45 replies to this topic

[Blakey]

If it doesn't sound like it will put your fish at risk, give it a go.

a 100% water change once a week will put your fish at risk... and IT IS COMMEN KNOWLEDGE that you DO NOT do a 100% water change once a week. Wether you started doing it without knowing what you where doing... or wether some goose told you to do it... you just dont. That is basically called dismantling your tank... there is NO good reason to dump your tank unless you are starting from scratch, disinfecting for a disease or are doing a complete decor restructure in which case you would keep most of the water anyway.

This forum is about education and helping people.. not about passong on incorrect information. If someone new to the hobby came through and read that 100% water changes weekly are the right thing to do then thats one more person risking their fish stock that it just might not work for.
Im not trying to put anyone down.. and i know im coming off a bit upfront... but if ya learn to do things the right way from the start then there will be no dramas down the track.

Also along with the wastage of water... dumping hundreds of liters every week... when you just DONT HAVE TOO and DONT NEED TOO

[Pyro-San]

Well back on topic, last night I put a few convicts in the tank and she rushed for them as soon as they went into the tank, of the 3 I put in the tank she got the last one and munched on it nicely. then went and settled back on the bottom of the tank.
At least I saw her eating, that was the main worry for me. Bunny seems to have gone off the fish pelets I've been feeding.
Maybe Bunny is missing my GF as much as I am She will be back this weekend so will find out then

[FishGal]

IT IS COMMEN KNOWLEDGE that you DO NOT do a 100% water change once a week.

Maybe you need to visit all the many other forums I frequent then and explain to them the "common sense and knowledge" aspect of it ....because I know I'm not the only one who does it and like me, they have no ill affects or tank issues....OR diseases/ health problems with their fish.

Im not trying to put anyone down.. and i know im coming off a bit upfront... but if ya learn to do things the right way from the start then there will be no dramas down the track.

It doesn't seem that way :roll: and what dramas? I've never had an illness in any of my tanks, diseases etc so I'm yet to see what dramas you are referring to?

Also along with the wastage of water... dumping hundreds of liters every week... when you just DONT HAVE TOO and DONT NEED TOO

I'm not wasting water, all my water goes on my gardens, it's the only water it gets.

Lets just agree to disagree. You say I'm doing things wrong, I'm telling you I have evidence swimming in front of me that says I'm not, it works for me and many others.

[Blakey]

Yeh Pyro i would say your oscar is missing your gf aswell mate... thats what makes oscars such a great fish they seem almost emotional? and attached... and when they dont get what they want here comes the mood swing!

Glad it is looking up for you buddy!

[deckard_wa]

It may be slightly off the original topic of this thread but has been debated much to my amusement.

I am very curious if there is any scientific proof at all that if I have a cycled tank and remove all the water and re-fill with conditioned water , that my tank will go into a cycle? How is this possible? The BB is in the filter media which will not be touched. How can I possibly have an ammonia spike when i just removed all the ammonia? How can zero nitrates be a bad thing?

Blakey, you said this is common knowledge but I've never heard of it before in all my years of fish-keeping, so I think you may be a little mistaken. Do you have any evidence apart from a "because I said so" attitude?

Not posting this to be argumentative, it's just something I've never heard before, and I'm wondering whether you know something or are just parroting something someone else said.

[Blakey]

no no no... im assuming that FishGal has been dumping 100% of the water every since since the tank been setup.. The filter would not have had a chance to cycle.. therefore if you continue to do a 100% waterchange... weekly.. there wouldnt be enough time for it to cycle would there?

I only mentioned for educational purposes... for someone new to aquariums and just starting to visit this site and th read that 100% water changes weekly are the way to go... then it is miseducating them.

Im glad FishGals fish are healthy and happy... but there are certain publicated and general protocols around that you would normally stick to because it is the safest, easiest and most efficiant way that has been found over over the hundreds of years of the hobby. I didnt make them the gurus from the past did.. and im only sharing the knowledge and lessons i have read and been through over my ten years.

As i said im not making this point to have a crack at FishGal ... i just dont think that it should be noted as a good thing to do so the people who read this and are new to the hobby dont start setting up fish tanks and doing 100% water dumps every week.

[Pyro-San]

Update:

Well Bunny has eaten very little since my last post and I'm still very worried about her, it appears that she has Hole in the Head, I'm currently medicating the tank with Melafix & Tri-Sulfa Tablets.
The biggest problem is that Bunny just isn't eating. She spat up several small white stones the other day, she will approach any food I put in the tank but either suck it in and spit it out again straight away or just shy away from it all together.

I've also separated Bunny from the other fish that were in the tank.

Is there anything else i can do???

[Blakey]

have you changed her food at all? fish can become attached or used to eating a certain type of food and trying to change their diet can become quite difficult for the fussy individual.

Hole in the head is thought of sometimes as an incurable disease and has a reputation for been hard to treat but if you take the right steps and put in the time it will survive. It is thought to be caused by poor water conditions over a long time period or fish been housed in tanks too small for them (thus making the water conditions less favourable and increasing the stress on the fish) Another theory is the fishes diet.. a deficiancy in calcium, phosphorus and vitamins C & D. Studies are yet to prove one cause mor than the other but i would take all of them in to consideration.

IMO for succesful treatement of Hole in the head.. give the tank a good clean not so much the water but the gravel.. remove as much debris as possible and if you have a whole heap of gravel maybe take some of it out as gravel and sand does tend to have a build up of bad stuff. test your water make sure the conditions are right an tank is big enough for the size of your oscar. Next up find a food it is going to eat... but vary the diet. My fish get prawns, whitebait, NLS (New Life Spectrum) and Barramundi Pellets... just make sure it is vitamin enriched and balanced diet. Continue doing like 20-30% water changes every 3 days... make sure you suck out any left over food or debris. Add Some salt to each water chance probably a tablespoon for every 30 liters.. and up your temp to around 28ish. The fish shops might have a treatment for HITH im not too sure last time i checked it was a red gel... we used to use on discus many moons ago.

Hope it all goes well for you mate and keep us posted

[Pyro-San]

I went to my LFS yesterday arvo and had a chat to the guys there, one of the things they recommended (that I had not already tried) was to give Bunny some live food, they also suggested using some salt in the tank.
I got some live food (gambusia), as soon as I put one in the tank with Bunny she was off chasing it, the most interest shown in food in the past month and a half or so. After a while she caught it and started munching down on it. I'm so very happy that Bunny has FINALLY had something to eat, hopefully this is step 1 in the path to recovery.

[Blakey]

hey thats a good call from the LFS... didnt cross my mind!

[Pyro-San]

Bunny is not getting better, does not seem to have enough energy now to catch the feeder fish. still shows very little to no interest in any dry food I've tried.
Pretty much giving up, I'm really unhappy seeing Bunny suffer so I'm going to offer it up for free to anyone that wants to try and nurse it back to health or going to have to put her to sleep

[shortie]

And could you explain to me how it could bring on Ammonia spikes????

by doing sucha large water change removes the healthy bacteria which breaks down ammonia. i would say your filters would be very well developed and even then under some stress after the change.

but i do change 2 thirds every soo often and i only use prime.
i guess this could depend of the size of your tanks as well.

regards matt

[FishGal]

by doing sucha large water change removes the healthy bacteria which breaks down ammonia

There is a very minimal amount of bacteria in the water, so I'm unsure how large water changes would affect the bacteria levels, when most of it is found in filters.

[Blakey]

Pyro dont give up mate!

What sort of tank decore do you have in there?

Maybe try getting another oscar of similar size from the shop? put em in together.... might make bunny snap out of it?

My oscar still isnt right either... never eating continously sulking.. he hadnt eaten for 3 weeks until two days ago.. he finally ate a whitebait and now back to his little wah wah.

He always comes good... as long as the fish doesnt look ill or is gasping just stick at it mate! any un eaten livies i always take out..keep them in a seperate tank

[Pyro-San]

Just took some more photos, my main worry is that bunny is suffering for nothing.
The water quality has been pretty damned near perfect since bunny has been in the tank. feed bunny NLS until she stopped eating, the last thing she ate was the tail of a gambusi(sp) the day before yesterday.
as you will see by the photos bunny is sharing a tank with a similar size Oscar, unfortunately most of the time the 'fit and healthy' Oscar gets the food.
Currently have ~40 gambusi and 5 small goldfish (the one that cant swim fast ) ready to feed to the Oscars.

