Lethargic Corys after adding aquarium salt

[asquirrel]

First post here. My corys were not doing well in my 20 gallon tank so I gave them some aquarium salt and increased the temperature a bit. Symptoms: Emerald cory was swimming sideways. Melini cory was not finding food. Almost looked like he had cataracts over his eyes. Rubber lip pleco had some kind of white spot near his eye. Only fish doing well was the albino and the betta. I did two 50% water changes (10 gallons out of 20) over the past few weeks. Ammonia was 0 yesterday. Nitrates were 0 yesterday. Nitrites yesterday were kind of high 0.25 ppm. Also vacuumed the tank with a battery operated aquarium vacuum.

So I was reading about what to do and I found an article which said that the aquarium salt will help with the nitrite problem (will negate the effects of it).

http://www.yamatogreen.com/salt.htm

"Advantages of added salt include better osmosis balance for the fish (who must maintain a proper internal/external balance of water). Salt also reduces or eliminates nitrite toxicity. In a cycling tank, nitrites can be quite toxic, but not with added salt. Indeed, marine fish are completely free of worries from nitrite toxicity due to the high salt content of seawater. Experiments with nitrite levels as high as 25 ppm cause no problems for saltwater fish. A similar effect can be expected with freshwater fish, although of course we will not be adding salt at the same rate as for saltwater fish. Salt also reduces parasite infestations, since salt interferes with the life cycle of many (or most) external parasites. "

Aquarium salt also helps fight parasites and fungal infections so I thought I’d give it a shot.
The article states to add 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons of water. I put 10 gallons of fresh water in total with 2 tablespoons of aquarium salt. I also increased the temp in the tank from 80F to 83F in case there might also be parasites.

Everything was good last night. They looked great this morning also. Their scales look shiny and they had energy. This afternoon and tonight, everyone is kind of lethargic. They ate in the afternoon but everyone is laying around at the bottom of the tank. I ended up dropping the temperature back down. Unplugged the heater and waiting for everything to get back into the green zone of my thermometer. Almost back to 80F again but they’re still hanging out at the bottom just resting and not foraging. I got pics of everyone except the pleco, who was camera shy. (he was hiding in a terracotta pot). I took pics so you can see the fish now (also took pics of temps and aquarium).

I do want to let you know they are still eating but not actively foraging unless I drop food into the tank. I gave them 8 sinking tablets over the day and 2 algae tablets (one in the day and one at night).

Could I have poisoned them with the aquarium salt? Did I burn their gills? Was the temp to high? Any advice would be appreciated.

I could only upload three photos here so I'm sharing all of them with my Google + account picture link:

https://plus.google.com/photos/10151907 ... ZvH44iQzgE

Thanks!

p.s. On the emerald cory it looks like he has a gouge on the top part of his body. I think he's been like that when I bought him almost two weeks ago. Does it look like a gouge to you and do you think he'll be okay? Should I put him in a quarantine tank with aquarium salt and water conditioner like I did with my betta when he gouged his head?

[bekateen]

What is the aeration in this tank? There have been several recent threads in this forum where the importance of adequate oxygen levels during high temp and salt treatments. Also, you say that more than one of your fishes has been "gouged?" On what?

Cheers, Eric

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I'm not a great fan of adding salt, have a look at the water chemistry article by Joe Gargas in http://www.tbas1.com/Exchange/The%20New ... d%2011.pdf.

Salt (NaCl) will limit uptake of nitrite (NO2-), this is because it becomes Na+ and Cl- ions in solution, the large number of Cl- ions in solution make it less likely that the fish will take in a NO2- ion through the gills. My preferred option for a Cl- ion source would be calcium chloride (CaCl), but the fact that you have measurable nitrite means that you really need to address your water quality issues first.

Have a look at <http://web.utk.edu/~rstrange/wfs556/htm ... monia.html>, bottom of the page. I'd recommend the whole site as a good read for those who are interested in water quality (accessed via the "contents" & "more" button).

cheers Darrel

[asquirrel]

Hi Darrel!

Thanks for those resources. What else can I do to get those nitrites down besides changing the water? Changing 10 gallons twice a week is a hard since the 5 gallon buckets of water are heavy. If I add more plants will that help? Could it be that I'm not getting up enough sediment off the bottom of the tank? Do I have too many fish for a 20 gallon tank? (one betta, one melini cory, one emerald cory, one peppered cory, one albino cory, and one rubber lipped pleco = 6 total).

I checked them this morning and they seem to be eating but are still aren't swimming around too much. The plants look good (fungus is gone) and the fishes scales look shiny and healthy.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

What else can I do to get those nitrites down besides changing the water? Changing 10 gallons twice a week is a hard since the 5 gallon buckets of water are heavy. If I add more plants will that help?

