Thanks again for all your help.

Wow, switching Woofy (the larger Oscar, was scary. I was soaked from head to toes.)

well, here is the latest:

started new tank yesterday with 2 old filters
left our plecos in old tank with air pumps going over night.
this morning he was fine.
this morning connected the 2 canister filters along with the 2 old filters in the new tank
this afternoon removed one of the old filters from the new tank and put back in old tank where plecos is
in a bit i will do a 75% water change in old tank with plecos and refill along with prime as one filter is still in this tank
the readings for new tank are as follows:

nitrate 0
nitrite 0
PH 7.0 - 7.5 (in between, could not tell color)

Ammonia is a color that seems to be inbetween 0 and .25 (hard to tell)


QUESTIONs:

Does food floating for more than 5 minute cause ammonia levels to go up?

Should I pour the ich and secondary infections medications in 2nd tank?

My plecos was sucking on my slow, large O's but can I transfer my smaller, quicker fish from my 10 gallon kitchen tank into the 75 gallon where my plecos is by himself? (2 female bettas, 1 tetra, 2 feeder fish I took away from the O's after I was going to feed them, 1 snail, 1 sucker fish (the ones that stay small - he is about 3")?

Thank you for everything.

NOTE: My 2 small heaters are not doing the job in this new larger tank so I will be getting a larger one(s).
The 2 Cascade Penn Plax Canister filters (1000 and a 700 cover 165 gallons)

My O's (Nemo and Woofy are LOVING their new tank!!! Enjoy pic below)

i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/wildaortiz/newtank-1.jpg

Are your Oscars in the new tank? You will have to keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrite, check it every day. If you have got an established biological filter than any food left in your tank shouldn't cause any ammonia problems, however we do recommend removing any uneaten food. You don't normally have any uneaten food left in the tank when you have Oscars anyway, they are very greedy and normally eat everything that you put in there. Having said this, if you have lots of uneaten food just lying around for a while it may create water quality problems.

I don't think I would be putting the pleco back in with the Oscars if you have observed it sucking on the side of your fish, the chances are it will carry on doing it at night.

I would have thought that a 300 or 400 W heater would be more than enough to heat your 125 gallon tank. I suspect that 200 W will actually keep the water reasonably well, although it would probably stay on all the time. You want to be putting your heater near where the water comes back into the tank.

thank you so much.

how about the other stuff?

Should I pour the ich and secondary infections medications in new tank since they all had ich and still show strong symptoms?

How can I feed the one weak O that still isn't see too good and keeps missing the food?

My plecos was sucking on my slow, large O's but can I transfer my smaller, quicker fish from my 10 gallon kitchen tank into the 75 gallon where my plecos is by himself? (2 female bettas, 1 tetra, 2 feeder fish I took away from the O's after I was going to feed them, 1 snail, 1 sucker fish (the ones that stay small - he is about 3")?

I should imagine that the PLECO won't bother with a very small fish, they will probably move out of its way quite easily.

As for the medications, obviously you will have to keep treating if they are still showing signs of illness. If you don't clear it completely it will probably just come back. We do recommend heat treatment to clear white spot, but I think you said you are having trouble getting the temperature up, you might want to get some more heaters then.

Keep a very close check on the water conditions and reduce the amount of food you putting quite a lot.

It is always a little bit of a problem if you have one flesh that is having problems competing for food. Try putting some food in in various locations in the aquarium, rather than in one spot, hopefully then he will be able to get some food

OFL wrote:


x2 thats another reason i like have some kind of plants/decor' in my tropical tanks,
ie in my tank with the baby oscars and chocolate Cichlids, i have a couple of tall bushy plastic plants, and when the bloodworms go in its harder for the chocolates to scoff the lot, as the food lasts a lot longer and shared if mixed up rather than just floating for them to pig out on

thank you both for helping. i did read from a previous member that garlic helped encourage eating. does that sound right to you guys? either garlic itself or dipping some food in in garlic so they would smelland eat right away. please let me know about that one. thanks again!

forgot to say love the new tank, bet your chuffed with it
back to your first post i missed re floating food, very rare it wil float for long with O's lol, i prefer sinking pellets myself, and also feed bloodworms every day, you know what buggers O's are for jumping for food especially if they are competing for stuff on the top,

Re garlic i am deffo no expert, but if you check a lot of tropical food it has a garlic additive, SUPPOSED to help the immune system, does it work? no idea

Re you heaters i have two 300w in my 150 gallon tank and they are ideal,
i think two would be best, ie if one fails without you noticing,

Your weak O, maybe for a few feeds pop something in so its sectioned off on its own for food, in my tropical tanks i melt my bloodworms in water and then pour then in 2-3 places so they all seem to get some, in a couple of my tanks i have ghost knives and they are always hiding, but i see the bloodworms floating into their hiding place, and as i mentioned i like the plants so harder for the greedy ones to get everything

thank you so much. i am just wondering if he will get his eyesight back cuz after the other O eats, there is still food left for Nemo but when he tries to get it, he keeps missing. so sad!!

You never said anything about your fish losing its eyesight. Please enlighten?

i can't remember if he started acting that way since the ammonia levels hit the 4.0 or the ich. he is goes after the food and misses quite often but gets upset and doesn't give up. sometimes after 3 times, he does give up. i know we are not supposed to let food sit in water for long but i have to for him because it takes him a while. after the other O gets all his food and is stuffed, what is left over, Nemo eats and that can take a good 30-40 min. thanks for asking and caring!