another roseline problem...

[aznkonner]

so his popeye went away but now his body is bent? anyone know the cause and or cure for this? i attached some photos to show you what i mean.

http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img3800xm0.jpg
http://img249.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img3812hw3.jpg

I think the second one shows it a bit more clear. i took a few shots of the body on a side view but everything looks normal from the side. if it helps any on the second day of treatment he was swimming very weirdly...like he was bolting up and down almost as if he had a bad case of ich. afterwards he would calm down and be normal again. now he's calm and swims normal enough but that bend in the body looks weird...is it something i should be worried about?

[aznkonner]

bump for help

[Wö£fëñxXx]

I doubt he will recover from that completely.
Very nice and hard to find fish, you should make
sure his water is/was pristine at all times.

Do you keep him in polluted water? unkempt? dirty?
Good filtration...and water changes for keeping fish
healthy.

[aznkonner]

well according to my lfs my water is great. all the parameters were near 0. but i'm guessing the reason why they got sick was because of the high ph. looks like the water in my area has a high ph so every time i did a water change fish would start looking and acting weird. now i know why. my ph was around 7.5. but i've added some buffer that is suppose to lower it to around 6.0 i've been waiting a few days to test the water again to make sure the that the buffer keeps the water at around 6.0 but other then the pH my water has been perfect. it happened after his battle with popeye so could be be like some sort of scar tissue?

[Torpedobarb]

from what I have read.. trying to change your tanks ph level is difficult.. or at least difficult to maintain. once you start messing with the ph level to get it down to a level you and your fish like.. you have to keep it there. so you will have to figure out exactly how much buffer you add each time. If you tap water is that bad.. just get some 5gal jugs and fill them up at the grocery store.. that is what I do

[aznkonner]

yea right now i have two 5 gallon jugs. i'm planning on doing 10 gallon water changes from now on. that's about a 15% or so. i wont' have to do many since i have so many plants at the moment. i hate it because he was one of the nicer roselines that i got...started getting a nice green tint and everything too

[ZLewis]

I don't think that the ph being 7.5 is your problem. You would be better off using plain tap water and not using any chemicals to lower the ph. You are going to have a hard time maintaining stable ph when you are always adding chemicals to alter it. A stable ph is the most important factor. Keep up with water changes and your roselines will be fine.

[lauraleellbp]

x3 on you're better off not trying to adjust/add chemicals to change your pH. Did you go for a while w/out doing PWC on this tank? That's the prime culprit for a tank's parameters to get too far off from tap parameters. IMO you should keep up the PWC at least weekly.

Also, get yourself a master FW test kit- they're only $20-25 and could end up saving you a lot of $ in the long run- Rosalines aren't cheap fish!

"Almost 0" doesn't sound "good" to me- in a healthy tank ammonia and nitrItes should ALWAYS be zero, no more! Sounds to me like your fish store may have been more interested in selling you fish than telling you the truth...

[aznkonner]

Originally Posted by lauraleellbp

x3 on you're better off not trying to adjust/add chemicals to change your pH. Did you go for a while w/out doing PWC on this tank? That's the prime culprit for a tank's parameters to get too far off from tap parameters. IMO you should keep up the PWC at least weekly.

Also, get yourself a master FW test kit- they're only $20-25 and could end up saving you a lot of $ in the long run- Rosalines aren't cheap fish!

"Almost 0" doesn't sound "good" to me- in a healthy tank ammonia and nitrItes should ALWAYS be zero, no more! Sounds to me like your fish store may have been more interested in selling you fish than telling you the truth...

sorry i meant that my ammonia and nitrites were 0 and the nitrates were at a very low number.

as far as my ph and chemicals are concerned i'm thinking i woudl need to add chemicals because i never added chemicals before and the ph for my tank was a whooping 7.5 i have 2 big pieces of driftwood and lots of organic dirt (with lots of small bits of wood in there) which should lower the pH but my tank was still extremly high. the only explanation would be that my tap water pH was too high which would explain why the deaths and health problems always came AFTER a water change. i thought it was stress etc but even small water changes (10% or so) would end up making my rummy nose swim wildly.

Oh yea and i've been pretty diligent about water changes. the tank itself has been set up for a while with large rainbows and other hardy fish but in the last 3 months or so i turned it into a plant tank. the gravel and dirt remain the same and the filter remain the same. only the inhabitants and aquascape has changed. normally i would do a 20% water change every week. and every week i would see my fish acting kinda weird. at first i thought stress, then i thought that maybe my bioload was too high and when i did a water change the chemicals changed too much. i got the lfs to check my water parameters (i trust this guy he's a good buddy now and doesn't really pressure me to buy any fish) and of course everything came out fine. Afterwards i checked the pH and that was when i realized it was too high being at 7.5 (the card couldn't check any higher).

I think i'm going to have keep on adding chemicals to adjust the pH for the time being and i'm going to invest in a pH tester as well. the reason being is because since adding the powder to lower my pH i've done 2 water changes (one was 15% and the other 80%...i had to move the tank for construction which is why i had to do the 80%) and the fish aren't acting weird or anything right now. in fat they're all doing fine even after the 80% water change which is pretty amazing to me because before i would always lose 1 or 2 fish fish after a water change that was larger then 25%.

Thanks for the advice on the no chemical thing but i gotta go with my gut on this one and gotta keep using the Kent pH thing to get it to around 6ish. i'll be adding the roseline back into the community tank again by tonight after all the construction is done and i move my tanks back into their orginal spots.

[lauraleellbp]

You need to find out the source of that high pH- there's something in the tank, possibly a rock? Did the LFS verify that pH reading, and have you checked the expiration date on the test?

You're infinitely more likely to kill your fish adding pH lowering products instead of doing many, many, many PWC. You're going to end up with your tank water further and further away from your tap water using any other route. IMO tracking down what is leeching into your water (if that reading is accurate) and doing repeated PWC is really the only safe way to get your tank water params back in line with your tap.

[aznkonner]

when looking at my tank the only difference i've had in that tank and other tanks is plants. my wood is the same same wood i'ved used before and the dirt shouldn't be a problem. heater is the same no rocks no special air stones. um....my filter has like ceramic rings in there but i dunt think that could be the problem. i do have 1 small pleco cave in there. it's made from slates used for discus breeding. it's relatively small so i dont' think it can do huge changes in my pH

[honor]

i usually just throw about 5-10 pounds of crushed coral into my sump.

[lauraleellbp]

Originally Posted by honor

i usually just throw about 5-10 pounds of crushed coral into my sump.

That will elevate hardness and pH- the goal here is to lower it back closer to tap water parameters.

I'd remove the slate cave- out of the things you've listed that's the most likely source IMO.

If you don't find and address the source of the problem you'll never achieve any stability.

[yoink]

What is your tap ph? I don't think it was mentioned. If your tap ph is the same as your tank ph, then look elsewhere as I don't think the ph is your problem. A ph of 9 is high, 7.5 is almost neutral and nothing to worry about for the majority of fish we keep.

[aznkonner]

well 7.5 was as high as teh test would test for. i'm planning to take some tap water and have him test it as well. for now the fish seem ok but i can't move the weird shape fish back into the tank yet since i'm still moving stuff around. i'll try removing the cave and see what happens. i highly doubt it can raise my ph taht high though since it's just a small cave in a tank of 60 gallons but anythign is worth a try.