# Help! Odd behavior!



## piglets38 (May 25, 2013)

Hi everyone! I'm new to this forum and new to fish-keeping as well.

I have a 5 gallon tank with 3 platies (2 female, 1 male). 
It's been going for about 2 months now..

Just about 2 hours ago, I came home and
when I turned on the light in my tank to see my fish,
one of them suddenly moved CRAZILY for like a second
and then fell to the bottom of the tank behind an ornament
and there, she moved as if it was running out of breath or something
and slowly she was moving less and less..
I panicked, so I tried gently touching it with a stick to make it move.
At first it didn't move but later it started swimming around, but was
just doing laps around edges of the tank and stopping in the corners..

And ever since, it doesn't stay still.
Even though it stays in one place, it keeps on wiggling it self rapidly..
and whenever I turn on the light, it acts as if it scares the heck out of her!
This has never happened before.. the lights are normally off and I turn them on
frequently throughout the day to see them and leave them on for a while when I'm in the room.
Oh, and there are no visible signs of any diseases on its body. 

The other two platies that are in the tank seem normal..
It's just this one..

As for my water levels, I had a water test done at a LFS last week 
and was told that my ammonia level was high and my pH was a little off..
so I got myself a gravel vacuum to pick up all the poops and food leftovers..
hoping this will help the ammonia level go down...
I did two water changes since then, changed the cartridge in my filter,
and I went to get another water test done today.
Everything else was fine but it still showed high level of ammonia.. 
but I don't think the ammonia is causing the odd behavior in the fish because the rest of the fish are fine..

Is there something wrong with my fish?? Please help.. :'(
I'm worried that when I wake up in the morning, I will find her dead 

Oh, also the guy at the LFS today told me I should reduce my weekly 
20% water change to once a month cause he thinks I'm taking too much
out and I'm preventing the good bacteria that eats the ammonia 
from growing in the tank... 
I want to get an opinion on this as well..

Thanks!


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## TorontoBoy (Mar 14, 2013)

piglets38 said:


> Hi everyone! I'm new to this forum and new to fish-keeping as well.
> 
> I have a 5 gallon tank with 3 platies (2 female, 1 male). It's been going for about 2 months now...
> 
> ...


High ammonia levels means your biological filter is not working. If your biological filter was working you would see conversion of ammonia to nitrites and then nitrites to nitrates. The only way to remove ammonia is to do large water changes. Ammonia, even in small amounts, will kill fish. Removing poop and excess food will reduce some ammonia, but not enough. Water changes are key.

What filter are you using? Beneficial bacteria (BB) lives in the filter cartridge. If you replace the filter cartridge or wash it in tap water you will remove the beneficial bacteria that you need to convert ammonia to less toxic forms.

Which LFS did you get this advice? His advice is very wrong. Very little of the beneficial bacteria live in the water, so large water changes will have little affect on the bacteria. Most of your BB live in your filter or your substrate, not the water.

You need to read up on cycling your tank. Right now you need a water test kit and to do a water change until your ammonia levels go down.


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## piglets38 (May 25, 2013)

I go to PetSmart to get my water testing done.


I'm using the Aqua Tech 5-15 filter.
And when I replaced the cartridge last week, it was the monthly
cartridge change.. 
No problem with that, right? 

And as for the ammonia.. 
the only thing I should do for now is daily water change?
I did a 20-25% water change right after reading your post.
Should I do bigger water changes? 
And how frequently should I check the ammonia level? 

I better go to the store and get myself an ammonia test kit!! 

One little question.. The filter I have, I bought a used one..
and when I got the filter, the bio-fiber inside the filter looked VERY old..
(VERY old = light brown/beige in colour, all dried up.. )
When I took the filter to BA to check something, the person saw it 
and told me it might be good to replace that with any kind of sponge 
but it's not absolutely necessary... So I did not replace it at that time..
Would it be a good idea to get it replaced now?


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## TorontoBoy (Mar 14, 2013)

I also have an Aqua-tech 5-15. They are sold at Walmart, and are not very good.

Your beneficial bacteria (BB) grows in the filter media, the fluffy stuff. Every time you change the media and throw it out you also throw out the BB. BB is also killed when the media dries out, so if you got the filter dry all the BB would have been dead. BB is naturally occurring but takes time to grow, like 3-4 weeks.

Go to a Petsmart or other fish store and buy an API Freshwater Master Test kit ~$30. You can test your water at home using test tubes and chemicals that are in the kit. Compare your test tube's colour to their chart. When the levels are close to dangerous you then need to do a water change. Without a test kit there is no way to know if the ammonia, nitrite or nirate level is lethal to fish.

