I am at the end of week five of cycling a 10 gallon hospital tank. It has a 105 gph whisper filter (just has a sponge like thing in the box to grow bacteria), my other two tanks have bio-wheels that cycled without a hitch.

Three weeks ago I quit registering ammonia and the nitrites started coming up. I have been measuring nitrites and waiting and waiting for them to go down.

To complicate matters, I have a sick fish in the tank. I have been doing major water changes to bring the nitrites down to 0.25 with the water changes. I have been doing water changes twice a day for almost two weeks.

The fish had recuperated and was seemingly back to normal, so a couple of days ago I cut back the water changes to 50% daily (still a lot) to bring the nitrites down to 0.5. Well, today the fish is not good. I did two 50% changes back to back and brought the nitrites down to 0.25 and then I thought I better check the ammonia. AAACCCCCKKKK!!! It was at 0.5 AFTER that huge water change. On top of everything else the fish now has an infection (on top of sbd).

I have been keeping the tank salted to 0.3% the entire time.

I don't know what to do. Should I get this weak little guy out of this stressful situation? I kept thinking it was almost over, but now with the ammonia up it appears it has just begun.

With the tank salted, I wouldn't worry too much about nitrIte, cuz the chloride in salt protects against nitrIte poisoning.

re the ammonia. how toxic it is depends on your water temp and your pH. So what's your pH and water temperature?

Can you steal any cycled media from another tank?

What kinda symptoms are you seeing?

I am using strips (for a swimming pool) to test the pH. It always looks to me to be around 6.8, certainly below 7. I am keeping the temp at 78 degrees.

I did start this tank with a hose full of gravel from my other tank, after three weeks of it going through apparently normal cycling procedure I got rid of it. Last week, when I changed the filter of the big tank I first of all stuck it as good as I could down in this filter box for a few days and then when I removed it I snipped off some of the fabric that holds the charcoal in place that was all gunky and I have it right on top of the foam of this filter. Tell me what to get from the other tank and I will get it. I hate that I am starting over.

The fish yesterday was simply "spiraling", kind of swimming in a little circle and losing control as he came up to me, making me believe the sbd was returning. This morning I noticed large lumpy areas on his right side and as I was looking closer I saw a smaller more distinct bump on his right side. I wanted to look at it more closely, so I went to catch him. As I had him in my hands he slipped through, and a small white dot (pus) floated to the bottom. Where the raised bump was is now a slightly bloody spot under his scales.

A fish in the large tank had the same thing (pus come out of his side). I just treated all of them with a week of medicated food and they seem fine.

He is now just sitting on the bottom. Perhaps stressed by me trying to catch him.

With pH of 6.8 ammonia could get up to 5ppm before I'd worry about it getting toxic cuz at that pH most of the ammonia in in the form of ammonium which isn't toxic. So .5ppm shouldn't be anything to worry about. See: http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/AmmoniaTox.html

Colonized filter media would have the highest concentration of biobugs on it. A bag of gravel would also help. The biobugs live in biofilms on oxygenated surfaces.

If you're still seeing pus/bumps, I'd continue the medicated food. I'd feed it for 10-14 days. Are you using medigold?

Thank you so much for your quick reply. I am in a panic that I am hurting and not helping that little fish.

When you say "colonized filter media" you mean the fabric/floss/etc that traps the gunk? Or the bio-wheel? I just changed the filter last week on the big tank, but I have a 3 gal that has not been changed for a while that I could get some gunk from. Plenty of gravel too.

The food is just some I got at Pet***. I think I will order some medigold, this little guy has some serious bumps and if they are absesses he needs the best. He has not had any medicated food because I was treating the other tank. I did not know until a little while ago that he had the same problem.

So, do you think 50% a day water changes will do? That will seem like a holiday to me. Do too many water changes starve the bio-bugs we are trying to nurture?

Sounds like you already seeded it pretty good with the filter materia from your old filter. Both the biowheel and the filter mediia have biobugs on them, but since you changed the filter pad, I don't think moving the biowheel would be a good thing. Sone gravel in a hose couldn't hurt.

It's probably just a little bump in the cycle. The biobugs are kinda touchy when they're first getting established.

The medicated food you're feeding took care of the bumps on the other goldies, so it would be good to use for this one too.

I don't even think you need to do 50% a day. You're salted to .3% and that'll take care of the nitrIte. With pH around 7, you don't have to worry about ammonia till it gets pretty high cuz most in is its nontoxic form at that pH.