Water changes will help, more plants will help even more. I like some floating plants because they have access to aerial CO2.

I always have a sponge pre-filter on the filter intake, this gives you extra biological filtration and stops debris getting in the filter. You want the dissolved oxygen and ammonia (from the fish) in the filter, not anything else.

Just syphon up the debris.

cheers Darrel

[PabloG]

I think you are confusing nitrites with nitrates. Nitrites are very toxic. Nitrates none at low levels. Nitrates are reduced by water changes and plant growing, or an anaerobic filtration. Nitrites are reduced by biological filtration to nitrates by aerobic bacteria.

[asquirrel]

Question on the sponge filter and ceramic beads. Should I be washing them? I washed them today and they smelled horrible - like ammonia. Good new is today after vacuuming the tank and cleaning everything, everything is reading 0 ppm (except for PH, which was around 7.4 - 7.6.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Question on the sponge filter and ceramic beads. Should I be washing them? I washed them today and they smelled horrible - like ammonia. Good new is today after vacuuming the tank and cleaning everything, everything is reading 0 ppm (except for PH, which was around 7.4 - 7.6.

They shouldn't smell, other than a very slight "earthy" smell and they should only need occasional rinse, and then don't clean all the biological filter media at the same time.

This is really important. Have a look here: <"pleco tank filtration....http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... on#p285079.

It sounds like your filter isn't fully mature ("cycled"), you need to keep changing water every day until it matures. If you can add plants, and particulalry floating plants that will help by removing ammonia and nitrite as well as nitrate.

cheers Darrel

[asquirrel]

I read the link in your post and was confused with this statement, "The aquarist should remove the detritus, not the filter. It does seem paradoxical to prevent your filter from filtering, but it makes real sense. Having a filter blocked up with detritus strongly degrades its ability as a biological filter." So I went to YouTube and it looks like I was supposed to take the filters and put them in a bucket of tank water. Rinse them and squish the sponges.

Couple of questions off that though. So when I squish the sponges, am I supposed to put some tank water in, squish the sponges in them and rinse them? See if the tank water is clear and if not, keep doing it until the sponges aren't releasing any more particles? Or should I just do the rinsing and squishing one time, so that there's still stuff in the filter but not as much?

I was at least following the system up until yesterday. I cleaned BOTH of my sponges and ceramic beads under tap water until they were squeeky clean (no more particles being released). So it's probably fair to say at this point I've killed off or rinsed off all the beneficial bacteria on the filters. I also gave the terra cotta pots in the tank a good washing under tap water. So the only benefical bacteria left would be what is left on the tank walls and the sand, right?

If I killed all the beneficial bacteria off in the media filter it will probably take a few months to get it all back, right?

You're probably asking yourself, "why did he do that?" Well...I thought maybe that's why I was getting readings so high with the nitrites. All those tiny particles floating around in the sink was crap that was just decaying and causing the nitrite levels to be high.

Good news is that I have some Bacopa caroliniana, Water Hyssop coming in the mail probably Tuesday. I hear that stuff grows pretty fast. My Java Ferns are doing fantastic. Amazon Swords going next faster in growth. Anubias nana grows slow as molasses (but the leave are super dark green so I'm happy it's healthy at least).

Anyway, I really appreciate all the advice you've given me and I'll use it to keep all my fishes happy and healthy.

Crap. One more thing. I give my buddies a piece of zucchini squash every night before I go to bed. I put one piece in a cup of water and microwave it for like 3 minutes. Then put cool water in and cool the squash off before I put it in. How firm should the squash be? Should it be more on the mushy side so the fish can pull it apart? My rubber nose tried to eat one the other day and it was hilarious. The squash was probably over cooked since he couldn't break any pieces off so he was on top of it and wrestling with it all over the tank. Rolling around with the squash. Classic pleco comedy. But yeah, I'd prefer for them to eat the squash instead of wrestling with it. So better to make it mushy? I tried 4 minutes in the microwave but it was even more rubbery. I tried one minute and it was floating in the cup. Should I mic it just to the point so that the squash sinks and then I know it's done?

[bekateen]

I don't cook my zucchini at all. The plecos scrape off the surface, digging a pit in the center. Then I take out and throw away the remaining veggie the next morning. It's a little wasteful, but if I leave the veggies in the tank longer, they begin to rot and cloud the water.

[asquirrel]

Awesome! I'll try some raw zucchini tonight and see how that goes.

