[mitchdublin]

Hi, I left a friend to look after my tank for 5 days while i was away. When i came home 3 of my fish were dead and the tank was murky. There was white glue like droplets on the top of the water.
I took out the dead fish, one was inside an ornament and looked like it had died a while ago. looked decomposed, I think that might be where the gluey substance came from. One or two other fish didnt look too good. I looked at the food container and it was nearly empty, when i left there was enough to do a couple of weeks. I think my friend may have dropped all the food into the tank and said nothing about it.
Straight away i cleaned the gravel and replaced 50% of the water. Washed out the first two filters, left the lower ones. Tank started to clear. Still have a problem with two fish, one seems to be struggling to swim and the fins on his sides look a bit swollen and with bits missing. The other is staying in a corner at the top of the tank.
I have a juwel 260 ltr tank
Readings are
High Ph-7.2
ammonia-.50
Nitrite-1.0
Nitrate-40

I have not fed them for the last 24hrs.
Any help appreciated
Thanks
Mitch

 

[Robin]

So far so good on what you've done.
Here's a few more things you can try to help your remaining fish.

Add Epsom Salt at the rate of 1 tablespoon per five gallons. This will work as a laxative and mild analgesic

Add Salt, (sodium chloride, plain table salt without additive). 1-2 teapsoons per ten gallons.
Sodium chloride will help to detoxify the nitrite. (Dissolve both salts first and add them over several hours time)

Put some fresh carbon in your filter to help absorb the ammonia.

Continue to fast the fish.

Do daily or even twice daily partial water changes and make sure to use a good quality declorinator--one that detoxifies nitrite and removes ammonia. Siphon the gravel. (Make sure to replace the correct amounts of salt after water changes.

Rinse out the remaining filters in a bucket of tank water and make sure the filters have a good strong flow coming out of them.

Please let me know how they do. This is such a common problem with friends, family, neighbors feeding fish--they almost always overfeed them. Hopefully you'll be able to save these last two.

Robin

 

[Bunny581]

Just a friendly recomendation for the next time you have someone else feed your fish. Yep I learned this one the hard way too...

Buy some of the weekly pill cases (enough so there is one case for each day of feeding ) put in the amount of food you would like your fish fed (even if you feed 2-3 time when you are home, the fish will be fine with one feeding, only they amount they will consume in several minutes, until you return). This way your friend or family only has to come in, take a look around and the put the amount of food you want (not what they think you would want) in the tank and watch the fish eat.

I hope it works out better for you next time. :fish: