Massive Ammonia Spike in Established 1yr+ Aquarium

[Kyla]

I am envious of your upstairs tank! I can't wait to move my fish to the main floor so I will actually get to see them all day... The system I have is pretty simple, it is currently being used for the tank in my basement through a wall, but will be set up to pump water through the ceiling once I reinforce the floor and bring the tank upstairs.

I have a hanging ceiling in the basement and will have to get some holes drilled to bring the hose up through the wall but Once it is set up I expect it to run smoothly (fingers crossed). When I am ready to fill the tank I just open the ball valve on the aging barrel, plug in the pump to the white remote on/off switch in the pic (super cheap - highly recommended!!!), lay the hose in the fish tank and press "on" from my little remote control and drink my coffee while the tank fills. There's gotta be a way you can have your water change and your coffee too!! I can't imagine going back to buckets at this point, but it took a while to get here. I went to a plumbing store to get a pump and prob paid way too much but I'm happy with my pump which hooks right up to the water tank. There are way cheaper options out there.

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[undel]

Everyone is in the main tank. Before I pulled him (at which point he brightened up) my snakeskin was black with these spiderweb looking sheets of slimecoat on his side. He looks like the trademark discus plague photos (though I realize this is probably not "the plague", but visually he looked just like that) Here he is after he brightened up. His eyes are VERY cloudy. He's currently the worst looking in my tank, though the one with the saddest behavior is the white pigeon. I'm really worried about these guys.

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So I did some reading on the forums, and apparently Kanaplex's recommended dose is far under what is recommended for Kanamyacin

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...e-and-Kanaplex

seachem says 180mg to 5 gallon, literature gives 190-380 mg/gallon

I had enough Kanaplex onhand to get it to 90mg/gallon, which is still not high enough. I've ordered Kanamyacin in bulk from Angel's Plus with overnight shipping. Hopefully I can get that dosage up to the correct amount. For now they're in 90mg/1 gallon concentration. Purigen has been removed.

I also read that it can be used alongside Furan-2 safely. I have enough Furan-2 to do a day's dose of because the packets are actually the correct dosage and not 1/5 of what they should have been like Kanaplex. I'm not going to mix meds until I read some more. I want to see how they react to just the Kanamyacin for 24 hours for the sake of their kidneys unless I hear otherwise that I should/should not mix those meds.

[undel]

A week later and I've lost 2 7-inch discus and a 6 inch discus that I've owned for a year now. Pretty bummed. I seemed to be getting a handle on the situation, but there's been a relapse and I'm unsure of how to proceed.

To review, I am 100% convinced that Al was right and this is a cycling aquarium. 3 weeks before this happened I switched out my substrated, then did 3 back to back 100% water changes before re-adding the fish. I assumed that the bacteria in my two canister filters would be enough to keep the tank cycled, grossly underestimating how important the bacteria in the substrate was. Thinking back, a week after the substrate switch, I stated having algae on my glass, which has never been a problem before. (likely due to the algae feeding on excess ammonia). I wondered why my fish weren't brightening as much as I thought they would. Against the black substrate they were dark, but I thought I would see some color change with white substrate! I didn't... but it was because my fish were in bad water quality for 3 weeks! I actually had darkening as a warning sign, but ignored it because I figured my fish were just used to being dark. Then the tank crashed fully while I added additional fish.

Everyone in the tank got clamped fins, hung out near the top, and had a white film across their whole bodies. To deal with both the bacterial infections and the bad water quality, I've been:

• Changing 70% of the water every 24 hours, 60 gallons of which I am able to replace with aged water.
• Dosing with kanaplex and furan-2.
• Using double-dose of Prime to keep ammonia in check until the next water change. Ammonia lowers to 0.25ppm after a 70% change, and rises to 1.0ppm 24 hours later.
• There is no beneficial bacteria left due to medication. I know this because nitrites are 0 and nitrates are not any higher than in tap.

• On day 4 of this treatment, I lost one fish, but everyone else seemed to be bouncing back. The film was gone on most of them, they were back in the middle of the water column, and most fins were held high.
• On day 5, the film reappeared, so I decided to do a second back-to-back 5 day treatment. I lost another fish.
• I'm now on day 7 of treating with kanaplex and furan-2 to no avail. I had to euthanize a fish with clove oil that was already halfway over the rainbow bridge and a danger to the tank if he passed while I was asleep. Most of my fish have clamped fins, they are all hanging out near the top, and all of them have a white film on them to one degree or another.

I'm unsure of how to proceed. I think the medication i weakening the fish, and I'm not sure it's working on the bacteria anymore, as the slime coat whitening has reappeared. I'm also not sure how well the Prime is combatting the ammonia, since the fish still seem so weak. I have some thoughts, but I'm not sure what the best idea is.

I could finish off the second treatment, or stop now and concentrate on water quality. (I was going to do 10 days straight, which is 2 5-day back-to-back treatments).

