# fish has red spot



## Mr Pinchers (Jan 26, 2007)

after a long period of time with fish dying we finally have the tank stabalized. its been almost a year now and no fatalities. i have 3 danios, 2 cherry barbs, 1 checkered bard, 1 bushy nosed pleco and 1 horse face loach.

just today though i noticed one of the danios has a red spot slightly behind his one side fin (its not a red gill). it looks like the scales have been rubbed off. i feed them a variaty of foods. pelets, algea/sinking waffers, freeze dried tubifex worms and for the last 2 months i fed them live blood worms. the bloodworms were for my beta which suddenly refused to eat anything but live worms but since there were so many the guy at the pet store suggested to also feed the main tank, which i have. i checked the PH and it was slightly high but all the other fish look fine. i added some PH up and a little aquarium salt.

anyone have any advice? to my knoledge the fish have never been aggressive with eatch other so i'm doubtful its a attack wound.


----------



## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

Um you tested the pH as being high and you added ph UP? Use caution with those pH adjusters because once they overcome the buffering capacity of your water the pH with change drastically in a short period of time. You may want to observe the fish and make sure its not some sort of injury caused by another fish picking on him.


----------



## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Welcome.:wave:

What are your water parameters? Ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. I would stop the use of pH chemicals such as pH up. They do nothing but harm your fish. Once the effects worn off, the pH will shift back to its usual level. Such shifts can greatly harm your fish.

What live worms were you using?


----------



## Mr Pinchers (Jan 26, 2007)

i ment it was low and added PH up

its just we had ALOT of low PH problems in the past and things like that were the only things that helped.

i don't have any nitrogen strips to test but PH was about 6.2, ammonia is high right now about 6.0. but i had just tested it prior, about 2 weeks ago and it was almost zero.

i'm thinking of doing a water change tommarow.

the live worms are blood worms


----------



## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Use crushed oyster shells to increase the pH.


----------



## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

wow thats a high ammonia reading. suprised anything is holding on in there. the tank definitely isn't stable if the ammonia is spiking like that. did you change out the filter media recently or anything like that? that or you're overfeeding by quite a bit. decaying food will spike the ammonia too.


----------



## Mr Pinchers (Jan 26, 2007)

well i just did a small water change at the moment to help with the ammonia. i'm not feeding them any more then i usually do. the last filter i changed was about 2 weeks ago. it was a mechanical filter. acually i've had the ammonia up alot higher in the past but that was with cycling. it hasn't spiked like this for months.

how often should you feed a 20 gal tank with 10 fish(forgot my 2 corys)? i usually give them about 10 pellets a day along with 1/2 alge wafer or 1/2 tubifex cube. its always gone by morning. usuallyi'll skip a day here and there as well.

crushed oyster shells increase PH? any particular brand or anything like that? how much would one put in a 20 gal? and is there anything you should use to stabalize PH when you get it to the right level?

thanks for the replys btw. i appricate the input


----------



## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

fish really shouldn't be fed more than they'll eat in a minute or two...overfeeding is probably causing the ammonia spikes.


----------



## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

never, i repeat, never add chemicals to raise or lower ph, it is dangerous, costs quite a lot, and is even worse than having a bad ph in the first place.

The reason of this is because the chemical only lasts for a very short time. An example is

Current ph 6.5
Wanted ph 7.5
You add ph plus
your ph is now 7.5
Two days later it is back to 6.5
your fish are now dead.

It is a high swing of ph, from 6.5 to 7.5 immediatly, and from 7.5 to 6.5 immediatly, within 48 hours. Fish can adapt to a wide varriety of ph so let them adapt to it.


----------



## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

well I wouldn't say never but generally speaking its a very bad idea for the reasons musho stated. the only exception to that in my opinion would be their use in an extreme emergency (severe pH crash, etc) were the current readings are well beyond the limits of you fish to survive in which case the massive pH swing would be better than letting the fish continue under the current pH. It might kill the fish anyway but gives them a better chance at survival.