I'd do at least a 50% water change every day. You have a 5G tank, so it's not very large. Do you have a water dechlorinator that also does chloramines? I recommend Seachem Prime, available at BA for $12.

Read up on the nitrogen cycle and things will become clearer. For starters, read here: http://gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3563


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## TorontoBoy (Mar 14, 2013)

Please update where in Toronto you live. Someone near you might be able to help you out, like give you some cycled filter material, which will jumpstart your BB.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

The high ammonia will be very damaging to your fish, unfortunately. The one behaving oddly may simply be more susceptible to it, so is showing signs first. The labored breathing is one sign of ammonia damage. Ammonia burns their gills and makes it hard for them to breathe and it will eventually kill them. Even if the levels do get reduced to zero, the damage will already be done. Sorry to have to say.

I will hope you do not lose all the fish, but be prepared, because this may happen. There's a reason for cycling a tank before adding fish and this is one of the big ones.

And TorontoBoy is right, about 95% of the beneficial bacteria, or BB, live in the filter media. So water changes do not affect them much, if at all. But they will reduce the amount of toxic ammonia and make it easier on the poor fish.

[If the BB lived in water, we'd all be having mini cycles whenever we did big WCs, so that was unfortunate advice ].

Just never clean all the media in any filter at the same time, so as not to disturb too many of the BB, and never, ever rinse the media in tap water. Use tank water or, if you don't have enough of that, make sure the water you do use is dechlorinated before you rinse filter media in it.

And if your filter did not come with a sponge as part of its media, you might want to get one in there to replace whatever it did come with, as they not only hold a lot of particulate matter, but are well colonized by the BB. Filter floss is also colonized, but does not last nearly as long as a sponge, so eventually must be replaced more often, and then you lose the BB that were on it for awhile. Sponge tends to hold onto them more I believe, and does last for years. Simply squeeze it out in tank water when the filter starts to run more slowly, until the sponge loses most of the dark colouration it picks up inside the filter.

One sponge can last years and years and more years. Only if they become brittle or begin to crumble away will they need replacing, despite the manufacturer saying to replace every 3 months ! And no matter colour they are when new, they'll change over time, becoming a grungy brownish shade. This is quite normal and not a worry.
Best of luck with the cycling.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

All good advice so far.

You should consider getting a new filter. My personal top choice for a 5 gallon would be an aquaclear 20. I use the same on my 5.5 gallon betta tank.

You do not have to replace the media every month. The sponge part should be rinsed in used tank water once a month or so and the bio media almost never needs to be touched, sometimes junk builds up, algae or whatnot and it needs a quick swish in used tank water. The carbon media if wanted needs to be changed once a month but most of use don't bother using carbon media.

The filter costs more than the one you have, but the sponge and bio media that come with it will last you a year at least with proper care which saves money in the long run. Aquaclear filters are the best hang on back filters in my opinion and many share this opinion.

Give your general location and hopefully someone can give you some used bio media you greatly speed things up.

If you do get a new filter, continue to run the old one at the same time for about two or three weeks.

Another thing that will help is either API stress zyme and I think the seachem equivalent is called stability. These are bio media boosters that help get the good bacteria going. But the best is some used media from another member.

50 percent daily sounds a little extreme to me. I personally would say 50 percent day one and then 25 percent each day after that. But if the ammonia is really bad, I would do 50 percent for 2 or 3 days, testing a little while after each change. You really need to have your own test kit mentioned by the other person then we can give more precise advice.

There is much to learn in this hobby and you will make mistakes and kill fish. Its all part of the learning process that we all have gone through.

Stick with it and you will enjoy it. My favorite part is learning new things and expanding. Right now I'm in the middle of setting up a 90 gallon to move the contents to from a 35 gallon community tank. I got really fancy with the substrate and by trying something new, I get to learn more.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

The high ammonia will be very damaging to your fish, unfortunately. The one behaving oddly may simply be more susceptible to it, so is showing signs first. The labored breathing is one sign of ammonia damage. Ammonia burns their gills and makes it hard for them to breathe and it will eventually kill them. Even if the levels do get reduced to zero, the damage will already be done. Sorry to have to say.

I will hope you do not lose all the fish, but be prepared, because this may happen. There're reasons for cycling a tank before adding fish and this is one of the big ones.

And TorontoBoy is right, about 95% of the beneficial bacteria, or BB, live in the filter media. So water changes do not affect them much, if at all. But they will reduce the amount of toxic ammonia and make it easier on the poor fish.

[If the BB lived in water, we'd all be having mini cycles whenever we did big WCs, so that was unfortunate advice ].

