Aquarium Emergency

[Lili Von Shtupp]

My mother-in-law has been feeding my fish.

Over the past few months I've developed this strange fungus, like sheets of tissue paper wrapped around everything in my tank. It makes my weekly water changes a bear. I researched and found out it's due to overfeeding, which was strange because I'm a very conservative feeder. But I cut back on the amount of food at each feeding.

Still no change, about a month ago I started feeding them every other day. Still this problem.

So the past couple weeks I've been feeding them every 3rd day. Now, I just went to change the water and this fungus is crazy, my fish are stressed and upon closer examination have found a layer of food blanketing the entire bottom of the tank.

I'm so angry I could spit.

Please, fish people, can you tell me how to clean this tank - the food looks fresh, I just don't know how to get it all out in one hose-vacuum. Or perhaps just do what I can and do water changes every day or every other day over the next week or so? Do I need to wash the gravel? This tissue paper stuff is very clingy.

[Lichtgestalt]

I would start with changing the locks on the apartment, alternatively shoot your MIL...

[Morrolan]

how big is the tank?

you may have to clean it completely as the fungus (if that's what it is) will stay in the tank otherwise and might return.

[Burbage]

It sounds like bacteria to me, but I agree. Get a big bucket or a clean dustbin, put your biological filter and heater in it with your fish and as much clean tank water as you can. Then do the elbow grease thing on the tank. I would bleach it as well, and make sure you rinse it thoroughly. Then put everything back in, fill with water, let it run for a day with an airstone to knock out the chlorine and aerate the water. Put the heater back and let the water warm up. Put the fish back. Wash the filter media in the wate rin the bin, rebuild the filter and put it back. Put your filter back. Dump the water from the bin.

Put the fish food in a metal container connected with hidden wires to the mains.

[slinky]

Put the fish food in a metal container connected with hidden wires to the mains.

I was going to suggest just hiding the food.....

[Aliya]

I agree, a good clean as per B and M is the only way to go.

And you have to ban the MIL from feeding the fish, that goes without saying of course

[Burbage]

Put the fish food in a metal container connected with hidden wires to the mains.

I was going to suggest just hiding the food.....

I suppose it depends how big the inheritance is.

[Lili Von Shtupp]

OK, well I have the little guys set up in a bucket. They are stressed. One catfish I thought was dead but he's not. One other fish has an eye plucked out. These are some freaked out fish. I guess I would be too if I were living in the fish food equivalent of Love Canal.

I spent the entire night washing everything and tomorrow will buy some chlorine.

But Morrolan, Burb, this means that my tank will be really starting afresh. No cycling or anything. Will that traumatize the fish even further? I don't think these are good cycling fish. Then again a couple are half dead and one's half blind, maybe a sacrifice to help me cycle for the next batch. It just really burns me up.

And I had such a nice little groovy ecosystem going on there for so long. Yes, the fish food gets hidden in my desk drawer from now on. But Burb, I have to say your suggestion did make me ponder for a moment...

[Burbage]

If you have your biological filter running in the bucket as per the instructions above, then you won't need to cycle. The bacteria should be fine. Just put the filter back in and feed sparingly keeping an eye on NH3, NO2 and NO3. If you've washed out your biofilter with tap water you've probably killed it; then it is too late to do anything, you have to cycle the filter.

[Kooky]

Remember it's the Asian way, Lili - to feed them is to love them. My cleaner was banned from feeding Fu (the greedy younger cat) anything but a couple of cat treats as he barfed every time she'd been, and it was always some bizarre kueh or jam sarnie (mixed in with last night's cockroach), but she obviously still did it whenever I was out.

[slinky]

Remember it's the Asian way, Lili - to feed them is to love them.

Hmmm, if this is true, will she go out and buy some fish food to feed them when she can no longer find fish food in the house?

[Lili Von Shtupp]

Well, it turns out her late husband also kept aquariums and she'd feed those fish too. Apparently he scolded her left right and center for it, too, but she still kept doing it. So I'm concerned that even if I hide the food she'll put bread or crumbled biscuits in there. I told the maid to notify me if she sees Mil putting anything in the tank.

(for the men folk, this was covered in TLC, we're taking care of Mil in the home and she suffers mental illness. She not dangerous, well, unless you're a fish.)

Kooks, we have had frustrating problems with her feeding the cats, feeding guests who don't want food, pushing food on Mr VS. It's like Asian ways to the nth degree.

Burb, the filter is all rinsed because it was all gobbed up with this tissue paper-like fungus. BUT, I have the fish in a bucket that's half new water but half old tank water. Last night I washed everything with plain tap water and removed all the tissue paper, now I'm thinking to lay everything to completely dry out and bleach in the sun for a day or two. Then I planned to add the contents of the bucket - the half new water half old water solution back into the tank to prevent me from having to start completely from scratch.

