# at a loss and need some advice, please!



## philipraposo1982 (28 Nov 2015)

The problem: Cherry barbs are flashing, 99% of the time the flashing is off of plant leaves. No visible signs other than their color was off a bit. I suspect gill flukes. I do have lava rock and other type of rock in the tank and they don't flash off these items. Other fish in the tank are otocinclus cats and cory cats. These fish don't flash and all seems well. during the first week of treatment I lost 2 male cherry barbs.

Their symptoms before they died was:
1. away from the group, not being social
2. not active
3. bottom of the tank and near it.
4. hidden
5. heavy breathing

What I have been doing: Been treating using prazipro as per directions. I am close to being down my 4th week of treatment. The females barbs have showed a drastic change in their color (improvements), the males are doing better too. Richer and more darker color to be clear. 

Even after the almost 4 weeks of meds some fish are still flashing but their color is now really good. I am not sure if its gill flukes or not because the meds should of taken care of them by now.

Also since gill fluke eggs resides in the substrate, you would think my corys would be worse off then my barbs... I even have young cory fry in this tank and they are all fine..

I just don't get it, I am at a loss of what to do and how to resolve this. But for my sanity, I need this to be over with so I can stop worrying about my pets that I care for.

If anyone have some suggestions I am open, I will try anything.

Thanks!


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## PARAGUAY (29 Nov 2015)

Well its a suggestion and all I can help with is what I would do,first of all I have no idea about the medication you use, i use the ESha ones its likely its parastic skin problem esHa covers all such as opposed to other meds doing individual problems plus you can use the esHA range if needed together-exit-2000 etc.Can you set up quarantine tank,tested water?Do some water changes in the meantime ,stop feeding the fish,what ever med you use check all species are ok,coris and cats withit if you cant set up hospital tank. Good luck


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## philipraposo1982 (29 Nov 2015)

here is a video of the tank, maybe seeing what is going on might help id the cause.  

The last two days, I performed 2 60% water changes and while the flashing isn't often or consistent, its still happening.

I can't imagine my nitrates are so high that even after 2 large water changes its still irritating some barbs.  Also, if it was nitrates, i would think it would bother my corys and my otos.


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## philipraposo1982 (29 Nov 2015)

here is another video (underwater)


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## ceg4048 (30 Nov 2015)

Hi,
    Nitrates are not responsible for irritating any fish. Fish do not really care about high nitrates.
Irritants would more likely be attributable to a parasitic or pathogen attack. There may be other chemical causes such as ammonia, chlorine and so forth.

In any case, increasing frequency and size of water changes is always a good thing.

Cheers,


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## rebel (30 Nov 2015)

If you can catch the sick fish and treat them with a slightly higher dose of meds perhaps would be interesting to try? Then you don't need to overdose the whole tank and risk other issues.


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## alto (30 Nov 2015)

ceg4048 said:


> Nitrates are not responsible for irritating any fish. Fish do not really care about high nitrates


Are you basing this upon scientific journal published articles?

Back when I was reading biochemistry papers, N- modified proteins were isolated from fish kept in high nitrate environments ... as I recall one study was done with Discus, N-labeled proteins were observed at nitrate levels above 10ppm ... 

My personal observation with altums is contrary to your statement - anything over 10ppm nitrates & they "_noticed_"   ...


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## john dory (1 Dec 2015)

I don't see much flashing


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## philipraposo1982 (1 Dec 2015)

Sometimes it's not much while other times it like 2 or 3 fish who flash like 4 or 5 times inna row.  Like one after another.


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## dw1305 (1 Dec 2015)

Hi all, 





alto said:


> Are you basing this upon scientific journal published articles?
> 
> Back when I was reading biochemistry papers, N- modified proteins were isolated from fish kept in high nitrate environments ... as I recall one study was done with Discus, N-labeled proteins were observed at nitrate levels above 10ppm ...
> 
> My personal observation with altums is contrary to your statement - anything over 10ppm nitrates & they "_noticed_" ...


There isn't  a huge amount of scientific data that just looks at NO3, it nearly all looks at nitrate levels as the "smoking gun" of the microbial oxidation of NH3 and NO2. This is understandable because, with the exception of addition by aquascapers, NO3 is often a marker of organic pollution.

There is definitely evidence that long term chronic exposure to relatively low levels of nitrate is damaging to Salmonids:
"Comparing the effects of high vs. low nitrate on the health, performance, and welfare of juvenile rainbow trout _Oncorhynchus mykiss_ within water recirculating aquaculture systems".

"_....High nitrate nitrogen (80–100 mg/L) was related to chronic health and welfare impacts to juvenile rainbow trout....._"

"<A Review of Nitrate Toxicity to Freshwater Aquatic Organisms>", is a review paper that looks at both acute toxicity and long term (chronic) effects for a range of aquatic organisms.

There is some work using crustaceans as bio-assay organisms, with some interesting results:
Camargo _et al._ (2005) "*Ni*trate toxicity to aquatic animals: a review with new data for freshwater invertebrates" 
Chemosphere *58*, pp. 1255–1267.

"_New data on nitrate toxicity to the freshwater invertebrates Eulimnogammarus toletanus, Echinogammarus echinosetosus and Hydropsyche exocellata are also presented. The main toxic action of nitrate is due to the conversion of oxygen-carrying pigments to forms that are incapable of carrying oxygen. Nitrate toxicity to aquatic animals increases with increasing nitrate concentrations and exposure times. In contrast, nitrate toxicity may decrease with increasing body size, water salinity, and environmental adaptation. Freshwater animals appear to be more sensitive to nitrate than marine animals. A nitrate concentration of 10 mg NO3-N/l (USA federal maximum level for drinking water) can adversely affect, at least during long-term exposures, freshwater invertebrates (E. toletanus, E. echinosetosus, Cheumatopsyche pettiti, Hydropsyche occidentalis), fishes (Oncorhynchus mykiss, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, Salmo clarki), and amphibians (Pseudacris triseriata, Rana pipiens, Rana temporaria, Bufo bufo). Safe levels below this nitrate concentration are recommended to protect sensitive freshwater animals from nitrate pollution. Furthermore, a maximum level of 2 mg NO3-N/l would be appropriate for protecting the most sensitive freshwater species_."

Benitez-Mora _et al _(2014)    "Ecotoxicological assessment of the impact of nitrate (NO3¯) on the European endangered white-clawed crayfish _Austropotamobius italicus" Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety_ *101*, pp 220–225 found:

_"no-observed-effect concentration (NOEC) for this endpoint after 14 days of exposure to nitrate was as high as 100 mg NO3¯N/l, with some crayfish being still alive after fourteen days of exposure to a nominal nitrate concentration of 800 mg NO3−N/l. Besides, a safe concentration of nitrate for A. italicus, along with its respective 95% confidence limits, were estimated to be 68.5 (22.4–187) mg (NO3¯N/l._"

cheers Darrel


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## john dory (1 Dec 2015)

philipraposo1982 said:


> Sometimes it's not much while other times it like 2 or 3 fish who flash like 4 or 5 times inna row.  Like one after another.


I'd just stay on top of the water changes,and leave be..for now.
They look healthy enough to me.


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## philipraposo1982 (1 Dec 2015)

I know, I tried that but my mind can't stop thinking about the fact that my fish may not be happy and that gets to me.

Might seem a little over the top and I am likely being crazy but the idea of my fish suffering in.any way bothers me.  I am responsible for these 85+ fish in my tank and I want them to enjoy their time in my care


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## ceg4048 (1 Dec 2015)

alto said:


> Are you basing this upon scientific journal published articles?


Yes, correct.

As Darrel has pointed out:


dw1305 said:


> "_....High nitrate nitrogen (80–100 mg/L) was related to chronic health and welfare impacts to juvenile rainbow trout....._"


80-100 mg/L Nitrate Nitrogen is equal to 344-440 mg/L NO3. This is far above anything that we dose and it is far above what any European municipal water supply contains, as the Euro limit is 50 mg/L.

Furthermore that data is for trout which does not necessarily mean that the numbers are the same for tropical species.

Here is a journal more applicable to tropical species. So if you want to kill guppy fry for example:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0043135477900793

Just check abstract on that page and that gives you a pretty good idea of how much NO3 is required to kill a tropical species. The parameter in the second sentence 72-h lc50 means that in 72 hours, 50% of the guppy fry died.

