Temporary disabled (in physical rehab) with dependant Cats

[airlik73]

hello PCF gang

Does anyone have suggestions on tank cleaning and maintenance? when injured and physically limited from injuries?

HOW DO I KEEP MY CATS IN GOOD HEALTH? as I recover.

I been injured earlier this year and not able to care for my tank of cats. I did all I can do but now there is BBA. Black Beard Algae and I worry it will harm my scaleless featherfins and spiky ralphs.

I have been just topping the water by small amounts.

I have a 70g low light setup with driftwood. circulation 9w UV and fluval 1 inside and fluval 305 canister.

The crew are 3 Feathersfins and 3 Chocolate Ralphs.

My heartaches watching the tank go to $h!tz and degrade. I feel guilty as they are my friends with fins.

Has anyone survived a serious accident that reduced the ability to care for tanks?

Does anyone have support resources?

These fish are very much part of me.. any feedback is welcomed. If my cats die...a part of me will also die in spirit.

I have called for quotes from Coast Aquarium and also Shiny Fish.ca. [img]

Once upon a time I was able to care for my cats. Pic from 2015

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[Atmichaels]

Do you have any local clubs? My area clubs are incredibly supportive and there's always someone willing to help out with water changes, etc.

[TwoTankAmin]

I had hip surgery years back and was unable to care for tanks for a number of weeks (8 or so). I was lucky a couple of fish friends were willing to come and help out. But I have 20 tanks and it was hard asking for that much help weekly. So over 6+ weeks they came twice. I lost a lot of my altum angels as well as pleco fry. But for the most part all was OK. I have pump systems for removing and refilling which helped a lot.

BBA will not harm the fish. You may not like how it looks, but it is not a danger.

Since you do not indicate what you might be able to do or if things will change with time, it is hard to offer suggestions. The primary concerns are water changes and filter maint. If you are going to need help, then making the work as easy as possible is a good idea. Pumps and hoses are your friend, or rather your help's friend. One thing you can do to reduce the work load is insure your filter media is less likely to clog. This may mean removing filter floss or other media that may clog rapidly (even prefilters). It is a lot easier to rinse out sponges or similar media than to change floss etc. You can wait to clean filters until the flow slows or the return water can not exit fast enough and it comes out places on a power filter where it should not.

The other thing I can suggest which will greatly reduce one's work load is to change filtration. I am pushing 69 and I find tank work has gotten a lot harder over the past decade. So I set about finding ways to reduce the work load. one of these is switching filtration to using Hamburg Matten Filters (HMF) and Poret foam rather than the cheaper material sponges common in the hobby. An HMF can go between one and two years without needing cleaning (wood eating cats will shrten this time). I have replaced most of my sponge filters with Poret foam cubes also. I clean these only once every 4 - 6 weeks or so. You can find information on this on the Swiss Tropicals site here http://www.swisstropicals.com/

Finally, one thing we can do to reduce the level of tank work is to stock lightly. Just removing a few fish can make a huge difference in the level of care needed for any one tank.

Good luck with it and I hope things improve for you.

[JamesFish]

BBA is a pain but unless a fish eats allot of it doesn't do any harm. I have an upside down cat and an oil cat in a tank that has some.

I did myself some injuries and am to stubborn to ask for help so adjusted my keeping. I use a water butt that's placed in the night before. Put a tap and hose system to fill it up. Leave an air pump on overnight. In morning I drain tanks out door well away from house. Use a return pump to fill tanks out water butt. I never lift a bucket this way. Water is an okay temp and an empty 100l slim line water butt and stand are not too bad to move.

I also use JBL bionitrate which turns nitrate into a gas but it takes 2-6 weeks per packet and requires an external pump. Not to mention a pack has 4 bags in it that covers 200L for about £20. Helps cuts down on water changes. It is not ideal but better than high nitrates in my thinking.

[airlik73]

Thank you for the responses.

Knowing BBA wont harm the cats is a relief. Just from reading is supportive knowing that we can work together through hard times. I really saddens me when (non fish keepers) ask "How Much is the Fish worth?" or advise me to "Focus on yourself dont worry about the fish dying they will understand..."

I am not aware of any catfish clubs. The last time I asked about catfish clubs I was mistaken as wanting to bate underage relationships. I never knew there was a term called "catfishing". I always managed my tank well and from that I may have became stubborn in my ways of asking for help. Now with BBA and algae covered windows I could barely see the cat gang without a flashlight.

Once I recover I would like to start a local fish helper club possibly as a nonprofit outfit as a resource for injured fish keepers. Already I am thinking this is needed and would be eligible for a Consumer Initiative grant.

I hope everyone is well. Thank you for sharing and please continue to share as I will take your ideas to heart.

I will first replace the filter sponges.



Eric

TANK MANAGEMENT HISTORY:

2015 Mama feather and baby feather

2015 with plants

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Currently I am limited to how much I can do that requires lifting bending balancing and delicate cognitive decisions such as dosing and tweaking parameters.