[Burbage]

The bacteria don't live in the water, they live in your filter. Just put your filter back in the tank. Don't dry it out whatever you do. Chance are it'll be ok. You can use completely new water, it won't make any difference.

[Lili Von Shtupp]

Nope, it's all dead then. I'm screwed.

[Burbage]

You'll just have to begin at the beginning then. That' ok. Tell me, what fish have you got, what is the size of the tank.

[Lili Von Shtupp]

Well, Burb. As you have most likely surmised, I am a novice aquarium keeper. My kid loved fish and loved going to the fish shop at the market, so I set up this little tank for him. My brother has kept fish tanks for years and years so he talked me through the whole cycling process. He is up on all the chemical processes happening within the lifecycle, but said that for a basic garden variety fish tank, get it up and running, keep your cycle fed and clean and the fish should generally be fine.

I guess the part I missed was that the cycle is the filter, not the water, which you just clarified.

OK so I have a 4 gallon tank. I just run a simple pump with a layer of filter wool. No heater - I have a thermometer, the water is kept in an un-air-conditioned room so the water is usually on the warm side. Got plastic plant, gravel, some stones.

Two white/light pink colored catfish, though they are th worst stressed fish of all, and one looks not so good.

Two fish - every time I asked the guy at the fish shop what they are he said "rose fish." I've loked at fish guides on the web and have yet to identify this fish. They are rose colored with horizontal stripes on their bodies. The one lost his eye when I first transported him into this new tank. The second lost one eye just the other day.

Two mollies. They seem pretty hardy.

Three neon tetras. I think one looks not so good, too. But I've already decided against replacing any of these fish.

Right now the fish are in a bucket with pebbles from the fish shop that remove ammonia and add oxygen. They have not been fed. The gravel and everything else is all washed and drying. The old filter wool is down the rubbish chute.

[Burbage]

Is this the fish?



It's a transgenic zebrafish with a fluorescent protein from a jellyfish inserted into its genome. They'll be hardy enough. They don't appear in fish books because they are engineered fish, and I think they are hard to get outside Singapore.

I suspect the catfish are albino corydoras.

The mollies are unkillable.

The neons and the corys are the most sensitive fish there I reckon, and to keep them alive while you are cycling the tank you should keep the feeding to a minimum and change 50% of the water every couple of days. This will generally slow the cycling process down (probably it will take 6 weeks instead of 4, but will save your fish.

[Lili Von Shtupp]

Oh! They are indeed the very fish, only mine are not so vibrant, more pale and natural looking than those. But definitely the fish... they are schooling, right? I'd intended to get at least one more so they'd feel a bit more comfy in there. Now poor guys got two eyes between 'em - another fish would at least help them all see both directions at the same time!

OK, thanks for the advice. I really, really do appreciate it.

[Burbage]

You need to give them plenty of light to get them to fluoresce. Just get ordinary zebra danios to keep them company, they are cheaper, and hardier.

[Morrolan]

and i'd get at least 10...

[Burbage]

But perhaps not in such a small tank.

[Morrolan]

and a bigger tank...

[Lili Von Shtupp]

Actually, I only have the small number of fish because of the small tank, and I'd thought about getting a larger one because I really kinda do like keeping fish. I was secretly considering the upgrade to a bigger tank and a bit more sophisticated filtration system after we move into our new place, but I have a feeling that this feeding issue could be a long term problem. I'm considering keeping the tank beside my work table. She doesn't come into this space, so it would be easier for me to monitor the situation.

Tho it is supremely frustrating I have to constantly remind myself that she does it because she believes she's helping. The intention is good. She just really does not understand what she's doing.

[Rosbif71]

talking of overfeeding/wrong feeding. we have some big koi ponds in our Condo. We occasionally go down and feed them some Koi food we bought. Unfortunately yesterday someone had tried to feed them bread so we have a pond full of soggy bread!

they didnt even seem tempted by the huge cockroach I kicked into the pond. Didn't know those things were such bloody good swimmers.

[Lili Von Shtupp]

talking of overfeeding/wrong feeding. we have some big koi ponds in our Condo. We occasionally go down and feed them some Koi food we bought. Unfortunately yesterday someone had tried to feed them bread so we have a pond full of soggy bread!

they didnt even seem tempted by the huge cockroach I kicked into the pond. Didn't know those things were such bloody good swimmers.

Few would be tempted...

I managed to resolve my tank problems without losing a single fish. Two months later, after my tank was almost cycled again, my maid cleaned the tank - she was actually trying to help because she knew I was very busy - and threw away the bioloical creatures in my filter! Still, these fish survived.

However, last month we shifted and I was careful to keep it as stress-free as possible, but then last week I lost three fish in three days. These poor fish...