Look at the numbers when they mixed ammonia and KNO3 together:
199ppm N from KNO3, which equates to about 875ppm NO3 + 1.26ppm N from NH3 which equates to about 1.5ppm ammonia. That's what it took to kill 50% of the guppy FRY in 3 days. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the damage was done mostly by the NH3.



alto said:


> My personal observation with altums is contrary to your statement - anything over 10ppm nitrates & they "_noticed_" ...


I'm sorry but if you used a standard hobby grade nitrate test kit then you never knew what the nitrate levels were because no nitrate test kit is capable of consistently telling you and accurate NO3 reading. So what you observed with your fishes discomfort had little to no correlation with the actual NO3 levels that were in the tank.

On the other hand here is an old thread by Dan Crawford breeding discus in an EI fed tank:
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/discus-fry.259/

Here is a sample of one of Barr's EI fed tanks:
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/ei-dosing-impact-on-fish-breeding-and-fry.17024/#post-175510

Here is a sample of one of his clients EI fed tanks this typically will be dose 20-30 mg/L NO3 per week:



 



 


I've also raised discus and have bred Rams and other dwarf cichlids in EI tanks, so there is plenty of empirical evidence which agrees with the data in the journals that NO3 is not the culprit, only the smoking gun of other things like NH3 that damages fish..

Cheers,


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## alto (2 Dec 2015)

ceg4048 said:


> And you can bet your bottom dollar that the damage was done mostly by the NH3



a slightly less dated article
*Tolerance to temperature, pH, ammonia and nitrite in cardinal tetra, Paracheirodon axelrodi, an amazonian ornamental fish*

*Abstract*
_Poor water quality condition has been pointed out as one of the major causes for the high mortality of ornamental fishes exported from the state of Amazonas, Brazil. The purpose of the current study was to define water quality standards for cardinal tetra (Paracheirodon axelrodi), by establishing the lower and higher for lethal temperature (LT50), lethal concentration (LC50) for total ammonia and nitrite and LC50 for acid and alkaline pH. According to the findings, cardinal tetra is rather tolerant to high temperature (33.3 oC), to a wide pH range (acid pH=2.9 and alkaline pH=8.8) and to high total ammonia concentration (23.7 mg/L). However, temperatures below 19.6 oC and nitrite concentrations above 1.1 mg/L NO2- may compromise fish survival especially during long shipment abroad._

Further there is significant difference between elevated nitrate levels in a thriving planted tank vs a less plant enriched system, also elevated nitrate from added salts vs decomposing fish etc waste - to blanket state that high nitrate levels are completely benign seems disingenuous




ceg4048 said:


> I'm sorry but if you used a standard hobby grade nitrate test kit then you never knew what the nitrate levels were because no nitrate test kit is capable of consistently telling you and accurate NO3 reading. So what you observed with your fishes discomfort had little to no correlation with the actual NO3 levels that were in the tank.


Modern chemistry/biochemistry research lab synthesizing substrate analogs for enzyme mechanistic studies including active site mutations, isolation & sequence analysis of inhibitor labelled fragments, isotope effects,   etc etc
...  I think I've some idea how to conduct nitrate assays in a fish tank 


For those interested in a "college approved" method of testing nitrate in water
Ion selective electrode
or
If you've acess to a colorimeter LaMotte Nitrate Nitrogen Test Kit 
- the above linked article includes detailed intructions






ceg4048 said:


> On the other hand here is an old thread by Dan Crawford breeding discus in an EI fed tank:
> http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/discus-fry.259/


Are there any updates on development of these fry?



ceg4048 said:


> Here is a sample of one of Barr's EI fed tanks:
> http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/ei-dosing-impact-on-fish-breeding-and-fry.17024/#post-175510



Nice thread but not much detail on fry survival/development to adults - notable is the loss of fry when transferred to grow out tanks ... this is in complete contradiction to many successful breeders such as Steve Rybicki 


My premise is that there IS biochemical impact in reaction to elevated N levels in aquarium water - call this _benign_ as long as the fish still swims if you like  
[15N-labeling of fishes using 15N isotopes in aquarium water and the effect of a different protein nutrient on the 15N elimination after the labeling period].







dw1305 said:


> There isn't a huge amount of scientific data that just looks at NO3, it nearly all looks at nitrate levels as the "smoking gun" of the microbial oxidation of NH3 and NO2. This is understandable because, with the exception of addition by aquascapers, NO3 is often a marker of organic pollution.