Option 1: Stop medication, work on cycle:
If I stop now, I can begin trying to make the water quality better by turning on my UV in my cannister filter, using purigen, and re-establishing my bacterial colonies with some seed sponges. I could try and treat the fish with salt dips to keep their outsides clean, and hope the better water cleans their insides. In addition, I can spread out the 13 remaining discus across 3 tanks, meaning the ammonia in any one tank won't climb as high. My 72 gallon is still cycled, but not cycled enough to hold everyone. Still, it could give 5 fish a good shot. The risk here is that without medication, the fish could be overtaken, and that the main tank isn't going to cycle overnight. Still, less bioload and UV should make the water nicer.

Option 2: Medicate and spread out:
Because dosing the main tank with products from LFS was getting pricy, I got some bulk medication from angels plus. I now have 100g of Nitrofurazone (active ingredient in furan-2), and 100g of kanamycin. I could spread my fish out into the 3 tanks, and medicate them all. This will allow me to put the worst fish together in the hospital tank, the medium fish in my 72 gallon, and my healthiest fish remaining in the 165. There will be less bioload per tank, and even though I'll be killing the fully cycled bacteria in the 72 gallon, I do have enough meds to treat all 3 tanks simultaneously. I can then recombine the fish to the main tank as they recover.

I'm open to any recommendations. My fish are in a bad place. At this point I've resigned myself to the possibility that I may lose every discus. (This is not being dramatic. Literally all the fish have the film and hang out near the top. The 4 new additions still have high fins, but everyone else is clamped) I've kept discus for a mere year, but have had planted community freshwater tanks for multiple years before that. I've never had a tank crash before. This is heartbreaking.

[undel]

I'm going to stop meds tonight and see what non-medicated clean water does. Their health is still deteriorating in the meds. I'm getting 70% of the water out, turning on UV, adding purigen, and adding 1tbsp salt per 10 gallons. Temp is currently at 82.

I figure that if clean water is what's needed, I'm giving it to them and I'll be able to watch them bounce back. If it's not what's needed, it's giving the fish a break from their 7 days of kanaplex and furan-2 so that I can start another round of meds in 5 days while hopefully sparing their poor kidneys. :-/

Tomorrow morning I'll do a salt dip and see how that goes. I do feel that there's something nasty in the slime coats of my fish.

After tomorrow's 70% water change, I'll see about getting some bottled bacteria and seed sponges going. If I can get the slime coats looking good and the fish swimming straight, I'll raise temps to 85. But I don't expect to be able to do that unless something magical happens.



If anyone sees a problem with this plan or has an recommendation for what to do here, I'm all ears.

[Jack L]

sorry for you troubles. couple general thoughts
1. changing more than one variable makes it even hardy to sort things out
2. i have killed fish because of doing WC and not accounting for pH siwngs
3. i have killed fish because of over cleaning my system and have and cycle on and "established" tank
3.5. i've killed fish because i though tank was cycled
4. i'm currently killing fish for...well, i'm not sure, at the moment i blame my DIY ferts.

just keep good notes, and try to learn from your mistakes.

if i were in your spot, i'd prolly be treating the spike with Safe, aging water for WC, and stopping the meds. i've presonally never got far with meds, except with treating ICH.

[undel]

Would you say no salt dips tomorrow then? Just see what frequent water changes with spike-neutralized by Prime and as much aged water as possible?

[Jack L]

Would you say no salt dips tomorrow then? Just see what frequent water changes with spike-neutralized by Prime and as much aged water as possible?

i'd only do safe if i couldn't replace water with aged water and only if my tests showed me that was their was an issue with ammonia nitrite or nitrate.

[Kyla]

If you can lower the water level in the tank and increase the aged wc % to 100 that might help? Do you need to age the water a full 24hrs to stabilize the ph? If you could get away with 12hrs aging you could maybe do 2 100% wc/day... I can't remember what type of filters you have but more surface area agitation from water splashing into the tank with a lowered water level might help with their breathing? But having less water will also increase the speed of ammonia build up.... This is an awful situation, I wish I had more to suggest. I would be concerned about stopping any treatment halfway through, I think most ppl would agree to ultimately finish treatment. A lowered water level will also lessen the amount of meds needed. But if u do increase the frequency of wc u would use more meds because u need to replace them wth every wc. I believe that if u treat the fish in a bare tank the meds will work better. And one last caution is where the seeded sponge would be coming from (eg could it bring in more pathogens while the discus are in a weakened state)?

[Jack L]

i'd only do safe if i couldn't replace water with aged water and only if my tests showed me that was their was an issue with ammonia nitrite or nitrate.

i reread your thread


one more general comment. if i decided to do a med treatment, i finish it, even if i didn't think it was doing good because stopping midstream is asking for more trouble and a waste of what i already dosed.


one more comment, and its not mine. its in a book i read. it pretty much recommended not even owning meds unless you want to spend money to have biologists examine samples to see what you are needing to treat with, the kitchen sink method does more harm than good.


i don't know about salt dip, never did one, so can't say. but i will say that i know stressing the fish can kill them and that sounds like more stress to them.

[undel]

I think stopping the treatment now will be okay, because technically I finished the treatment? It was a 5-day treatment. I went in for 7 days continuously, thinking to do 2 back-to-back treatments, but a full treatment (and then some!) has passed with no breaks.

