Bala Shark Question

One of my Bala sharks eyes are kinda big and bulgy, is it just the fish or is it sick?

 

well i found out he had Tuberculosis. And he was basicly dead, so down the toilet he went. Is it ok to just have one Bala shark?

 

Sorry about your bala.

What made you come to the conclusion that he had tuberculosis rather than popeye?

And no, it's not really a good idea to keep just one bala. HOWEVER, your tank is too small for them so you shouldn't get any more until you get a 100+ gallon tank.

-Chelle

 

I have a book on fish disease's. Their was a pic of a fish that looked just like my bala shark. Its fins were all messes up kind of like "frayed". Also it could not swim right at all and just stayed in the bubbles floating around.

 

Did you ever get your water parameters under control? It very well could have been combination of popeye, finrot, and nitrIte poisoning.

Generally with fish tb, you would be seeing open sores, bent spines, dropsy, and lumps.

-Chelle

 

Yes I did get them all undercontroll. The levles were high for about a week. Also my dwarf gouramis 2 of the 3 are up in the left corner by the filer, havent moved in about 8 hours and seem to be "dead to the world" they arent breathing hard or fast. Is that anything bad?

 

Just to be sure, please post your parameters. It's still sounding like you're having nitrIte problems.

-Chelle

 

NitrAte: 30 ppm (mg/L)
NitrIte: 0 ppm (mg/L)
Hardness: Soft
Alkalinity: 120 (KH) ppm
PH: 6.8

 

Well, your nitrAtes are a little high so you should do a water change.

-Chelle

 

Ok, ill do that right now. Also Im geting a new filter tommorow and maby a test kit. What do you think about this test kit? http://bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=19475;category_id=3111;pcid1=3233;pcid2=

 

Im thinking it is NitrAte and or NitrIte. Other then water changes what can I do to help them out?

 

If there's high nitrItes it means either the tank has gone through a mini cycle for some reason or there's not enough filtration. Really, the best thing to do is do lots of water changes until the mini cycle completes or if it's a filtration problem, get another filter and do water changes until the new filter is seeded.

High nitrAtes means you have to do more water changes. Or if it's getting up that high and you're already doing weekly water changes, your tank is overstocked so really the best solution is to either get rid of some fish or get a bigger tank.

And I've never used that particular test kit. But tests like iron, phosphate, and calcium aren't nearly as important as ammonia, nitrIte, and nitrAte.

-Chelle