Parameters: Ammonia 0 PH 8.1
Nitrite 0 Nitrate 60ppm
KH 125.3 GH 196.9
Temp 70 F 9 Fish

Set Up: 100 gal tank, two Magnum 350 Filters one with Bio wheels, Rainbow Lifegard 25W UV sterilizer, 15 inch air bubble wand, 48 inch dual hood lamp on a timer 14 hrs, minimal plastic plants, 1inch layer aquarium gravel
Weekly water changes and vac of 20% to 25%, Filters changed every 4 to 6 weeks staggered, alge allowed to grow on rear and side glass, small feedings twice a day
Problem: 7 of my little friends have varying degrees of tail and fin rot. From “hardly noticeable” to “that’s no bueno”. Also, one has a very slight case of cloudy eyes. All are eating well and swimming actively .For the last 3 months I have been keeping my water with a 0.3% salt solution. This seemed to freeze any further decay. However, there has been a 0% regeneration of their fins. No fungus has developed from what I can tell. A few weeks ago my wife got me 2 beautiful fish for my birthday. So, into quarintine they went for two weeks. Salt solution and Medigold. They did great. After putting one into my main tank. I notice his tail deteriorating within 4 days. At this point I set up two hospital tanks and everybody just completed a five day course of Aquatronics Kanacyn. Now I plan to run a seven day course of Melafix with salt. Comments and advice wanted to help me think out of the box.
Concerns: I recently spoke to a guy at my lfs who told me I’m changing my water to often. He suggested I only do it once a month at about 30% to 40%. He said lager tanks don’t need as frequent a change as smaller ones. Is this true?
I live in the Los Angeles area so my tap comes out testing Nitrate at 20ppm. Can anyone tell me how they cope with this problem.
Should I be concerned that there might be some nasty bacterial pathogen in my main tank that will attack all my little friends once they go back into the Trump Tank Resort? And if there is what can I do?
Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Don't listen to the lfs guy. You are not changing too much of the water, in fact I think you might need to change more, and here's why: I think that your fin rot is probably due to your nitrates. A lot of fish are sensitive to anything over 20-40ppm.

Another cause of Fin Rot besides high nitrates is a chronically high pH. I'd say 8.1 is pretty high. Although I have heard of some goldfish doing well with that same pH.

Could you try to lower your pH using a commerical product?

Also your salt in the tank....that can trash fins as well. Are you positive that it's a 0.3% concentration? How much salt did you add?

High salt will cause the cloudiness on your fish as well. I'm not sure that it would effect the eyes though. What type of fish is it that has the cloudy eyes??

Sorry that I answered most of your questions with questions!!
But I do know that the fish store guy was dead wrong about the water changes. If you had low nitrates to begin with, that might work, but your nitrates would be sky high if you only changed once a month, and I think that would bother the fish even more.

I really think we need to do some experimenting to find out whether it's the nitrates, pH or salt!! <_<

I am sure others here will have some answers advice for you as well.

Let us know....

Jessica

Yeah, I need to learn how to read!

I see you added the salt AFTER they were showing signs of finrot. Is that correct? Well I guess we can rule out salt creep as the cause.

nitrates, pH or?????

There are water conditioners out there that are supposed to protect your fish from the harmful effects of nitrates -- I believe the new Amquel and Prime both have this claim. I have used Prime, and it seems to work well. That could help you with your nitrate problem. As far as I know, they don't remove nitrates, but render it harmless to your fish.

I think Melafix is a good choice -- I am sure you will see some good results with it. It is all natural; I have had pretty good luck using it, and I have never had any problems with it hurting my nitrogen cycle, which a lot of antibacterials can do.

And I agree with Jessica -- weekly water changes are the way to go with goldfish. It sounds like you have been taking very good care of your fish -- maybe those new guys brought something unsavory into the mix.

Best of luck!