I'll hold on the salt dip then and see how they do with just the clean water. I'm adding a double dose of prime to it because my tank has no cycle at all going. Ammonia builds quickly, from 0.25ppm to 1.0ppm in 24 hours.

When I do the 70% water change, I'm able to have 60 gallons of that be aged. 70% of 165 gallons is 115 gallons. 60 of which is aged, 55 of which is not, but I do use filter floss in my python to help it degas on its way out. Although... I do have a 72 gallon tank downstairs that's fully cycled... I could do a daily 30% change on that, and steal the water for the upstairs tank... giving me 20 more gallons a day. And the hospital tank is empty, and I'll bet I could age 29 gallons of water in that daily with a 100% change too, which could bring me up to the full amount needed. Hmmmmm.... So many buckets, haha. My arms are developing muscles from the past week, no joke!

Thank you both so much for your recommendations. I'll see how water-water-water works on the little guys, and try and jump start the cycle tomorrow with some seeded media from the 72 gallon.

[Jack L]

I think stopping the treatment now will be okay, because technically I finished the treatment? It was a 5-day treatment. I went in for 7 days continuously, thinking to do 2 back-to-back treatments, but a full treatment (and then some!) has passed with no breaks.

I'll hold on the salt dip then and see how they do with just the clean water. I'm adding a double dose of prime to it because my tank has no cycle at all going. Ammonia builds quickly, from 0.25ppm to 1.0ppm in 24 hours.

When I do the 70% water change, I'm able to have 60 gallons of that be aged. 70% of 165 gallons is 115 gallons. 60 of which is aged, 55 of which is not, but I do use filter floss in my python to help it degas on its way out. Although... I do have a 72 gallon tank downstairs that's fully cycled... I could do a daily 30% change on that, and steal the water for the upstairs tank... giving me 20 more gallons a day. And the hospital tank is empty, and I'll bet I could age 29 gallons of water in that daily with a 100% change too, which could bring me up to the full amount needed. Hmmmmm.... So many buckets, haha. My arms are developing muscles from the past week, no joke!

Thank you both so much for your recommendations. I'll see how water-water-water works on the little guys, and try and jump start the cycle tomorrow with some seeded media from the 72 gallon.

i just got water barrels off of craigslist and i use a sump pump and garden hose to move it to the display tank.

[undel]

The past 3 water changes have been 70% @every 12 hours with as much aged water as I can manage. Double dose of prime. Two fish moved to 72 gallon downstairs to help lessen bioload. 11 discus remain in main tank.

The fish behavior has improved. All but one fish has unclamped its fins, and all but two fish are interested in eating. They are not clumping anymore and are using the full water column. Big improvement!

However, I am concerned about the film that remains on their sides. Their attitude Here is what I'm seeing:

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Those images are depressing. :-/

I am content to continue with clean water if there's a possibility that clean water and the fish's own immune system may clear this up. But if this looks like something that will not clear up without treatment then I'm going backwards by trying to re-establish a biological filter right now, if I need to medicate the tank in the future.

I guess my current feeling is to order a microscope so I have it on hand. Then in 3 days, take a look at the fish (with or without microscope) and see if the slime coat situation is improving. If it looks the same, I'm going to try a scrape so that if I medicate, I'm not medicating blind! Now to find out what the cheapest microscope I can get that will do what I need is. :-/




Do you think there's a possibility the fish are going to recover from this with just water changes?

[undel]

I've set up a proper aging barrel in my laundry room with a 50 foot hose, haha. Hopefully water changes will be easier now. Lugging all those buckets was a nightmare!

I'm beginning to suspect they have velvet, but I'll be able to confirm tomorrow when my microscope arrives. The blue discus in particular shows a slightly gold look to the parts of this slime coat that are lifting off. I'm hoping it's not velvet, because I just started to re-establish my poor biofilter, haha. Everyone except one of my fish is still acting very perky despite their slime coats, so they're definitely happy to have that medicine out of the water and the big 12 hour water changes.

[Kyla]

I can't recall, but had you recently added new, unquarantined fish to the tank? I had a similar problem with fish in QT once, and it was chilodonella (best guess). It took forever to eradicate. 2 of my friends also got it from the same shipment of discus. We kept reinfecting our guys with the nets/hoses/buckets - had to start sterilizing everything with bleach between maintenance and finally got rid of it.

[undel]

Kyla, that sounds frustrating! I hope that I don't have chilodonella. I'm glad yours got cleared up!

Well, this isn't as enlightening as I thought it might be. I was looking for velvet and columnaris or anything that was moving too much. Unless this looks like oodinium or something recognizable, I'm at a loss. Does slime coat normally look like this? There's a lot of clumps of texture.
https://youtu.be/niuaDkw3p2s

snakeskin.jpg

I'll be reposting to the medical section at this point. While this was originally a water quality issue, since we're now going into flora and fauna, its' best that I post there.



I did have fun looking at the detritus worms in my filter gunk! Wiggly little things!