please help, my fish died.

[jacrmill]

i had a royal gramma who was doing good. he was eating and everything but he had a little fungus on his fin. so i was treating with maracyn for 5 days. by about the 3rd day he was still eating but spitting everything out. on the end of the fifth day he still looked like he had the fungus so i did a water change and was going to start with maroxy. but when i woke up he was dead. his mouth was wide open and he was curled to one side. this is the first water change ive ever done, did i do something wrong. after i had already changed the water i read on this board you are supposed to let it sit for a day or something. but i didnt know that so i didnt, i just mixed it up and poured it in. its a 37 gallon tank and i did a 5 gallon water change. the only other thing i have is a camel shrimp who is doing fine. i tested last night before the water change and got ammonia=0 nitrite=0 and nitrate=30. im completly confused, he just didnt seem that sick, if you have any ideas please tell me.

 

[alleyesonme]

the reason you wait for a day is to let all the chlorine/chloramine get out of the water, both of which are toxic to fish. the other thing you can do is go to a petstore and they have a bottle of stuff that you can squeeze some drops in there and it will take out the chlorine. chlorine is used to kill bacteria in swimming pools, its definitely not good for your fish.

 

[jacrmill]

i thought if i used RO water that it wouldnt have any chlorine. also wouldnt the chlorine take longer to kill him and wouldnt it kill the shrimp?

 

[beth]

Your fish was sick before the water change, and, yes you are supposed to let the water mixup after adding salt for 24 hrs [at least]. If your water is clorinated, you should let it sit for 24 FIRST, or use a declorinator, then add the salt, then let the salt water mix for at least 24 hrs. Despite what labels on salt bags say, salt is not fully dissolved in water shortly after mixing. You should mix, and use a powerhead to continue the mixing process for 24 hrs before adding to tank.
And hopefully, before adding to the tank, you are testing for salinity level, temp as well as PH. Are you???
Fungus diseases are not treated with antibotics. You should have used Maroxy...that is if it really was a fungus. Fungus usually looks more like tuffs of cottony material that grows fairly rapidly. Fungus-looking diseases are commonly bacterial infections--which looks more like a whitish slime coat on the surface of skin tissue.
Since you added mediction to this system, you now need to do 3 things:
1 Either get the medication out by doing water changes or using carbon filtration to filter your water [say for a few days or so].
2 Give your tank a month [or more] time to recover from the hit it took from the medication you added as well as any disease process you might have in the tank which could still effect other fish in the tank.
3. Follow the advise I gave you in the other post about water testing.
You are new to this hobby, and the best advise I can give you generally, is to be PATIENT, beleive me it pays, as well as to be knowledgable [before you start buying living creatures].
Good Luck!
OH, and don't add mediction to tanks that have inverts, live rock or live sand.
[ June 03, 2001: Message edited by: Beth ]

 

[jacrmill]

if i wait a month would i have to cycle the tank again since i have nothing in there providing any ammonia for the bacteria to feed on.

 

[@knight]

couldnt you keep a molly or two in there to keep things going?

 

[jacrmill]

im pretty sure that my mistake was in the water change. i didnt mess up enough to loose my shrimp at least, but my sick gramma just oculdnt make it. thank you all for the help, believe me that is not a mistake i will make again. i will get another powerhead tomorrow and i already have a little tank. also i really believe it was body fungus, it was a cottony looking piece of stuff on his fin, and maracynI said it was for treating body fungus. but do i need to wait a month for a fungus to clear out of my tank? doesnt a fungus live solely on the fish? and isnt the maracyn almost already gone since i did a water change and run carbon at all times? im not by any means saying you are wrong in what you are telling me, just trying to learn a little.
[ June 04, 2001: Message edited by: jacrmill ]

 

[jimi]

I doubt the water change did it. Most r/o units do remove chlorine and shrimp are more sensetive then fish. The fish was probably more sick then it appeared maybe internally.

 

[jacrmill]

thats what i was thinking but i figured that my fish, because he was sick, might have been more sensitive than the shrimp. but i guess it doesnt really matter which killed him, the water change or the fungus anymore. all that matters is i wasted $26 on medicine. Oh wait thats not what matters, what matters is will my biological filter be ok for a week without anything in there? i want to get another royal gramma, hopefully a healthy one, but cant until saturday. also i have 20 lbs of LR about 2 inches of LS and my tank has a biofilter on it. do you think the bacteria would last that long? thanks for all the help already, and anymore i will hopefully get.

 

[jbird0824]

Hi im sorry you lost your fish. The thing is you need to check ph and saltiny levels too but he got sick from somthing. I put stress zyme in after every water change its good stuff i also use for my water change,aqua safe from tetra it netralizes chlorine and other metals works great. always have salt water in a trash bucket. For evaporation and water changes too. so you can and should premix the saltwater before you put it in the tank. you can premix a week before the water change, and put the tap water stuff in there to. It helps alot do you have damels in your tank. If you dont you need to get a couple they are good hardy fish. i wouldnt put any bigg buck fish in for at least a mouth. because the other fish could get the fugus your other fish had.. I hope this help