Hi Frances, good news that Ziggi is able to swim normally again. I really hope it continues for her and you. Is she still ok this morning?

Hi Nayfeee, I'm a bit concerned by what you mean - "I kept the media section in a jug of tap water". The filter media should only ever be kept in a bucket of old tank water to preserve the bacteria. Keeping it in tap water will kill the filter. I hope you didn;t do this?! Yikes!

It doesn't sound like you have any problems and I don't think it's whitespot. If the spots are going, then I would leave well alone for now. It does sound like breeding stars,and yes, young fish can get these.

Don't add anything, even salt, as it doesn't sound like it's needed right now.

I too find that disurbing the fishes routine kinda puts them out of sync. The tank lights usually go on about 6pm and off at 10pm, except at weekends when the lights are on longer. The fish seem very active for most of the day, go a bit sleepy kinda mid-afternoon, and then are ready for dinner and going hyper about 5pm! By about 10pm they are looking sleepy usually, although tonight, the lights are still on at 10.30 since were got back home late this evening, and they are still very active.

I think it's funny how they all have different sleeping habits - my moor always sleeps resting on the gravel, either at the front of the tank or under a plant near the filter intake. The fantail just kinda hangs in the middle of the tank looking spaced out! The panda moor goes completely floppy and floats at the top under the elodea, and the white moor hides under the plants at the bottom of the tank. Very cute!

Just thought I'd update this thread incase anyone is considering using or needs to use Droncit for flukes at some point. Onto the 2nd treament regime now with Droncit, since I think some flukes may have survived the 1st.

I've done some research on the skin and gill fluke life cycles, and have based my treatment schedule on the following infomation:

Skin flukes seem to give birth to live young - although info on this life cycle I found to be limited. Based on this, 1 or 2 treatments should erradicate them.

Gill flukes lay eggs however, which are temp dependant for hatching period. At temps of approx 20C they take about 4 days or so to hatch. Larvae then take 10 days to mature before they can start to reproduce eggs.

Droncit is active in the water for approx 3 - 4 days.

Based on the above info, I am treating with 3 doses, at 4 days apart. The temp of my tank is approx 20 - 22C meaning that eggs should hatch in 4 days or so. With Droncit in the water for 12 days in total this should allow for all eggs to hatch and all immmature larvea to be killed before they can lays eggs of their own. I'm dosing at 2.5mg per litre.

Have I missed anything obvious here?! Does this sound like a sensible plan? I don't want to overdo the Droncit as continuous meds aren't good for the fish and risk the flukes becoming immune to the drug.

Fingers crossed this works! Put the 1st dose in on Thurday last week - so far, scratching vastly reduced again, fish much happier looking.

Hiya, I changed all the gravel in my tank during the summer and it was easier than I thought it was going to be.

I first of all rinsed through all the new gravel and stored in buckets. I then took the fish out and put in buckets. Then I drained about 50% of the water and started to remove the old gravel. I used a plastic jug I keep just for tank use, and my hand to shovel in the gravel. Then put the new gravel in, topped up the water and put the fish back. During this time I removed the filter trays into a bucket of tank water - they were there for about 2 hours or so, and I didn't have any problems. No mini cycle either from changing all the gravel. I changed to natural dorset pea gravel, 3mm.

Em, yeah, like Sue says, if NitrITE is 100, the fish wouldn't be alive. Double check those Angie!

Yeah, unfortunately those paper strip tests are inaccuarate and not really any good. You need to get a liquid dropper test kit like the API one to get acurate results. A test for ammonia is vital too.

You've given 2 results for NitrATE, did you mean NitrITE for one of them?

A 50% water change is needed now, yes. A Nitrate reading of 100 needs to be reduced immediately. This will be contributing to the illness. Do 50% today, and then a 25% water change tomorrow. Nitrate needs to be less than 40. I'm not sure about the meds I'm afraid, never used them so can't advise. But the water changes will definitely help, and are really the cause of the problem I think, as well as the small tank size.

I know what you mean about your fish meaning so much to you - I feel the same about mine.

Hi Frances, it's really good news that Ziggi is passing something now. Normal colour? Keep up with the treatment. I too think that antibiotics would have an effect on fish digestion etc. I remember my guinea pigs digestion was affected whenevr they were on medication, so I don't see why it would be different for our fishes. x

Hi Angie, do you mean you bought the 6 in 1 test strips that are paper? If so, these aren't very good and are inacurate. Or did you buy the liquid test kit, like API? Can you post the actual results please that you got?

Rachy - I clean the fliter each time I do a water change at the moment, but when there were only 2 fish in the tank I cleaned this once a week. I have a different filter style to you remmeber - I have a trickle filter, not canister. I can easily see by just lifting the filter lids how dirty the filter wool is and where the water level is in the trays, indicating how clogged the media is. I also have quite a lot of media in there to polish the water, since it's overstocked. I have filter wool on top, then a fine wool filter pad, then a course filter pad, then the ceramic noodles/subtrat pro. I would say I do rinse the filter pads more often now because I'm overstocked, yes. I also like to keep the flow through the filter as high as possible, again, due to overstocking, so the oxygen is maintained in the water.

I have read many things on filter maintenance, too often is bad, too infrequent is bad. Also read that filter maintenance every week is fine, as the bacteria have built up so much anyway that ringing out some of them isn't a problem. I've never had a problem from filter maintenance once or twice a week - bacteria unaffected.