If I can save Bunny I will do as much as I can, but I really don't want bunny to suffer. Bunny has only gotten worse since I first made this post.


Bunny and friend


Bunny alone


Side Shot of Bunny


Bunnys tank


Bunnys Friend


RE: water changes, I normally do 25% to 50% water changes once per week (usually on the weekend)

[FishGal]

How old is she? eg how long have you had her? And what size tank is that, that she's in?

In regards to the Goldfish as feeders, it's not adviseable. Goldfish as a coldwater fish have fat on them, fat that an Oscar will over time have trouble with and can and does lead to fatty liver diesase in O's. Avoid them and if you must feed your O's feeder fish, tropical is the way to go.

On some forums, they even go so far as to say that feeders should be quarantined for 3 months before feeding to your O to make sure they carry no dieases 8O :?

[Pyro-San]

we have had bunny for under one year (approx 6 months) the tank is a 4'x18"x18"

Feeder fish have always been a 'sometimes' food for Bunny the goldfish were a 'lets see if she will eat them' thing, Bunny did not show any interest in the goldfish when I put 2 in the tank.

I'd love to be able to quarantine the feeders for 3 months but I simply don't have the spare space

In the photos you can't really make out that Bunny has 3 'holes' in her head that look almost identical to this


Bunny is very skinny and most of the time stays at the bottom of the tank and/or near the filter intake.

[Pyro-San]

Another update.

I've been doing some reading around and it appears that Bunny might have Hexamita.

Symptoms: The first symptom of slimy, white mucous feces, even while still eating and acting normal. Further signs are the fish hiding in the corner it's head down, head above the eyes gets thin, they blacken in color, and swim backwards.

Hexamita are intestinal flagellated protozoa that attack the lower intestine. Discus and other large cichlids, especially Oscars, are especially prone to Hexamita. As it is a disease of the digestive tract, a wasting away or loss of appetite may be experienced.An effective treatment is the drug metronidazole. A combined treatment in the food (1% in any food the fish will eat) and in the water (12 mg per liter) is recommended. Repeat the water treatment every other day for three treatments.

(This disease is often confused with another disease called Head and Lateral Line Erosion (HLLE), which use to be called "hole-in-the-head" disease, because both these diseases are often seen simultaneously in the same fish. Head and Lateral Line Erosion disease looks like cavities or pits on the head and face. It is not a protozoan disease, but is actually caused by environmental conditions.)

The classic symptoms of Hex are the slowing down of eating, followed by the spitting out of food, followed by not eating at all, accompanied by white stringy/slimey poo and hiding in corners/behind objects.

Hex progresses. First the fish slows down eating and spends more time hiding. Then he will start taking a bite of food and spitting it out, accompanued by the white stringy poo and eventually weight loss (hopefully you do something before this happens). Other possible symptoms include rapid breathing and the fish turning very dark or very pale.

From what I've read Bunny is showing most of the signs, not too sure about the poo tho as I've not really seen her poo for a while now...

So I must now find some "Metronidazole" to see if that has any effect on Bunny.

[Blakey]

i doubt that bunny is suffering just feeling a bit under the weather and it isnt like your nott doing everything you can to help!

As for not feeding goldfish because of the fat... when they are that small and growing so fast i wouldnt worry. When they are bigger give em a couple a week but i wouldnt call it a stable diet. If you look as alot of mass produced fish foods for large carniviorous fish they are made up mainly of proteins (40-60%) and fats (10-20%)

i hope things turn out well for you

[Pyro-San]

Well we went to the LFS to ask for some medication, they said it was only available from a vet, they referred us to a vet. We went in to the vet had a chat with the veterinarian and he asked us to bring in Bunny.
10 minutes later we had Bunny in a bucket and back at the veterinarian. He took a few scrapes, inspected them on a microscope and pretty much confirmed(not 100%) what we suspected (Hex). He instructed us on what to do and gave us some metronidazole pills to crush up and put in the tank every day for a week.

Let us hope things improve from here.

I'll update again if/when there are any changes.