So how come you're salted to .3%?

and how does your pH run in your other goldie tanks? When I see a pH of 7, I worry about there being enough buffers in the water to keep pH from getting acidic between partial water changes.

I am salted at 0.3% because he was moved in with sbd, he was lying on the bottom and had trouble swimming. He had recovered (after a week) and I was thinking of moving him back to the big tank, but I wanted to get the hospital tank cycled first. Then, the infection came up.

This morning its even worse. He is swollen (I can't even see the bumps anymore) and pineconing: dropsy. From what I read I need to get the aquarium salt out and epsom salt in to help with his bloating. Will the epsom perform in the same manner, helping with the nitrites? I also need to do a maracyn2 followed by maracyn treatment. Will this crash the cycle?

When I tested the ammonia this morning (before a water change) it was at zero! So those little bugs are still there. I can't figure out the reading yesterday.

Whenever I test the pH in any of the three tanks, it is always around 6.8. I guess I need to read up on how pH affects fish. I am fairly new at this and just figured out the seriousness of nitrAtes the hard way (sick fish!).

BTW, great article on the relationship between pH, temp., and ammonia levels of toxicity! As a math teacher, I love to see information presented in such a clear manner (I guess as a "dataguru" you do too!).

Thanks! Yea... data is a pain in the butt to make sure you get it right, but can be very useful. I also built a toxic ammonia calculator in Excel, but I like the visual display better.

Is he still eating? if so, get some of the medicated food down him.
How do his gills look?

I'm not sure on the epsom salt. I'd read some info that indicates increasing the hardness of the water helps with osmoregulation and epsom salt primarily increases water hardness (magnesium sulfate).
Here's an interesting thread where Rec argues against it having an effect for dropsy.

It can't hurt tho.

Here's a post I wrote recently on salt that contains info on how fish control their fluid balance and has some info on dropsy:
I don't know about other freshwater fish, but in koi and goldfish the salt concentration in their blood is .9% (as is ours). Their blood has a higher solute content than the environment, so there is a strong tendency for water to move into the fish and salts to move out. To keep from taking in too much water and losing too many ions, fish actively bring in ions from the environment and excrete water from their body.

The two main areas that osmoregulation happens are the gills and the kidneys. Freshwater fish pee about 30% of their body weight per day in dilute urine and reabsorb the salts from the urine.

I'm not sure I totally understand osmoregulation at the gills but I'll give it a shot. My main reference for the gill osmoregulation thing is Dr. Richard Strange's CD from his graduate-level fish physiology course. There are only a couple of layers of cells between their blood and the water. You have both diffusion (movement of solutes to an area of lower solute concentration) and osmosis (movement of fluids from an area of lower solute concentration to areas of higher solute concentration) happening along with some active transport mechanisms (Ammonium ions in the blood are exchanged for sodium from the water, and bicarbonates in the blood are exchanged for chloride from the water.. Sodium and chloride diffuse out of the blood via the gills. Na+ also follows an electrical gradient into the cell because the cell is more negatively charged than the water. However, the combined effect of the electrical gradient and the opposite osmotic gradient is called the electrochemical gradient which is close to 0 for freshwater fish, stopping the outflow of salt at the gills.

Dropsy is fluid in the perotineal cavity that builds up when the kidneys aren't working well. There is too much fluid in the cardiovascular system which leaks out into the spaces between the cells and peritoneal cavity and causes swelling. To fix dropsy, you have to fix what's messing with their kidneys before too much damage has been done, but by the time you see dropsy, it's often too late to fix them.

In theory, a hypertonic solution (salt concentration over .9%) could draw fluids out via the gills. I'd think it could also cause hypovolemia (low blood pressure cuz of not enough fluid in the blood). But it could also increase salt movement into the blood tho which could tend to draw more water into the blood and make things worse. I'd think that adding too much salt would be stressful for a freshwater fish who's already very sick.

A hypotonic salt solution (< .9%) would probably result in the fish not having to expend as much energy trying to move fluids out via the gills, so if the fish is salt tolerant, gradually increasing salt levels should help. Doc J says his fancy goldies tolerated .6% for a couple of weeks just fine (he was treating velvet). I've only had mine at .3% so far for any period of time. Tho I have used 10 minute dips at .6% to try and knock down parasites quickly.

Epson salt is magnesium sulfate. It increases the general hardness of the water and both fishdoc UK and Doc Johnson says that harder water helps with osmoregulation (tho I haven't figured out how that works just yet).