Just never clean all the media in any filter at the same time, so as not to disturb too many of the BB, and never, ever rinse the media in tap water. Use tank water or, if you don't have enough of that, make sure the water you do use is dechlorinated before you rinse filter media in it.

And if your filter did not come with a sponge as part of its media, you might want to get one in there to replace whatever it did come with, as they not only hold a lot of particulate matter, but are well colonized by the BB. Filter floss is also colonized, but does not last nearly as long as a sponge, so eventually must be replaced more often, and then you lose the BB that were on it for awhile. Sponge tends to hold onto them more I believe, and does last for years. Simply squeeze it out in tank water when the filter starts to run more slowly, until the sponge loses most of the dark colouration it picks up inside the filter.

One sponge can last years and years and more years. Only if they become brittle or begin to crumble away will they need replacing, despite the manufacturer saying to replace every 3 months ! And no matter colour they are when new, they'll change over time, becoming a grungy brownish shade. This is quite normal and not a worry.
Best of luck with the cycling.


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## Yami (May 1, 2011)

about to die soon, luck


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## piglets38 (May 25, 2013)

Wow! Thanks so much for helping me out everyone!
I am reaally glad I posted here 

So today I did a 50% water change.. 
I use the tetra AquaSafe plus water conditioner/dechlorinator for my water.
I haven't had the chance to get the water testing kit yet..
I shall get them soon! hopefully tomorrow!

My fish is doing a little better than when I first posted the thread..
but I noticed that its fins were always clamped for like the last two days..
(or maybe longer, just that I didn't notice it earlier)
so.. I guess it's still not doing very well...

I live in the Thornhill area...
so I actually have two BAs and two PetSmarts within a good distance.
Oh, and also the pet store inside Vaughan Mills.
If anyone could help me out with the BB, that would be awesome!

And only if I had known that my current filter wasn't that good sooner... 
I bought a 6-pack cartridge for the filter during the tank sale at BA
a while ago.... and I think I threw away the receipt.. 
so can't even return them


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## TorontoBoy (Mar 14, 2013)

piglets38 said:


> ...I live in the Thornhill area...
> 
> And only if I had known that my current filter wasn't that good sooner...
> I bought a 6-pack cartridge for the filter during the tank sale at BA
> ...


Please change your member information so that your location says Thornhill. Other members will not see this thread, but they will see your member information.

Keep up the daily water changes until you get your tank cycled. Ammonia is highly toxic and causes irreversible damage.

As for the filters, you can sell them on Kijiji or Craigslist.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Sometimes you do some experimenting or changes and end up with junk floating around in the tank.

Example, I just transferred the contents of a 35 gallon to a 90 gallon. I had tiny leaves floating all around from some of the plants. This is a situation that you might want to toss in the old junk filter as a second filter for a day or so to help pick up the junk. So you just might use the filter media in the future

So don't throw away the old filter, it can still be handy. It can also be useful for extra water circulation, don't even have to put media in it for this.


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## TorontoBoy (Mar 14, 2013)

I, too, use my Aqua-tech 5-15 every once in a while. I have an Aquaclear 70, which has a large area for biomedia. I put some extra filter floss/polyester fiberfill (from the sewing store) into the AC70. When I need a small filter I take the filter floss out of the AC70 and drop it into the Aqua-tech, giving me an instant cycle. You could easily do this with your 5G, so don't throw your small filter away.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

piglets38 said:


> Wow! Thanks so much for helping me out everyone!
> 
> I live in the Thornhill area...
> so I actually have two BAs and two PetSmarts within a good distance.
> ...


I live in Thornhill area as well (Dufferin / Steeles). I most likely can give you two used sponges from AC filters (If I did not through them out yet) if you get AC20 filter to setup better Bio Filter. Also can help you with fish tank and other stuff to use for it as I have two tanks myself (10 and 30Gl) running for over the year now. Let me know if you would like my help. I also recommend to use BA on Steels as your primary fish store as this one is the best one in the Thornhill area..


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## piglets38 (May 25, 2013)

Finally got time to post!

So to update..
The fish that was showing the odd behavior has died a few days ago....
I think too much damage was already done...

I really had no time to go buy the testing kit for the past week, 
but I have been doing water changes almost everyday til now.
I finally got a chance to go to PetSmart tonight, so got my water tested.
Everything was normal and good. Ammonia level got better as well!
The ammonia level wasn't a complete 0, it was between 0 and safe level.

A quick question here... Since my ammonia level is not completely 0,
should I still continue daily/frequent water changes until it becomes a 0?
Or would the weekly water change be fine from now since it's at a safe level?


