# Flicking against the sand



## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

My mbunas are scraping against the sand, seems like they are trying to wipe their gills against the sand or something to releive itchiness.. is this gill flukes?

I had recently set up a new tank and in the process I have reused sand from an old aquarium that had been sitting outside in a bucket for a month or so, I gave it all a good wash I thought, but is it possible some parasite has come back to haunt me?

I have noticed this scraping in quite a few of my fish btw, and more and more seemt o be doing it

please help with advice... thanks.


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

It may be gill flukes. Are you noticing any redness or damaged scales in the gill area?

It's impossible to say whether you introduced something with the sand or not. Did you rinse it well and make sure there were no bacterial pockets built up while it was sitting unused?

It sounds like you've definitely got something going on.

What are the water parameters on the tank?

How did you cycle the tank?


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

cichlidaholic said:


> It may be gill flukes. Are you noticing any redness or damaged scales in the gill area?


None at all



cichlidaholic said:


> It's impossible to say whether you introduced something with the sand or not. Did you rinse it well and make sure there were no bacterial pockets built up while it was sitting unused?


It was well rinsed, I put about 1 litre of sand in a bucket and stirred it well so all the sand was in supsenison. there were definitely no hard pockets remaining



cichlidaholic said:


> What are the water parameters on the tank?
> 
> How did you cycle the tank?


I haven't checked the parameters to be honest and I didn't cycle the tank, its a new 135 gal and I moved everything over from my existing 55 gal, including a Rena XP4 canister filter with existing media, so it was seeded, I also moved over all the rocks from the old tank to new tank, they also would have had beneficial bacteria. I will check the parameters, just to be sure.

The sand however had to go down first, so I couldn't remove it from the old tank to the new tank, so I got some older sand that was sistting outside. it had been used in a different aquarium a while back which to be honest I had a lot of health problems with as a community set up with angels, guppies, tetra etc.. i was a beginner with this set up and I lost a lot of fish with all the noobie mistakes, so, some of the sand has come from this tank.

I am maybe being paranoid, the scraping isn't that often, sometiomes its 3 fish in a few minutes, then maybe nothing at all for 20 minutes.

All my fish look super healthy, they seem happy, eating playing etc... Its just the occasional scraping that gets me thinking..


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## sjlchgo (Mar 2, 2008)

I would do at least 25-50% water changes DAILY until the tank is cycled and/or the codition is better. What you are describing is called "flashing". The fish are "scratching" their gills. See if you can get some filter media from an established tank to help the tank cylcle.


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

sjlchgo said:


> I would do at least 25-50% water changes DAILY until the tank is cycled and/or the codition is better. See if you can get some filter media from an established tank to help the tank cylcle.


I dont think you've read my post properly, the canister filter Rena XP4 and all media inside it is from an established tank, the 55 gal that all the fish came from..



sjlchgo said:


> What you are describing is called "flashing". The fish are "scratching" their gills.


what causes this then and is it a problem? I have seen my fish do this before, it just seems a bit more frequent now.


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

btw, i dont know why when I type the work "f l i c k i n g", the word "crazy" is substituted automtically.

The title of this thread should not read "crazy against the sand".. it should read f l i c k i n g against the sand..

does everyone see this weird sounding title? or is my computer the one with gill flukes?


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## sjlchgo (Mar 2, 2008)

Poor water quality ie- ammonia causes the fish to "scratch their gills". google "flashing fish"


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

ok, I've just done the tests and the results are:

Ammonia between 0 to 0.25 mg/l, much closer to zero, still very yellow, no green at all really, hard to say in my opinion if it was completely yellow, but at a guess I would say 0.05mg/L if not that, then it is zero.
Nitrite, zero.
Nitrate, less than 5 but very close to it. i'd say 3 mg/L.

These figures tell me the filter media with established bacteria colonies are doing their job, even though the "tank" is not cycled. Ammonia IMO is not a problem, with nitrate production evident, ammonia must be getting eaten up.

Incoming water pH which is 5 days old now is 8.3.

I haven't checked KH or general hardness

Am I just being paranoid?


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

It does sound like they are flashing excessively. And I have to disagree with you as far as ammonia NOT being a problem.

I would start with daily water changes for a bit and see if things improve. Make sure to use a good dechlorinator with these water changes.

If the flashing continues or worsens, post back.


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## sjlchgo (Mar 2, 2008)

Your Nitrates should be closer to 20ppm for a cycled tank and ammonia and nitrites should be 0...not .5 or anything else. Those numbers suggest your tank isn't cycledmight be a mini cycle. I like cichlidaholic's suggestion.


