tropical fish

sillymoo2007

Had white spot on 3 clown loach treated the tank as instucted but unfortunately they all died. since then all the other fish platys and silver tips (think there some kind of tetra) have all been up around the top of the tank. Theres also 2 sucker fish in the tank and they keep making a dive to the top. I tested the tank for nitrates and is at normal levels any advice?

pxnubi

sounds like amonia/nitrite or lack of oxygen. hong has the tank been running? what temp is it?

sillymoo2007

tank is up and running for years now kind of inherited it when landlord moved out cleaned it 3 weeks ago and put in new plants it has very big filter thats working well. I did all the stuff your supposed to do when cleaning it neturalised the water and cleaned filter in tank water had taken out. I tested the nitrate level and its says what its supposed to be below 0.3

pxnubi

ok,
whitespot is usually caused by a water quality issue, clown loach are more sensitive than most. it couls have been caused by ph shock...the ph of a tasnks water will drop over time, or even crash eventually, and if you change too much water of a different ph it can badly stress or kill your fish.
a good rule of thumb is to change 20% weekly. temperature shock is also bad so most people add a kettle of boiled water to their container of new water and shake it up to get the temp the same as the tank.

water testing: 0.3 sounds like its an amonia reading not nitrate. you should test for 3 things... amonia, nitrite and nitrate. nitrate is the least toxic of the three and is the result of your filter breaking down the other two. its measured in parts per million (ppm) and ideally should be no greater than 40ppm. less is always better but your fish would be fine at that.
i suspect you have an amonia spike from before or maybe even from the dead clownloach if you didnt remove immediately after death.

oxygen: medications take a lot of oxygen out of the water so id recommend running carbon in the filter for a week which takes out meds. to increase the oxygen levels of the water you should have the filter outlet either at the top of the tank or pointing up at the surface. you could also add an airstone if you have one.

without knowing exactly whats wrong id recommend doing lots of water changes .. 30% twice a day with dechlorinated water of the same temp as the tank (should be 25-26 degrees), adding carbon, making sure there is plently of flow breaking the surface of the tank for oxygen and test for the three things i mentioned above, and ph.

hope this helps andf isnt too much info to take in.

sillymoo2007

Thanks will let you know how it all goes. Just to mention about the clown loach there was one in the tank for about 2 years on his own and then i discovered that there social fish so got 2 new ones, but i only got them about 2 weeks after tank had been cleaned. The old guy was getting on grand on his own untill the new ones were introduced thats when the white spot occured.

pxnubi

could have came from them ... when you say cleaned, how much water did you change?

sillymoo2007

when i was hoovering out the poop with the syphon thing tank was left about half full gradually refilled over a couple of days and added water conditioner / stress coat stuff when adding water.