Sick Dojo Loach
Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 10:02 am
Hello - first post here
I have a Dojo Loach and he is not doing well
He has had various symptoms including floating to the top and not being able to stay down. Now he is down but lethargic and has a very weird looking ring of what looks like dead skin around the middle of his body, it looks a little bloody underneath
He can swim up and does so sort of frantically once in a while but he does not eat and when he does swim up he drops back down right away and stays down for 8 hours or so before he swims up and drops back down again. I feel like he is both suffering and also super resilient and fighting for his life.
As far as the water - I fought a losing battle with brown algae over the course of 2-3 month and finally tapped out and replaced everything in the tank except the rock/gravel in the bottom - new filter, everything - this was about a month ago
I almost immediately had a green algae bloom which I seem to have gotten under control but there is a weird whitish growth that looks both stringy and chunky, like pieces of floating sponge if that makes sense
I am doing a ton of water changes and for some reason tap water goes in at 6.8 - 7.0 PH but within 24 hours it drops to 6.0 which I know is not good for him. So I change 1/2 of the water pretty much every day
It is 15 gallons, he is the last surviving fish after losing 7 guppies during and just after the brown algae stuff (which killed ALL my plants BTW)
Ammonia is 0.00 - 0.25
Nitrate2 is 0.00
Nitrate 3 is high which I think is expected in a newer tank so 40 PPM - 80 PPM
Current PH is 6.6 but I expect it to drop again which I can not figure out at all.
I have no live plants right now as I am not sure if they would help or hurt as far as the white stuff and or PH levels
I am at my wits end here !
I have a Dojo Loach and he is not doing well
He has had various symptoms including floating to the top and not being able to stay down. Now he is down but lethargic and has a very weird looking ring of what looks like dead skin around the middle of his body, it looks a little bloody underneath
He can swim up and does so sort of frantically once in a while but he does not eat and when he does swim up he drops back down right away and stays down for 8 hours or so before he swims up and drops back down again. I feel like he is both suffering and also super resilient and fighting for his life.
As far as the water - I fought a losing battle with brown algae over the course of 2-3 month and finally tapped out and replaced everything in the tank except the rock/gravel in the bottom - new filter, everything - this was about a month ago
I almost immediately had a green algae bloom which I seem to have gotten under control but there is a weird whitish growth that looks both stringy and chunky, like pieces of floating sponge if that makes sense
I am doing a ton of water changes and for some reason tap water goes in at 6.8 - 7.0 PH but within 24 hours it drops to 6.0 which I know is not good for him. So I change 1/2 of the water pretty much every day
It is 15 gallons, he is the last surviving fish after losing 7 guppies during and just after the brown algae stuff (which killed ALL my plants BTW)
Ammonia is 0.00 - 0.25
Nitrate2 is 0.00
Nitrate 3 is high which I think is expected in a newer tank so 40 PPM - 80 PPM
Current PH is 6.6 but I expect it to drop again which I can not figure out at all.
I have no live plants right now as I am not sure if they would help or hurt as far as the white stuff and or PH levels
I am at my wits end here !