----------



## Mr Pinchers (Jan 26, 2007)

alright. i did a big water change and i'm going to hold off feedings for a day followed by reduceing what i did feed them. Also going to keep what everyone suggested about chemical PH adjusting in mind. should fish be fed daily or is every other day ok? 

they all seem fine at the moment except for the one with the red spot. it looks more like a wound then a sore caused by something. it is quite red though. the fish is acting normal and is very energetic. should i try to do anything for him?

this is my first fish tank so its all new to me. like i said i've had it over a year and after a real rough start its been doing fine for the past 6 months or so till now


----------



## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

I feed mine every day (or in the case of the baby angels I'm growing out several times a day...along with large water changes every day) but there seems to be a common consensus that most fish will be fine if fed every other day. I feed mine all the time due to the fact that a large majority of my fish are being prepared for future breeding and are being conditioned accordingly. I've never had fish suddenly go belly up though because they missed a feeding though. I'd suggest cutting down to every other day and just observing them to see if they show any signs of malnutrition and adjust the feeding accordingly. You may want to add some type of medication to prevent secondary infections but i'd reccomend using a hospital tank for that to avoid causing problems for the other fish by giving them unnecessary medication. Perhaps someone else can suggest a medication for you. I use malachite green for this kind of work but it can be a pretty dangerous medicine if you use too much accidentaly..it can also stain things like the silicon seals on the tank blue or green...and the stains are practically impossible to remove.


----------



## Mr Pinchers (Jan 26, 2007)

CLICK TO ENLARGE


its a bad picture but he won't come near the front of the tank. you can kinda see the red spot


----------



## Tracy (Aug 4, 2006)

Maybe it is from fin-nipping. If one of your fish has an open sore you can add some Melafix to your tank. If your water perameters are safe, you have added some salt and your tank is clean your fish should heal.


----------



## Mr Pinchers (Jan 26, 2007)

got a slightly better picture


hes in a hospital tank now but hes not eating. the wound doesn't look much worse though

hes not eating but that may just be cause the stress. hes pretty much sitting in one space almost at the bottom. every once in awhile it looks like he gets a burst of energy and darts around.


----------



## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

hmm im not sure but he might have gotten a burn from the heater, add some melafix to the tank and it should start to heal and it will also prevent infections, also if you have a small separate container you can give it salt dips, but ask someone else on these salt dips since im no expert. May i also ask what your ph is, danios can accept almost any range of ph (5.0-8.0)


----------



## Mr Pinchers (Jan 26, 2007)

PH at the moment is about 6.3. which is low for my tank. then again this week the whole tank went out of wack. though the heater burn theroy is intresting cause it got extra cold here recently and the tank temp dropped almost 2 degrees. dureing that time they were all hanging out on the right side where the heater is.


----------



## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

that Ph should be fine, do you use tap water? (dechlorinated tap water that is)


----------



## Mr Pinchers (Jan 26, 2007)

yes. we treat it though with a water conditioner before putting it in the tank. we did test the tap water for PH problems at one point. don't remember the exact # but we determined the tap water itself wasn't causeing any crazy PH shifts


----------



## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

ok, can you give me a run down on your tank, what gravel, what plants, what filter, what things do you add to your tank.

About the ammonia, i think you are feeding way to much food. Look at one of your fishes eye, that is around how big there stomach is. Overfeeding is very bad for your fish and tank. Take this in consideration, fish can starve for 2 weeks and not really care, some fish can eat 1 hour non stop and die.


----------



## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

i also forgot to say 3 danios is not enough, you will need at least 5, 6 would be better as if you dont have enough danios to school, they will generally be more aggressive.


