I'm a bit tired from work and don't really feel like doing a FW dip today. The only one that could benefit at this point would be the purple but yesterday he laid on his side for a few hours after so I will give him a break. All that amyloodinium must be leaving major wounds on his body. It's funny though....tonight I caught him and he went inside the collander. He was actually disappointed I didn't dip him. Guess I am his surrogate cleaner shrimp and he must have dead tissue to remove. Anyway, here is what he looks like tonight without the pale stressed color inside my collander. You can see some fin rot but all in all, not so bad. This guy was not looking so hot at Rbu1's place.
Slight improvement over this morning but basically the same. I feel I am at a crossroads with the other fish. They all look healthy and yet I'm slowly poisoning them with the copper treatment. Who knows what my ammonia/nitrite is like. I never got around to getting a kit that can distinguish free nitrogen from amide compounds. I also gave up maintaining pH as I am suspecting the sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) is absorbing copper. pH remains steady at around 7.7-7.8. I will prepare a bath and maybe give him a quick dip late tonight/early morning.
In the meantime, I wanted to show everyone the setup. If you didn't know, I am actually very new to the hobby. I started in May/June 2008 and went away on business from July-Oct. So true experience is not very long. Anyway, on to the setup.
I am using this as the current copper QT
This is a 100G stock tank I bought off another member a few weeks ago. I was going to make this a 100G phyto or rotifer culture but never got around to it. In fact, I had about 20x1G milk cartons of phyto but got real lazy about it. About half have crashed now since I hadn't done anything with them in about a month. A QT doesn't even have to be this big but it definitely helped here as these fish came from a 300G and they are used to space.
Here is a picture of the fish swimming in the QT
There's a maxijet 1200 and maxijet 400 providing flow. They don't suction to the plastic tank so they fell to the bottom. Also is a 200W heater, underspeced so I don't overheat. Now since the PHs are not breaking the surface tension and I have no overflow/sump for gas exchange, dissolved oxygen becomes an issue. I keep the tank at 74-75. It's in the basement so it is constant temp. And this is where my next equipment is handy.
Sponge Filter. This was sitting in my brine culture. It's rated for 80G. I bought this cause it was $9 and the one rated for 20G was $7. Figured why not just pay $2 more and get the largest. For those that don't know how it works, it basically is a piece of foam that air is blown into for circulation. The nitrifying bacteria colonize the foam and acts as the biological filter. That's it. Simple and not very high tech.
The other half of the filter is the cheapo air pump. Think this was $15-$20. I have a whisper 100 driving my phyto which was about $25. This one is either a whisper 20 or 40 and is enough to provide air to the sponge and deliver enough oxygen for everyone.
Here are some meds I am using for this:
From left to right:
portable pH meter and therm
Salifert Cu Kit
API Cu Kit
Maracyn Plus (Antibiotic) - not dosing in the QT.....contains sulfur which can reduce the Cu++ to Cu+ killing all fish.
Ampicillin (Antibiotic) - adding 10-20 drops of this in the FW dip (not in QT as I am afraid of effects on filter) to try to hold off the fin rot. Looks like fish is recovering on own but I started the antibiotics so gotta finish it.
Cupramine - Seachem's protein complexed copper. The safest copper on market right now. That's like saying safest chemotherapy but hey...beggars can't be choosers.
Prime - chlorine/chloramine/ammonia/nitrite binder. I started adding this and smelled the sulfur and knew I couldn't rely on these things to prevent cycling of tank. Praying I have enough bacteria for 2 weeks.
Couple of disposable pippettes used only for this tank.
Finally my FW dip setup.
Plastic Collander to catch the fish and put them in. Styrofoam container for the dip. I own a pinpoint wireless therm and that's the sensor you see there in the water. It's not that accurate (off about 1 degree depending on the temp) but it is precise (consistent for those who didn't take Quant Chem/Instrumental Analysis). Off to the side I have baking soda and vinegar. My RO comes in at about 8.5 pH so I need the vinegar to lower it. The baking soda is just in case I overshoot. I usually fill with 3 gallons of RO and then later I boil 1 gallon of RO and add till the temp is about 2 degrees higher than QT. Check pH several times and then dip and go.
So there is a simple QT setup for those who said it was too much trouble. The water in the tank is actually RODI WASTE water. I needed to make RODI anyway so I just tossed the waste line into the tank and let fill. I used a really cheap salt (MEI...$19 for $150 box.....yeah they don't even give you a bucket). It supposedly removes chlorines/chloramines and guess it does since none of them died from it. I have no lighting for them at all in this tank.