Aqua

Aloha Jessica

Excellent feedback. Thanks for not agreeing with the lfs guy. I thought I was going crazy. I was thinking the same thing about nitrates going sky high if I only did monthly water changes. As for the salt situation. I did add it after the fin rot was present. One table spoon per gallon, added over a 24 hour period on the 0, 12, and 24 hr mark.
The fish with the cloudy eyes is Nemo (don’t laugh, my 2 year old son named him) a beautiful 5 inch lionhead. I think you are on to something about my nitrates. But what am I to do if it comes out of the tap at 20ppm? I live in Los Angeles so who knows what other mystery additives are in my water. As for the Ph being at 8.1. My hospital tank is at the same Ph, and I see a slight fin regeneration occurring. And when I got those two fish for my b-day one had a good size rip in her tail (she was alone in her quarantine tank and sha-zam Eggs all over the place) , and that healed up completely within the two week quarantine. She has no name as of yet, but she is a beautiful 4 1/2 inch light chocolate Ranchu. So cool. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is one reason I don’t think it’s a Ph problem. Thanks again

Aloha Aquarius

I just switched over to the new Amquel last week. Previously I was using Doctor fish (or Fish doctor) Tap water conditioner and Ammo Lock 2. The next time I go to the lfs I will read the Prime bottle, and if it will help control nitrates I will be sure to give it a chance.
My senior fish were all at there present level of fin rot when I introduced 1 of my new fish to the main tank. So, I now realize I put the new guy at risk and he did catch what they already had. Do you think its ok to run a salt solution with the Melafix? Thank for all your help.

By all means! I had to do salt and melafix when my oranda got beaten up by one of his tank mates and half of his wen was ripped off. I believe it is one tablespoon per five gallons that is recommended for recovering fish.

I hope some others will come along with some more ideas. Best of luck!

Aqua

Hi,

1 tablespoon per gallon is actually something like a 0.6% salt concentration. If you got that info from the Fancy Goldfish book, it was a misprint.
1 tablespoon per 5 gals will give you 0.3%

As for your pH, well mine is 8, and it does not bother my fish, but I felt I should point that out just in case.

Anyway, I found this about Prime



I know that "Touchofsky" (a memeber here) uses Prime. She has recommended it to me in the past. She seems very happy with it as a water conditioner.

Good luck

Jessica

Jess- actually one tablespoon per five gallons is what I had suggested.

OMG I am CRAZY!

That is 0.1%

0.3% is 3 tablespoons per 5 gallons! 1 tablespoon per gallon is about 0.6%

Yikes, thank you for pointing that out.

I read your post and had that stuck in my head

Jessica

We are all mixed up I guess..... I get a .3 concentration with what Jessica said, 3 TABLEspoons per 5 GALLONS. It IS .3 also, I have a salt test kit. I have heard that different salts yield different concentrations though. (So confusing). Now, what I DON'T agree with Jessica with (bless her, she just made a silly mistake. Unless I'm screwed up??) One TABLEspoon per 5gallons is a .1 concentration. Is this right????? Seems like once every couple months a thread will pop up on here about the dosage of salt, and it seems like everyone thinks their own thing. BUT I DO test my salt levels, and this is what I've found.

OMG I’ve really been doing a number on my poor fish. Talk about salt over kill. Thank you so much for pointing this out to me. All this time I thought I was doing it right. I was completely unaware that the Fancy Goldfish Book had such a critical misprint. I will be writing this down in my copy tonight, so this will not happen again. I reference Dr. Johnson formulary quit often. I hope there aren’t any more errors. Also, on a new front. I just wanted to let you all know I removed all of my gravel today while I was doing my water change. I’m hoping this will help keep my nitrates down, and I am looking forward to doing a whole lot less vacuuming.

Mahalo Jessica, Aquarius, errrika1979

I just wanted to add that I have nitrAtes in my tapwater also! around 20! I started letting the algae grow freely on the back and sides, and got some live plants and my levels have lowered!