The tank is raised and in the past i would use a step stool to access. transport the cats into holding tank with about 70% tank water and 30% treated water. The holding tank would have driftwood, small heater and filter. The main tank I would syphon 20% every 2 weeks (then top up with adjusted water prepared in buckets. Monthly I remove all equipment for disassembly and cleaning. While the main equipment is removed I would add a powerhead with sleeve foam to kick up the debris for netting. Glass windows would be magFloat cleaned and if needed scraped by plastic razors. I would let the powerhead run overnight. The next day the top level substrate would be scooped out into a bucket and rinsed along with ornaments. The cats also tunnel passages made of 1.5" pvc piping. These are placed under the sand so they can hide. I dont remove the tunnels as the powerhead would be attached to tubes to blow out the tunnels. Netting would be repeated until satisfied.
Equipment goes back and prepared water is filled. I would take chemistry reading for pH GH KH nitrites nitrates. I dont use co2 for the plants. Once tank settles the cats are reintroduced to the tank in order of seniority.

It is very rewarding to see each of the cats find their spot. The ralphs love the tunnels and the feathers enjoy hanging out upside down with the driftwoods.
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[airlik73]

Thank you Atmichaels, twoTank, and James.

[airlik73]

UPDATE:

Cats are still alive and feeding. Ralphs had some scuffles. Tank is very basic and holding on for life. Thank you to all. I was really worried of losing more mini monster cats. I have made some progress and look forward to replanting the tank with help of a friend.

The cats still have appetite and your suggestions of focusing on the sponges made a great difference. Whole hearted thanks to PCF!

[JamesFish]

Glad your recovery is going well. I'm happy for you that your fish are well as I'm sure that despite being in a more basic setup you are really happy to have been able to keep them. When your feeling up to it would love to see some new pictures.

[JamesFish]

To add a minor amount of value I am unable to lift a bucket of water for 3 months and have 4 tanks with fish in. I was in processing of getting setup but never finished or else life would have been easier. The new stand and hood are due to arrive in a few weeks. Going to be really frustrating looking at an empty tank that's not helping me and having one 3ft that is barely stocked as only just started moving fish into it day before things happened.

1)Brought another tank into service to take 3 of the heaviest bio load fish. It's 3 foot long and planted in all honesty apart from the possibly of the filter clogging I think it could hold out for a very long time without help. Filters mature as been kept on another tank but having a few messy fish out a tank can only help.

2)Cleaned everything apart from pipe work day before. Moving the above fish to give tanks better chance. (Didn't have time for pipework)

3)Deployed pure aquarium balls into 2 tanks by filter bags. They dissolve pretty quick and look like they only last a week but will help keep the water in check for 7 days. After which point the chemical I am pretty sure will be useless but may continue to work. Eheim ecco pro didn't like using bags as slowed the flow too much and an 18" is too small for my smallest external.

4)Made sure all my JBL bionitratex media was in date. (A biological media takes a few months to get rolling and needs external filters to work is not a magic wand but helps). Not everyone will agree with its use but at times you will take all the help you can get.

5)Double checked all my filters are well above rated size for tanks.

6)On the filter that is likely to clog placed an eheim prefilter. Several reasons, helps stop the sand getting in the pump, traps allot of debris, don't need to clean it can throw another one on quickly so an unskilled job to replace and just leaves one to clean another time.

7)Bought a new test kit. JBL set for all the basics for £20 and checked it was working seems fine. Am aiming to start testing next weekend so I can tell if anything is in trouble.

My biggest worries are my foam filter on 18" clogging up or it losing water so fast I can't replace it and my 3ft carrying most of my fish now.

18x10x10 has an open top and loses water ever week has 9 dwarf corys and 1 dwarf moth catfish in it.

36x12x12 has a good assortment of fish but not over stocked as now mostly small with the exception of a upside down catfish, flag tail porthole and an ancistrus. The rest are shrimp, small danios, tetras and rummy nose. Wanted to rebalance the load but just haven't had time for new 3ft to be up and running to settle them in. Has some big nana plants but nothing major and thin layer of sand shouldn't go toxic as it can be gotten to the bottom of by all fish.

The other 2

The 3ft with 1 platy, 1 farlowealla and an ancistrus am pretty sure as it is planted nitrates, ammonia, nitrites wont be an issue.

The 2ft has a filter so over rated that it is using a eheim ecco pro 300 with a brand new floss on it and a relatively light load at 8 neons, 5 ember tetras, 5 corys, khuli loach / eel depending how you want to define it, some shrimp and an ancistrus. Plants / moss in the tank so am fairly sure conditions will stay in range or only slowly go down hill.

Considering switching to better quality food and a 6 day a week feeding system. I normally have very fat fish so will be cutting down the amount of food going in as well. Am wondering how much difference better quality food can be expected to make?

Aim of changes I made was to give me 7 days to recover if not more. Am hoping for 14 days before my better half has to lift some bits in and out for me. Am planning to just let the light stocked tanks run and deal with when well and concentrate on the 2 that will be more trouble. Keeping prefilter clean to save opening the canister on the 36x12x12 and small top ups on the 18x10x10. With use of more aquarium pure balls each week to keep it in line. Any suggestions on better approach?