I did try to feed spirulina brine but no interest. If I decide to do anything, I might do the FW dip on the purple and will take some pictures of that.
Slight improvement over this morning but basically the same. I feel I am at a crossroads with the other fish. They all look healthy and yet I'm slowly poisoning them with the copper treatment. Who knows what my ammonia/nitrite is like. I never got around to getting a kit that can distinguish free nitrogen from amide compounds. I also gave up maintaining pH as I am suspecting the sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) is absorbing copper. pH remains steady at around 7.7-7.8. I will prepare a bath and maybe give him a quick dip late tonight/early morning.
In the meantime, I wanted to show everyone the setup. If you didn't know, I am actually very new to the hobby. I started in May/June 2008 and went away on business from July-Oct. So true experience is not very long. Anyway, on to the setup.
I am using this as the current copper QT
This is a 100G stock tank I bought off another member a few weeks ago. I was going to make this a 100G phyto or rotifer culture but never got around to it. In fact, I had about 20x1G milk cartons of phyto but got real lazy about it. About half have crashed now since I hadn't done anything with them in about a month. A QT doesn't even have to be this big but it definitely helped here as these fish came from a 300G and they are used to space.
Here is a picture of the fish swimming in the QT
There's a maxijet 1200 and maxijet 400 providing flow. They don't suction to the plastic tank so they fell to the bottom. Also is a 200W heater, underspeced so I don't overheat. Now since the PHs are not breaking the surface tension and I have no overflow/sump for gas exchange, dissolved oxygen becomes an issue. I keep the tank at 74-75. It's in the basement so it is constant temp. And this is where my next equipment is handy.
Sponge Filter. This was sitting in my brine culture. It's rated for 80G. I bought this cause it was $9 and the one rated for 20G was $7. Figured why not just pay $2 more and get the largest. For those that don't know how it works, it basically is a piece of foam that air is blown into for circulation. The nitrifying bacteria colonize the foam and acts as the biological filter. That's it. Simple and not very high tech.
The other half of the filter is the cheapo air pump. Think this was $15-$20. I have a whisper 100 driving my phyto which was about $25. This one is either a whisper 20 or 40 and is enough to provide air to the sponge and deliver enough oxygen for everyone.
Here are some meds I am using for this:
From left to right:
portable pH meter and therm
Salifert Cu Kit
API Cu Kit
Maracyn Plus (Antibiotic) - not dosing in the QT.....contains sulfur which can reduce the Cu++ to Cu+ killing all fish.
Ampicillin (Antibiotic) - adding 10-20 drops of this in the FW dip (not in QT as I am afraid of effects on filter) to try to hold off the fin rot. Looks like fish is recovering on own but I started the antibiotics so gotta finish it.
Cupramine - Seachem's protein complexed copper. The safest copper on market right now. That's like saying safest chemotherapy but hey...beggars can't be choosers.
Prime - chlorine/chloramine/ammonia/nitrite binder. I started adding this and smelled the sulfur and knew I couldn't rely on these things to prevent cycling of tank. Praying I have enough bacteria for 2 weeks.
Couple of disposable pippettes used only for this tank.
Finally my FW dip setup.
Plastic Collander to catch the fish and put them in. Styrofoam container for the dip. I own a pinpoint wireless therm and that's the sensor you see there in the water. It's not that accurate (off about 1 degree depending on the temp) but it is precise (consistent for those who didn't take Quant Chem/Instrumental Analysis). Off to the side I have baking soda and vinegar. My RO comes in at about 8.5 pH so I need the vinegar to lower it. The baking soda is just in case I overshoot. I usually fill with 3 gallons of RO and then later I boil 1 gallon of RO and add till the temp is about 2 degrees higher than QT. Check pH several times and then dip and go.
So there is a simple QT setup for those who said it was too much trouble. The water in the tank is actually RODI WASTE water. I needed to make RODI anyway so I just tossed the waste line into the tank and let fill. I used a really cheap salt (MEI...$19 for $150 box.....yeah they don't even give you a bucket). It supposedly removes chlorines/chloramines and guess it does since none of them died from it. I have no lighting for them at all in this tank.
I did try to feed spirulina brine but no interest. If I decide to do anything, I might do the FW dip on the purple and will take some pictures of that.