----------



## Mr Pinchers (Jan 26, 2007)

i agree about the food. after we bought our 10th fish i got paranoid about some missing out on food and starting feeding them more then i did before. do you know by chance if worms could be causeing large amounts of extra ammonia. i was feeding them small amounts of live blood worms for awhile and i know some of them escaped the fish and burrowed under the gravel (though i assumed the burrowing loach would grab most of them). after cleaning the one side of the tank i did pull out a few but now any huge amounts hideing down there.

my tank 20 gal. uses standard gravel like blueish color (you can see it in the picture). its the same stuff thats been in there since i bought it a little over a year ago. all the plants are fake. i have an air stone. 2 filters. one is a whisper 20i with a bio/mechanical/carbon filter and the other is a aquaclear mechanical/bio/ammonia reducer filter.

temp is usually around 76-77 degrees. though its been extra cold here lately so it has been on the lower side around 75-76.

didn't know that about danios needing to school. thanks for the advice. we didn't really like them at first, just kinda got them cause they were said to be very hardy but i've grown pretty attached over the past year to them.

my hospital tank for the danio is pretty small its just a gal. and i have it floating in the tank with an air stone in it. we don't really have room for anouther tank just for emergencies so thats all we could manage (i really wouldn't want to put him in my other tank with the crayfish unless i wanted him dead) should i change the water in that small a hospital tank daily?

thank you for your help btw.


----------



## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

The blood worms wont cause any ammonia problem, what will cause the ammonia problem is the poop the fish makes after eating the bloodworms. 

You have a good filter but your mistake is that you are using zeolite (the stuff that takes out ammonia in your filter). Instead of using this method (which you should stop using right now) is to do a large, 50% water change with no gravel vac. 

You dont need to hospitalize the danios, it isnt an infecsious disease so your other fish will be fine, i would recommend a salt bath though.

Zeolite is bad since it starves the good bacteria causing you to cycle again.


----------



## Mr Pinchers (Jan 26, 2007)

thanks for all the help musho, i appricate it

i have an unrelated question though. you have 4 ghost shrimp in your tank. do the danios not eat them? i've wanted to get some ghost shrimp but my girlfriend doesn't cause she thinks there cute and doesn't want to see them eaten by the fish.


----------



## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

no my danios are way to small to eat a shrimp, the shrimp is like 2/3rds there size. Since your danios are already fully grown it still ok to get shrimp as long as you get large ones.


----------



## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

yeah the ghost shrimp should be fine and will actually help clean up uneaten food from the bottom of the tank. I wouldn't think that the danios would have any interest in them at all. In fact not too many fish care all that much about ghost shrimp. I have them in with a discus that is more than big enough to eat the smaller ones and yet ignores them entirely.


----------



## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

it is like nature and ghost shrimp can protect them selves from prey, thats why they are clear color causing other fish to not notice them


----------



## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

musho3210 said:


> The blood worms wont cause any ammonia problem, what will cause the ammonia problem is the poop the fish makes after eating the bloodworms.


Bloodworms still contribute to the ammonia if left uneaten. Any uneaten food can contribute to ammonia.


----------



## Matt (Jan 20, 2007)

true


----------



## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

but since there live they wont contribute as much as if they were dead since they arent decaying


----------



## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

They'll die eventually. Uneaten food is never good for a tank.


----------



## Mr Pinchers (Jan 26, 2007)

so far the danio seems to be recovering. his spot isn't so bright red as it was and it appears to be healing a little hes also a bit more active and not hovering in one spot. got ammonia levels down a little to but still working on that. 

the tanks not out of the woods yet but i just wanted to thank you all again. this was my first time useing the forums here and i've got alot of good advice. thanks again.


----------



## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

no problem, any questions just ask here, doesnt matter how it makes you look


----------



## Tracy (Aug 4, 2006)

I hope your danio(s) is/are recovering. Some of these siectes are intended for members, but i you have received valuable information trough the forum; even if I don't believe in it I hope you, Michelle, experience positive, Christian effects of this hospitalized intervention (Cal and Peggy Hummelle are my visitors; they are too weak to run the farm).


----------

