# Urgent - What is this??



## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

I have 7 Columbian Jewel Tetras in my 120G community tank - about 2 days ago I noticed discoloration on 1, has now spread to a second one. All other fish / species seem to be fine.
Only recent change - started CO2 about 3 weeks ago - closely monitored, PH is about 6.8 - 7.0
Sorry for the poor pics, but hopefully shows enough to see the problem.
Thanks


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## clintgv (May 6, 2010)

I don't see any pictures?
Did you forget to put it up? ^^


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## Claudia (Apr 21, 2010)

I dont see the pics anywhere


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Don't I feel foolish - Pics added


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Anybody know??


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

pdoutaz said:


> Don't I feel foolish - Pics added


are you asking about the dark spots?


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Yes. the pics don't show it well, but the dark areas are almost black, seem to be increasing in size also....


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## Luke78 (Apr 24, 2010)

Have you had the chance to run a few tests on the water? introduced any new stock or plants without quaranting them? Having their colour change to that could be water related.Reason i say that is , ammonia burns leave these kind of marks or discolouration.Seen it happen to a few goldfish setups(huge ammonia producers) when their water wasnt changed.I would also closely look at your filtration and make sure the media is clean, or needs to be changed.


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Thanks Luke78 - I am going to pick up a new Test Kit tomorrow - current one is too old (about 2+ years) except for the PH tester which is new, so I don't completely trust it. Media was cleaned / changed about 10 days ago - on both the 2 AC110's and the XP4, water was also 30% changed at the same time, so I don't think it ammonia, but will certainly check tomorrow? Nothing new added to tank in last 60 days, except I started CO2 about 3 weeks ago.

ANY other possible causes come to mind?


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Water tests negative for ammonia - anyone have any idea what the cause is???


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## Victor (Apr 21, 2010)

I know in a lot of cichlids, black marks are signs of stress. It could be a lot of things such as water quality or tankmates


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## Luke78 (Apr 24, 2010)

pdoutaz,

Glad to hear it wasnt anything to do with ammonia.Did you run a test for nitrite/nitrate? Did you recently change foods or introduce live food? Are these guys spending alot of time near the heater during the day or night when they sleep? Do you have heater guard on? Sorry asking a lot of questions , but i think we can figure this issue out.



pdoutaz said:


> Water tests negative for ammonia - anyone have any idea what the cause is???


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Just re-ran all tests - current parameters are:
PH: 6.4-6.6
Ammonia - 0.0
Nitrite: 0.1-0.3
Nitrate: < 0.5
*GH - 240*
KH: 40

Does this indicate too much or too little CO2? What is the best/easiest way to bring the GH down?

Thanks again


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## April (Apr 21, 2010)

when discus get dark spots or back half dark.its nerve damage. 
very strange..other than that..no idea. hope you figure it out.


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Thanks April!
Other then water changes, is there a good way to manage the GH levels. GH was never ANYWHERE near that high prior to adding HO lighting and CO2 - so I must admit I'm somewhat stumped on this one...


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Confirmed my test kit was expired, so I bought a GH/KH test kit - Have new numbers
GH is about 200, dKH is about 4

Any suggestions on how to best manage the GH??


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## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

Pdoutaz, could it be that you are measuring your gh in mg/l or ppm, rather than in degrees? With a reading as high as 240, it could be that you're measuring ppm, which would be much less than that in degrees. Do you have a test kit that asks you to count the number of drops you add until the solution changes colour, and then multiply by 20? I do. That number is ppm. 

I don't have my Hagen test kit info handy, but I pulled this information by another poster off the Planted Tank forum, to give you an idea of the math:

"Let's say that you used 10 drops to reach the end color of light blue. For the GH test, you multiply the number of drops used to reach the end color by 20 instead of 10 like the KH test. In this example, this gives you 200 mg/L or 200 ppm. To convert to degrees, you again multiply by 0.056. So, 200 x 0.056 = 11.2 degrees. You can get degrees from ppm another way. Divide your ppm by 17.86 to get degrees."

If that's the case, your degrees of gh might be closer to the number of drops you added before you multiplied by 20 -- say, 12 or 14. 

Just a thought. I'm not an expert. Good luck with your fish. I'd love to know the answer to your original question.


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Yes, mine is count drops, multiply by 20


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## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

Okay, that's good then. I don't think that your gh is so terribly out of whack. Maybe a few degrees. I don't know what a Columbian Jewel Tetra is, but if it's 
Hyphessobrycon bentosi, for example, then Seriously Fish says that the gh should be 2 to 10 degrees. You've got perhaps 12 or 14 degrees.

If your water is just a little too hard and you've been adding Equilibrium, you can just do a water change and not add Equilibrium (or not as much). Take out any shells or any substrate that was intended for a saltwater tank.

I didn't notice where you live, but if your water is naturally hard then you might want to soften it. I have heard that filtering it through peat can help, but I haven't tried this.

But unless the dark patches are the tetras' way of showing stress or unhappiness(which is possible), I don't think that gh is the problem.

How do your fish seem? Do they seem healthy?

Good luck. This is very interesting!



pdoutaz said:


> Yes, mine is count drops, multiply by 20


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Thanks to everyone for all the info / suggestions, it have all been very informative.

Issue appears to still be limited to only the 2 fish, and based on the input I've had from this and another forum, my conclusion is they are _somehow_ stressed. Only cause I can think of is my 2 (relatively) new ghost knife fish may be showing aggresion after the lights go out


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Admin - please close this thread.


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