Thanks for the link. Very deep stuff about salt. I did learn that epsom salt is not salt at all and it will not protect against nitrites as aquarium salt does. It seems as if I should simply stick with the 0.3% solution and keep feeding him the medicated food.

He is eating, as long as I can float a food pellet right in front of him. He sits in his corner, but when I walk up he swims up to greet me (encouraging). He looks pitiful, like he is about to explode. But his gills look nice and red inside.

I went to Pet*** and got the Maracyn2 (says it won't effect the cycle) and I got a pH drop test kit so I can be a bit more accurate. I will see if I can save this little guy.

He died this morning. At least he did not suffer for weeks (months) on end before dying anyway. I guess he was too sick for me to help.


If I put the filter in my other tank, will it finish cycling and then be ready for my next hospital emergency?

I'm sorry to hear that. Often by the time dropsy happens, they're in pretty bad shape.

I'm not sure I'd put the filter in the other tank. I'd be worried about it having bad bacteria on it. I think I'd sterilize it and the hospital tank. After it's disinfected, you can hang the filter on your existing tank so it'll be ready.
From: Quarantine and treatment tanks made easy - by Clint Tisher

Thank you so much for your help. You have been there with advice when I needed it in these last couple of days and I do appreciate it so much.

I have the chlorine running right now. I am ready to get that tank torn down so I don't think about him too much.

You're welcome.

So how's pH doing in your other tanks?

Well, what a difference a drop test makes. I tested my 29 gallon tank before and after a water change on Saturday. Before it was 7.2 and after it was 7.6. So, I guess those little pool strips are fairly useless.

7.6 was the max (I think-I am posting from work, don't tell anybody). Hopefully I am getting accurate readings now.

I have not tested my 3 gallon that has a betta in it yet.

That sounds good.

Consider adding some crushed coral or crushed oyster shell to a high flow area (e.g. in a media basket or knee high host or mesh bag). That should maintain pH of around 7.5 between partial water changes.

Will do. This episode has educated me about pH. The last fish illness, I learned about nitrAtes. Hopefully, someday soon I will be fully informed and those little fish can live in peace.

Who started the rumor that goldfish are easy?

The same person who said that life is fair! LOL

It's amazing at how much there is to learn.

Interesting thread.

I particularly liked reading Dataguru's post on salt & gills (the long one), but there is one thing I don't get (amongst many other things).

Is the osmosis of water & diffusion of salt at the gills stopped, or is it counteracted? I can't understand where the opposite osmotic gradient comes from....arghh.

Sorry for the bother, but this just interested me and I'd like to know more.

Slugger

Actually, I can argue that. The definition of a salt is a non metal and a metal, IE ionic bonding. So, if epsom salt is Magnesium Sulfate, then the Mg is a metal and the S is a nonmetal, so therefore it's a salt. The reason it doesn't protect against nitrIte poisoning like aquarium salt is because the aquarium salt has Cl- in it, which takes the place of the nitrIte if I am correct?

Well, I tried using my chemistry skillz. Chemistry's fun.

It's been a long time since my last chemistry class. But, I was responding to a thread Dataguru linked to above that said:

" Epsom salt is actually magnesium sulfate and not a salt at all.. For practical purposes, "salts" are chloride-based compounds like table salt (sodium chloride). Some of the other common salts are potassium chloride and calcium chloride."

The thread went on to say that sodium chloride and nitrite were chemically similar and that is how salt reduces the effect of nitrite poisoning (the salt binds to a receptor and then the nitrite cannot).

I don't remember enough chemistry to know about the mag sulphate. I am curious as to how it affects osmotic pressure tho. I've read a couple of fish vets say that harder water reduces osmotic pressure and mag suphate is used to make water harder. One of the mods on that board poo poo's using mag sulphate for dropsy. He's pretty geeky but I'm not totally convinced he's right on that one. Lot more to learn before I can argue with him on it. LOL

Yea... The protective effect is from chloride competing with nitrIte for uptake thru the gills.

I'm not sure I understand the question Slugger:

Do you mean when salt is added?

I too think it's interesting stuff.

Ah, I see now. He meant "salt" as literally, salt.

My question may be a bit dumb and the answer too obvious....

I'd like to try and understand it "without" salt (below 0.9%?), before thinking about it with salt. (Too much info at the same time will lead to meltdown and require reboot)

What's there to stop salt leaching from the fish until concentrations with the outside are balanced? (There must be something huh?)

Thanks

Slugger