Keekee

Aloha Keekeeme

Thanks for the tip. I am letting my algae grow it helped a little. Is it very difficult to make sure when plants are introduced to your main tank that there are no parasites or other unwanted hitch hikers? Or is this question a whole other topic.

hiya,

i just got through reviewing your post and couldnt help but notice that you didnt elaborate on your filter mainenance in between cartridge changes. this in itself plays a big role in how well your filters work. even the smallest cloggage in the lines, cartridge or impeller housing can significantly reduce actual water flow. if you are using two 350's on a 100 gallon tank, thats only going to give you a filtration rate of 7 X's an hour (max). that, in itself, is less than ideal (as far as the general rule of thumb, for goldies, is concerned). now lets say that you dont rinse the cartridges much and only one filter is running at full flow at any given time, that means that combined, the filters are only turning your tanks capacity over at a rate of 4-6 times an hour. thats about half of what is generally recommended. at that rate, i would gamble that you are having ammonia and nitrite spikes at certain points between your cartridge changes. and being that your ph is so high, your goldies are way more succeptable to ammonia than at a lower ph. so, even the smallest amount of ammonia will easily affect them. as far as the spikes go, maybe so, maybe not. the only way to tell is to test every day and dont change your cleaning habits for a month. incidentely, what kind of test kit are you using, and is there a difference in ph from the tap to your tank?

as far as nitrates are concerned, all of my tanks ph's are at like 7.4-7.6 and consistantly have 40-60ppm nitrates. ive even healed tailrot at these levels. im not trying to sway you from thinking its the nitrates, just letting you know my experiences.


i do hope you can get to the bottom of this soon!

Errrika, so if 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons isn't 0.1% what does it test as? I got that information from the Puregold site, and I *believe* happy goldfish also told me that before.

I am interested now

Jessica

Aloha Toothless

First off I think your user name is cool. Thanks for posting your ideas on my problem. Everyone has been so helpful. I just recently read another post that made me aware that I am under filtered by 300 gal per min. So yes I agree I need to work on that. Maybe get a hang on, or go for a wet/dry. With each new idea posted I get the feeling I’m coming out of the fog and the big picture is getting a little more clear. For instance. Your post made me get my calendar out which I keep under my tank. I keep a journal of all my maintenance. Upon reviewed I became a little disturbed at what I found. I thought I was very diligent, but now looking back I see much room for improvement. Please don’t black ball me after reading this. ( yes I was insane on March 11th )This was the only spike I detected.
Nov.
11th 20% wc & vac
18th Change left filter carbon and media sleeve
22nd Ammo 0, Nitrite 0, Ph 8.1
23rd 25% wc & vac
Dec.
2nd 20% wc& vac
11th Ammo 0, Nitrite 0, Ph 8.1
12th 20% wc & vac
19th 25% wc & vac
29th 25% wc & vac
Jan
13th 25% wc& vac
22nd Change left filter carbon and media sleeve
30th Change right fitter carbon and media sleeve
Feb
6th 25% wc & vac
16th 25% wc & vac
27th 25% wc & vac, Ammo 0,Nitrite 0, Ph 8.0
Mar.
3rd ammo 0,Nitrite .10, Ph 7.9, Kh 125.3, gh 196.9
4th 20% wc & vac
11th Change both filters and 50% wc
12th Ammo .25,Nitrite 0,Ph 8.1, Nitrate 160
14th Ammo 4.0, Nitrite .25, Ph 7.8,
17th Ammo 1.0, Nitrite 2.0, Ph 8.0
22nd Ammo 0, Nitrite 0, Ph 8.0
26th 20% wc & vac
30th Rinse left filter media sleeve
April
2nd Ammo 0, Nitrite 0, Ph 8.1, 20% wc & vac
3rd Change left filter carbon and media sleeve
8th 40% wc & vac
10th ammo 0, Nitrite 0, Ph 8.1, nitrate 80

Jessica--

1 tablespoon per 5 gallons IS .1 %. I read your post wrong!!! I thought you said that 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons was .6!! I just read it again for the 20th time and just now noticed that you said 1 tablespoon per GALLON (not 5) is a .6.
Man, have you ever noticed that when it comes to salt concentrations everyone has smoke rolling out their ears???? Sorry Jessica, apparently I don't know how to read.

Haahaa Don't worry I don't know how to read either

What 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons really was, was a burning question I needed answered... I was totally stumped.....haahaa, that is too funny!!

Jessica