'm not actually putting the suction to the gravel.

Also, I JUST got my Master test kit and just tested ammonia. I'm down around .5-1 ppm, now. So I still got a ways to go, but it's looking better. Thanks for the advice!

[mommy1]

I haven't read your other thread, so I don't know what has been said over there, but you need to get the ammonia down to .25ppm. That means one more 50% water change today. It's ok to put the siphon in the gravel and get some of that gunk out of the tank, just don't stir up a mess, and unless the gravel is very dirty don't do it every day, once or twice a week to keep it a bit cleaner is good enough. It's true you don't want to disturb a cycling tank too much, but when fish are in there, you do need to clean the gravel some.