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As you have ammonia in the tank it will hinder recovery. You need to do daily partial water changes now to deal with that and if the fins aren't improving by the time the ammonia has stopped appearing, remedicate at that point. As you still have whitespot that complicates things as the medicine for that needs to be continued. You'll need to work out partial doses to replace the w/s meds that are removed when you do a water change. The fact that there's ammonia present shows an issue with the cycling of the tank so may have been the primary cause of the fin rot.

Luckfish - have started a new topic for you as your post won't be seen so easily in the middle of an existing topic.

You can find it here:

http://www.fishkeeping.co.uk/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=32459&post_id=306853#forumpost306853

All spots have now gone. Last fish showed just a couple of spots Thursday night and these have now gone. 25% water change yesterday. Ammonia back to zero. Small amount of PH 6.9 water mixed with my own, then added added to the tank but has made no or little change to the overall Ph of the tank water which remains around 7.6/7.7.

No further fin rot. In fact fish looking healthier and swimming around more so than usual. Very impressed with the eSHa products and i cant praise highly enough.Also thanks once again to he two lady contributors helping and advising with my problems. Fishlady in particular! Youre a star*

Two final questions if i may. How long should i continue medication now would you think? How long before i can add a few more fish?

If all the symptoms have gone hold off on any further meds and see if the damaged fins start to regrow. If symptoms return do another course of whichever med is appropriate.

Don't add more fish until you've finished lowering the pH by frequent, regular changes of small amounts with the softer water - adding new fish while the water is changing its parameters and existing stock are recovering from disease would be too risky.

When the pH has evened out to the level of your new water source, then start adding more fish to suit that water.

Any problems - please ask

Hi. Im back im afraid. Still struggling a bit. No signs of any spots and rotting fins seem to be returning.Last medication was 22nd April.
Approx 30 % water change & Carbon replaced on 23rd April.
24th April two fish died.Checked the water. Ammonia .25 Nitrite zero Nitrate 40 so i did a 40% water change.


28th April roughly the same results. Did a 50% water change.

Im not overfeeding. Could the fact that im running 2 filters be anything to do with it? Am i over filtering? I checked them both when returning carbon and they are slightly dirty but not filthy.Even the wool in them didnt need rinsing.

Am still not on the lower ph water as the huge water changes im doing at the moment make this impossible. Will start this when i can get normal readings. Once again thanks for your advice!

from what i have heard you cannot over filter but what is best to do get a 10-20 litre bucket put the fish in there with one of your filters and heater make sure you dont over heat the bucket take out the rest of the water and then replace and treat water (make sure you dont clean gravel) then put fish back in i am well aware that you are not supposed to change this volume of water butif you are having recurring problems this i think would be the best method for you

Hi

No you aren't overfiltering. The problem is that due to the bad advice you were given by your LFS you are stuck with doing a "fish in" cycle. A fishless cycle can easily take 4-6 weeks, but cycling with fish takes considerably longer becasue of the necessary water changes which reduce the ammonia content of the water, thus making the process of growing sufficient bacteria a lot slower.

The only answer is to carry on monitoring ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and doing partial water changes of around 25% daily while ammonia or nitrite are present. It's a major nuisance, but unfortunately the only way to keep the fish relatively safe and stress-free until the cycle is complete.

A complete water change will not help, and may actually hinder the process as it will disturb any bacteria growing in the gravel and due to the filter being off for a prolonged period some of the bacteria in there would die off too. Plus as you have fish that have been ill and are already stressed, this would be a very bad move for hem.

Hi. Continuing 25% water change every 2 days now as results improved but not perfect. Fish now healthy, fins regrown.Bettas regrown fins are slightly different colour.
Ammonia still hovers around the .20 to .25 mark. Nitrite zero. Nitrate varies around 5 to 10 ppm, strange considering its close to 20 when tested out of the tap.
As the nitrates are lower than previously stated and have been for a couple of weeks now but the ammonia is still quite high, do you think im on way to being fully cycled?

Hi BarrierReef

Well you are coming up to 6 weeks now (a usual fish-less cycles usually takes about 4-6 weeks) but as Fishlady said it often takes longer with a fish-in cycles as you have to keep levels much lower to avoid harm.

If you are still getting up to 0.25ppm of ammonia, then personally, I would still recommend daily partial changes for the sake of the fish. Some Prime and a Seachem Ammonia Alert would assist though. Tank Nitrate can't actually be lower than tap nitrate unless you are using some form of nitrate removal media, but those test kits are pesky when reading this I know.

Im not even sure about those readings now. After i had posted earlier i went to look at them again [hadnt thrown the water out of the tubes] and took them into a different room with different light and the ammonia looked more yellow than light green so might have even been around the .10 mark, somewhere inbetween the zero and the next colour up which is the .25 one. Im going to test my tap water at source again, but those colours on the cards are hard to read exactly. Thanks for your help
When my tank is fully cycled, should it read 'zero' right across all readings? And if so, how long should it remain at zero before any of them start to rise? Despite reading about it several times, this nitrogen cycle understanding still hasnt sunk in with me yet!