# Emergency!



## Kirrie (Jan 18, 2013)

I made this post the other day on another forum 

http://www.myaquariumclub.com/what-are-these-2323374.html

about these tiny bugs I found swimming in my betta tank. No one could tell me what they were, but my plan was to keep doing water changes to bring down their numbers until they were gone. I haven't been home since Monday and I planned to start the water changes today. When I came home, I couldn't find Apollo (my betta). I found him under the driftwood with the little bugs all over him. Most of his fins had been eaten away and he was dead My dad told me that he just fed Apollo yesterday and he was fine. He tore up his fins about a month ago but he had been healing pretty well. Luckily my 2 otos were still alive. But now I have a problem.

I knew I had to get them out of the tank so I put them in a 1 gallon bucket that I use for water changes. I know they cant stay there for more than a few hours because I have no heater or filter for them, and its obviously not cycled. My only option is to put them in the big tank, but I am afraid of transferring the bugs to that aquarium if I move the otos there. How can I safely move them without moving the bugs? 

I also decided to tear down the 5.5. I took out all the plants and put them in a bucket of water for now. I will probably just throw the gravel out because that is where I believe the bugs had been laying their eggs. How can I rid the plants of the bugs before putting them back in the tank? How do I keep them alive in a bucket of water until I get the tank set back up? It may be a week or two before I have new gravel and a filter cartridge. Im going to replace the gravel and filter cartridge and start the cycle over so the otos will be staying in the 29 until then. They cant stay in the 29 permanently because it is fully stocked already. 

So I guess I am asking what I should do with the otos to keep them alive. I want to move them to the 29, but I don't want to transfer the bugs. This is coming at a really bad time because Apollo was just starting to get his full fins back and I thought I figured out why he was tearing them up in the first place and fixed it. I only have a few hours before something needs to be done with the otos.


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## Terry6000 (Apr 2, 2012)

the ottos. keep them in your bucket. put a heater and maybe an air stone in it with them. you really do not need a filter. just do 50-75% water changes every day.

the rest of the tank. tare it down. throw out the filter cartridges and gravel.
bleach all the glass and filters anything that was in the water. rinse them a few times. the fill tank with water and add 5 time the the recommended dose of dechlorinator to the tank. i would let them sit for 24 hours but 4-5 hour should be ok if you rinse everything 4,5,6 times. if you have drift wood boil it for a few hours.

plants put them in there own bucket. they should be able to go a few days with out light. To clean them mix 1 part bleach to 19 parts water dip the plants in water for 2 mins no more no less. it will kill everything but the plants. 

to start the tank up tank some filter media form your other tank. it should cycle the tank in a few hours. then add fish


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## Kirrie (Jan 18, 2013)

Thanks for the reply! Im really panicking here. 
I cant change the water everyday because I am not here everyday (I go back and forth between my parents) So the otos cant stay in the bucket. They wont have anyone to change the water everyday and that wont end well... 
So far I have emptied the tank and thrown out all the sponge pieces of the filter. I probably wont use that filter again anyway. I think I want to switch to a sponge filter when I am ready for another betta. I am in the process of throwing out the gravel, then I will clean the tank with bleach. I am going to leave the driftwood out to dry and then boil it before I use it again, but Im not worried about that right now.
My problem is that I cant leave the otos in the bucket, but I don't know if its safe to put them in my other tank. I don't know what those bugs were or where they came from. I didn't see any on my betta until after he died, and I don't see them on the otos but I still don't know if I should put them in the big tank. My dad doesn't think I should because it would be better to lose 2 little fish instead of risking the lives of all of my other fish. But I don't want to just let them die :/
I think Im going to clean out the tank and clean the plants with bleach. Then I will fill the tank with dechlorinated water for a while and let it soak. Then I will rinse it a bunch of times and put the otos and plants back in with a heater and another tiny filter I have. That is the only thing I can think of to do for right now :/


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## ZebraDanio12 (Jun 17, 2011)

Ive had fish in a tank before without a heater or filter. put them in a warm spot, and do water changes regularly. Definitely do the tank break down if you think they are harming your fish. I honestly dont know what they are....
Now i have seen tiny little white spots moving around in my tank before. Not sure if they are the same thing, but they never did any harm and just disappeared. They were like the size of a period though. Miniscule.
They might be harmless. They could have been on your betta because he was dead. Not because they killed him. He could have died of another cause. Maybe someone else here knows...