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

cichlidaholic said:


> It does sound like they are flashing excessively. And I have to disagree with you as far as ammonia NOT being a problem.
> 
> I would start with daily water changes for a bit and see if things improve. Make sure to use a good dechlorinator with these water changes.
> 
> If the flashing continues or worsens, post back.


I will check the ammonia again today under daylight, the reading was a bit hard to check exactly as I was checking it under the kitchen lights. I feel quite confident ammonia was zero, the only reservation I had was because of the lighting made it a bit hard to check exact colouring.

It doesn't sound like gill flukes anyway, so thats good.

I will also get a better dechlorinator. I used a dechlorinator of sorts called "easy life", before adding fish, but the water was still a bit murky so I did a 50% water change and then didn't use any dechlorinator before transferring over everything. I suppose that was a bit lazy of me, but I know that here the amount of chlorine added to the water is so small its barely measureable. I work reguarly at our council water works and I know that we add chlorine at .05mg/l, which is tiny in comparison to most countries, swedish water is amazing quality (Im not swedish either), such that chlorine is only added as a precaution for water leaks in the underground piping. I will be better with that in the future. The chlorine may have killed off some of the bacterial colonies aswell, perhaps a small mini cycle has occurred.

If it worsens I will get back, I understand cycling very well imo, I have cycled tanks using the ammonia method and done hundreds of tests in the past such that it drove my wife mad.

If ammonia is/was a problem, then API need to sort out the scales on their test sheets, 90% of people would have read the same as me, it is zero, but hard to be certain without natural lighting.

thanks agian! :thumb:


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

sjlchgo said:


> Your Nitrates should be closer to 20ppm for a cycled tank and ammonia and nitrites should be 0...not .5 or anything else. Those numbers suggest your tank isn't cycledmight be a mini cycle. I like cichlidaholic's suggestion.


I dont agree with this, the majority of members here who do regular water changes have nitrates less then 20ppm. If I was to do a 75% water change from this value then automatically the nitrates would be 5ppm and you are saying the tank is no longer cycled?



sjlchgo said:


> and ammonia and nitrites should be 0...not .5 or anything else.


Just to clarify what I wrote, 0.05mg/l, one tenth of 0.5. These values can occur after feeding and does not suggest a tank isn't cycled imo.

A mini cycle is possible, I will keep an eye on the ammonia value. However since I am getting nitrate production I am still dubious it is the problem..

thanks for your help anyway, I am atleast ruling out gill flukes.


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

It's really hard to determine what's going on, and you just setting the tank up complicates things somewhat.

If you're comfortable with the water after you check again, you might try something for parasites, I'm just hesitant to have you do this in a fairly new tank. I don't want you to make things worse.

Doing water changes can sometimes help in situations like this, so I'd have to try this first!


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

I think I will do that, just do some water changes and monitor things, I have checked again for ammonia today and are more certain than ever the reading is zero.

The occasional flash is still happening and it is bothering me.

Thanks for your help so far guys. :thumb:


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## sjlchgo (Mar 2, 2008)

That's what I was saying...with the tank being "new" you can't be sure. Changing the water certainly won't hurt anything and as I stated it's the "least most invasive thing you can do". When in doubt this is something I have personally found to be helpful so I thought I'd pass that on to you. I don't even test my water anymore. I make sure to use a quality dechlorinator such as Prime(most economical) or stress coat. I do this each time I change the water and I do 50% changes every week unless the fish dictate otherwise. If I see even one fish flash I change the water. This is usually do to my over feeding them. They beg everytime they see me...lol. My fish are healthy, spawning, plants are growing strong and green so I figured I was doing something right.


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

thanks for that... tommorrow I will do a water change, hopefully that slows it down and I will search out a better dechlorinator. Hard to think its chlorine though, *** never had problems before and *** done about 50 water changes in my 55 over the last year without any dechlorintor at all. This water is also 7 days old now, so any chlorine should have gased out by now.

If it doesn't improve in a week im going to do an external parasite treatment, I really dont want to lose any of my fish, im pretty attached to them now. They are generally very healthy, they appear to have very good condition on their bodies, active, playful and one of my saulosis has fry exploding out of her cheeks.

I could be being paranoid, but, its good to ask questions and see what repsonses I get.

I'll keep you guys posted.


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## sjlchgo (Mar 2, 2008)

Make sure to add some aquarium salt...the salt is a sort of "cure all" in iteself. I had a convict with popeye that that's all I did and it cleared up. Best of luck.....it would help if the fish could talk and just tell us!


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