[PabloG]

I need to make a clarification: there are two fundamental filtration types to take in mind. The first is the mechanical filtration where the detritus are separated from the water. Then the "clean" water goes through the biological filtration where the bacteria transforms the ammonia into nitrites and then the nitrites into nitrates. The commercial aquarium filters take this two steps at the same time, in the same chamber only with different material. Where the mechanical filtration takes action, grows heterotrophic bacteria, who degrades the detritus and the uneaten food. This bacteria takes a week to perform a good colony. Here, the odor in a high load filter must be of ammonia because ammonia is the detritus degrade result. Then the clean water must go into the biological filtration, where grows autotrophic bacteria (this take a month to have a healthy colony). Here the ammonia degrades into nitrite and then the nitrite into nitrate. If you wash your biological filter (in this case your ceramic rings) you are killing the bacteria, so you are losing your biological filter capabilities. You need to wash your mechanical filter media to take out the detritus, so the biological filter continues receiving good water flow.
Remember: the bacteria is so sencible like the fishes. They use O2 to live at the same amount fishes do. Changes in PH or temperature will kill your bacteria in the same way than kills your fishes. If you wash the media with tap water, you kill your bacteria, in the same way you kill your fishes with tap water. Wash the media with the water you drop on the weekly water change.
In aquaculture, the mechanical and biological filtration aren't in the same chamber for 2 reasons. For cleaning operations and to have the heterotrophic bacteria away from the autotrophic bacteria. The heterotrophic compete for living space, and we need the autotrophic bacteria for the biological filter.

[TwoTankAmin]

First, regarding adding salt for nitrite:

-Salt does not help with nitrite, chloride does. Salt is sodium chloride.
-Target 10 times the chloride as there is nitrite. (Some suggest only 6 times.)
-A 20 gal tank after décor etc. is likely to hold about 17 gals. or about 64 liters.
-At .25 ppm of NO2, you need to get 2.5 mg/l of chloride from salt into the tank.
-So you need to add a total of 2.5 x 64 = 160 mg of chloride.
-You do not need aquarium salt, table salt is fine here. Do not use a sw salt mix under any circumstances.
-Salt is only about 2/3 chloride, so you would need to add 242 mg of salt to block that .25 ppm of nitrite.
-242 mg = .24 gm.
-I doubt you can measure that little salt. ¼ teaspoon of salt shaker sized table salt weighs 2 grams. You should have added 1/8 of ¼ teaspoon of salt for the nitrate.
-Corys and plecos do not like salt, and for sure not at the level you added it.

Next, rinsing your media in tap water with either chloramine or chlorine in it is highly unlikely to damage any of the bacteria due to how little is in the water. These things will kill your fish long before they even annoy the bacteria in a cycled tank.This is because of the biofilm in which the bacteria live and attach themselves. Happy to link to research on this. However, I still suggest its best to rinse media in tank water to be safe. The bacteria is a lot tougher than most think. But making media squeeky clean is a bad idea.

Your tank can not be seriously uncycled as there would be ammonia showing. You state you smelled ammonia, but did you test for it? If there is ammonia present, then you have way bigger issues here. But if there is no ammonia showing, if the tank is mostly cycled, then at .25 ppm nitrite must be coming down not rising. And that means it should have hit 0 on its own in a matter of hours from when you tested it.

The following is from an article I wrote for another site.

SOME FACTS ABOUT NITRITE

This too is a problem and it is important to understand how it affects fish in order to know how you can deal with it.

“Nitrite enters the bloodstream through the gills and turns the blood to a chocolate-brown color. Hemoglobin, which transports oxygen in the blood, combines with nitrite to form methemoglobin, which is incapable of oxygen transport. Brown blood cannot carry sufficient amounts of oxygen, and affected fish can suffocate despite adequate oxygen concentration in the water. This accounts for the gasping behavior often observed in fish with brown blood disease, even when oxygen levels are relatively high.”
The Merck Veterinary Manual for Veterinary Professionals http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/exotic_ ... _fish.html

SIGNS OF NITRITE POISONING

Fish will not behave as they normally do. Because their blood is not carrying oxygen, fish will behave as if they are suffocating. They may hang just below the water surface or near filter outflows trying to get air. What you will not see is any outward sign of bodily damage nor damage to the gills of the fish.

Finally, I would suggest any tank needs a 35 to 50% water change every week.

[bekateen]

Hi TTA,

I tried your link and it didn't work for me. As far as I can see, the hyperlink is the same as the text: "http://www.merckmanu...es_of_fish.html/", and it's not a complete link. Can you check this please and if it's bad, provide the complete link?

Thanks. Cheers, Eric

[TwoTankAmin]

I thinks its fixed- sorry about that. You have to scroll down to the nitrogenous compounds section.

You might also like this one too https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/getFact ... sheet/110/

[bekateen]

Thanks, TTA. Yes the link works now.