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## Kirrie (Jan 18, 2013)

It's just strange how he died literally days after I noticed the bugs... He was healthy before that. I'm cleaning it with bleach right now.


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## ZebraDanio12 (Jun 17, 2011)

It happens....


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## Kirrie (Jan 18, 2013)

I guess so. :/


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## Kirrie (Jan 18, 2013)

I let the tank and plants soak in water with dechlor over night. Then I put the otos and plants back in the tank this morning. Of course there is no gravel, and the filter isn't the right size for the tank, but at least theyre not in a bucket anymore. Im thinking I may put the otos in my 10 gallon this weekend. If I put them in my 29, I wont be able to catch them again and they cant stay in there. They can stay in the 10 though.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

I can't tell what they are, but moving the fish without them is easy enough. Just transfer to multiple containers in a row.


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## Kirrie (Jan 18, 2013)

Thank you, I will do that this weekend. Theyre going in my 10 gallon, so that will be completely stocked. Then Im going to cycle the 5.5 again for a betta and maybe a mystery snail.


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## Kirrie (Jan 18, 2013)

Ive had the plants floating in the tank for the past week with just a heater and the light. Ive been watching to see if the bugs would come back, but didn't see anything so I went and picked up some gravel to get the plants planted again and start cycling the tank. When I got home I decide to look one last time, and I found more bugs. This time they were much smaller and only crawling on the glass. Im assuming they are just younger than what I was seeing before. I don't know how they survived the bleaching exactly...but there they were. 

My dads hypothesis is that when I dipped the plants in bleach, there were bug eggs on the plants that were not affected by the bleach and then they hatched in the tank. Hopefully, they were young enough to have not laid eggs yet, so the bleaching this time should have killed everything. Ill probably watch for them for another week before putting the new gravel in because I don't want to have to throw it out if I find them again.


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## weedkiller (Nov 18, 2012)

you are certainly not having a good time of it young kirrie..
fingers crossed for you that its all good.


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## Kirrie (Jan 18, 2013)

Nope. It seems like when something goes wrong in one tank, I start having problems in my other tanks. Of course it's just a coincidence because these two tanks are actually in two different houses and two different cities, but it's just funny how everything happened at once. I go for months without a single problem and then everything goes wrong. So far everything in the 29 gallon is fine, hopefully it stays that way. I'll know within a week or so


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## weedkiller (Nov 18, 2012)

we all get issues from time to time im sure, don't get disheartened.....
one of my silver sharks has had a chunk taken out of his left gill, probably from one of my firemouths seeing it as food, itll get bigger soon and be safe I hope, it just a bit smaller than the others and very young but it going strong, swimming with the other 2 and eating so touch wood all will be fine here..


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## Kirrie (Jan 18, 2013)

I mostly just have tetras and corys so I don't think any of my fish are aggressive enough to do something like that. I hope your shark gets better soon!


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## weedkiller (Nov 18, 2012)

itll be ok, it hides a little but comes out for food and eats well, itll get as big as the firemouths in a few months so they will leave it alone then


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## Betta man (Mar 25, 2011)

I have em. They're microorganisms of some sort. I actually raised 2 bettas on them. 2 is all I've succeeded with. Wilds. The rounder things on the glass that are larger are limpets I think. Harmless. Sign of bad water quality tho.


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## Kirrie (Jan 18, 2013)

Theyre much too tiny to be limpets. The things that were on the glass were the same things that were swimming in the water. They would crawl on the glass and then jump off and swim around.


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