As for the filter, I am planning to change it, but not just yet..
I'm currently very tight on my budget.. so can't afford anything yet!
I'll use my current filter for a while and change it to the better one
when i can. Hopefully soon?

So, thank you so much Ppaskova for your offer!!
I would really appreciate your used sponges 
when I get my new filter in the near future!
And if there is anything you can give me for my tank right now, 
that would also be greatly appreciated!


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

the most important thing right now is to have your own testing kit. The store just gives you general info, not the actual numbers and they use test strips which suck.

You need to be able to give us accurate readings of ammonia and nitrites. If ammonia and nitrites were .25 right now, I wouldn't be concerned, but 1.0 would be bad still. So not sure if you need to do frequent changes still or not

ammonia and nitrite tests are a must, and because buying those 2 tests alone costs about as much as the master kit, just get the master kit and you are set for a long time.

when you do get a new filter, make sure you keep the old one running at the same time for 2 or 3 weeks


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## piglets38 (May 25, 2013)

I realised I had a nitrite testing kit already, so I just went out and got an ammonia test kit. (Got the seachem multitest ammonia kit)

So... my ammonia is 0.15 and nitrite is 0.
(It's the free ammonia level I should look at, right?
The total ammonia level is 3.0)

How do those numbers sound?


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

not sure about free ammonia or not

I know on my api test kit if ammonia is 3.0, that is extremely bad and hurting fish.

If I had 3.0 ammonia I would do a 50 percent wc today and again tomorrow and if still over .5, again the next day.

I highly recommend you get either stress zymm or stability to boost the bacteria. And also try to get some used media. Doing both of these can cycle your tank in days or even faster.

I have multiple tanks and have some filters that aren't being used yet. I have these filters on tanks just to keep them cycled for when I do use them. I also have some sponge filters running in tanks staying cycled and when I setup a new tank, I can squeeze the sponges out into the new tank and its basically instantly cycled.


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## Mykuhl (Apr 8, 2013)

piglets38 said:


> I realised I had a nitrite testing kit already, so I just went out and got an ammonia test kit. (Got the seachem multitest ammonia kit)
> 
> So... my ammonia is 0.15 and nitrite is 0.
> (It's the free ammonia level I should look at, right?
> ...


Some info in regards to free ammonia versus total ammonia: it is the free ammonia that you need to be worried about, this is the form of ammonia that is harmful to fish. The Seachem Multitest kit is a very good test kit, a lot better than most out there, and a lot more precise and accurate too. At a free ammonia level of 0.15 ppm; you still need to be concerned as it is still fairly high and will quickly become harmful if not lowered. I would keep up the daily water changes until the free ammonia reads at 0.05 ppm or lower.
Another thing that would be helpful to do is to buy yourself some Prime water conditoner (also by Seachem) and add that to the water in your tank, this product can also be used to detoxify high levels of ammonia or nitrite if needed.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Fwiw, ammonia and nitrite should always be zero. All fish produce ammonia as their principal waste product, and it has to be controlled.

The following site has a really good explanation, http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa031,

including the two types of ammonia found in fish culture, like aquaria or ponds. Free ammonia, or un-ionized ammonia, is 100 x more toxic than the other type of ammonia. Most test kits measure total ammonia, which can be misleading, but Seachem's site says their test measures both types and thus does not give false positive readings, which you may get from tests that utilize different reagents.

You can use some water treatment products to help bind ammonia, and some special media for filters can bind it also. The filter media is not cheap but can help save fish if you have a sudden spike, while you fix the cause of the spike. But the only real solution is a fully cycled filter.. usually referred to as a cycled tank.

For me, personally, if any test I did showed any level of ammonia or nitrite I would do water changes until it read zero. I have had a couple of incidents where a test showed either very high levels of nitrate, enough to harm fish, and or where nitrite was indicated in low amounts, thanks to a dead snail in a small tank. These things happened when I'd been away longer than I expected to be. In all cases I did several WCs in succession, approx. 30% change, followed by another 30% and then as many more as required to get a reading of zero. The sooner the exposure to toxins is reduced and removed, the less chance of permanent harm to fish. Ammonia is the number one cause of damage or death to fish, and even if it does not kill them outright, it causes permanent harm, which may vastly shorten fish life spans, if nothing else.

Doing a big water change such as I did in sequence makes the process less stressful for the fish, compared to doing a near 100% change in one operation. Make sure the change water is the same temperature as the tank water. Water changes like this have no effect on the nitrifying bacteria, which live almost exclusively in the filter, but if your tank does not have a fully cycled filter yet, you will have to keep doing water changes until it is cycled and ammonia and nitrite tests read zero for a few days in a row.


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