Thanks Darrel, I've seen these papers too


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## dw1305 (2 Dec 2015)

Hi all, 





alto said:


> I've seen these papers too


I'll "_nail my colours to the mast_" and say that my suspicion would be that prolonged exposure to high levels of NO3- is damaging to sensitive fish, the problem is that I'm not sure that you can prove it, or what a "high value" is in the context of the fish we keep.

I'd approach this from a different angle, in heavily polluted systems when you have high levels of dissolved oxygen you can use <"plant/microbe biological filtration to dramatically reduce the level of all forms of fixed nitrogen">. You can use the same approach to reduce the levels of fixed nitrogen in clean water systems, you don't have to measure the level fixed nitrogen you use the health, and vigour, of a floating plant as a visual indication of nutrient level.  

<"This is an interesting thesis">, again it is working with a sensitive fish, it quotes from Pillay & Kutty (2005), _Aquaculture, Principles and Practices_, 2nd Ed
"_In recirculating systems, NO3-N levels are controlled by daily water exchanges, but in some systems with low water flow rates this parameter has become increasingly important and concentration levels should be lower than 10 mg NO3-N L- 1 (Pillay and Kutty 2005)_."

We use Ion selective electrodes, but nitrate still pose <"some difficulties"> for measurement. 

cheers Darrel


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## ceg4048 (2 Dec 2015)

alto said:


> Further there is significant difference between elevated nitrate levels in a thriving planted tank vs a less plant enriched system, also elevated nitrate from added salts vs decomposing fish etc waste - to blanket state that high nitrate levels are completely benign seems disingenuous


Decomposing fish waste produces NH3 and NO2 which are toxic to fish. Furthermore they decomposition results in anoxic conditions further elevating the toxicity of these two primary toxic Nitrogen agents.

Again, this is exactly the same problem that many researchers face, lumping NO3 in with the real toxic agents, and then blaming NO3.

What you need to do is to separate these factors, and EI does this by advocating removal of organic waste via large water changes. You can therefore isolate elevated NO3 levels from elevated levels of the other agents.

I don't see how the NO3 molecule from decomposition is any different in it's chemical makeup from dry salt dosing NO3. The real difference is the process by which NO3 is derived, and  so it is the process of producing NO3 from decomposition of food and waste that does the damage. By the time NO3 is produced from the Nitrogen Cycle, the damage has already been done. The NO3 that is left behind as the end product is then blamed for this damage. It seems to me therefore that your statements are disingenuous.

Again, the NO3 molecule in a thriving planted tank is exactly the same as the NO3 molecule in an unplanted tank. So the processes differ, therefore if we see no reduction in health in a planted tank with elevated NO3 levels compared to a reduction in health with elevated NO3 levels in an unplanted tank, then it must be related to the differences in in the processes occurring. So the processes and the intermediate components that result during the processes must be blamed, not the NO3.


alto said:


> My premise is that there IS biochemical impact in reaction to elevated N levels in aquarium water - call this _benign_ as long as the fish still swims if you like
> [15N-labeling of fishes using 15N isotopes in aquarium water and the effect of a different protein nutrient on the 15N elimination after the labeling period].


I'm sorry but your premise is false. Once again you have not isolated the NO3 from the toxicity of the process that produces NO3. Are you really comparing NO3 to Urea and Ammonium Chloride just because they happen to both contain Nitrogen? The labeling was done with Urea and Ammonium Chloride, which breaks down into NH3/NH4 facilitated by the protein Urease contained in the substrate and filter media. Nitrification of Urea results in reduced Oxygen levels, NH3/NH4 and NO2. Are you ignoring these effects again? This contradicts your statement regarding the fact that there are differences between dry salt NO3 addition versus decomposition. I don't understand why you cite a reference and then go on to ignore these differences.



alto said:


> Nice thread but not much detail on fry survival/development to adults - notable is the loss of fry when transferred to grow out tanks ... this is in complete contradiction to many successful breeders such as Steve Rybicki


I'm sure that this fellow is a top breeder and I'm sure he does plenty of water changes after feeding all these great foods. The fact still remains however, that removal of organic waste and uneaten food reduces decomposition and therefore reduces hypoxia, reduces NH3 production and reduces NO2 production from nitrification.

And, as Darrel quite rightly points out, "College Approved Methods" and Lamotte Test Kits still completely suck when used in a fish tank, no matter how many impressive labels are used to describe their supposed prowess.

Cheers,


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