I have just done a slight water change to be on the safe side, I just feel doing too many water changes will stress him out?
He does look a little stressed out but I have tested the ammonia and its a light green colour saying 0.25 so that's not too high, I have a rubbish nitrite and nitrate testing kit at the moment, waiting on another to be delivered tomorrow but at the moment it says the levels are fine!
He's just hyper at the moment, the only worrying sign in the veins in the tail, not really displayed anywhere else  hmmmm...

Ok thanks! Ill do a 25% water change every day then! I have been but didn't know if this was wrong or not.
Thanks very much for the advice, it's been really helpful! 

Will do! Ill let you know how I get on, thanks! 

once the nitrites appear, you'll know that your're in business ,try cutting back to 50-60%  every other day, but keep a close eye on your fish.

Ah veins in the tail, now that sounds familiar.
I had the exact same thing happen with Lucky.

How many veins are there? Are they very thin like a vein should be, or do they look blotchy? Are the veins in one particular area of the tail?
Keep an eye on it, see if the number of veins increases or if Carlos starts to show any other symptoms.

When Lucky was in the small tank, she had 3 veins appear, I kept an eye on her for around 20 days and concluded it was nothing serious. But interestingly enough since she's been in the bigger tank, they seem to have cleared up by themselves -it's pretty difficult to get a good look at her tail when she won't stay still! But it definitely looks like they aren't there.

Keep up with the water changes until the tanks settled and cycled.

it is a marathon; Not a sprint

Yes for now I would attribute the veins to poor water quality, which cannot be helped with a cycling tank, they should clear up by themselves You'll know if it's anything more serious going on.
When you say his being his 'hyper' self... If he is still flashing, then that again is probably due to the water quality.

Cycling can take anywhere from 4 - 8 weeks, so just keep going It'll get there eventually

Oh good someone is joining me in the cycling marathon!
No Skwishee he is so much better in his new tank, he is just a very fast fish!
Yeah i'm hoping the veins will go away when the water settles and the tank is cycled? At present he isn't displaying any concerning behaviour. Just tired him with Brocolli and he loved it! 

Yeah thanks I will keep on eye on the veins, I always know when there's something wrong with, like we were saying it's like they tell you!
No I haven't actually I might give that a try thanks!  He liked the brocolli but it was a bit messy! Also, do you know if you can give sweetcorn? I read somewhere you can but I don't trust it! 

my fish enjoy sweetcorn once in a while

Yes I've been confused with Lucky, she is a very odd fish.
I have some concerns over her currently, but I don't think the veins are too do with it?
I tried looking for them today and couldn't see them, because she doesn't keep still long enough for me to have a look....

Hmmm.... Keep an eye on him anyway, hopefully it won't be anything to worry about.

Aww sorry to hear about Carlos! I hope he gets better!

Lucky's gasping behaviour is a little out of sorts, it's possible the veins in her tail are connected.
But I'm not sure about the cause yet, seeing as this started back in October, I thought I'd wait and see how she got on in the bigger tank first as there was no real indicator at the time as to what I was dealing with. So I'm pretty sure if it was a bacterial infection or something like that, I would have known about it by now.

Beginning to suspect she may have had gill flukes all this time, but again, surely she'd be acting up more? The only way to even diagnose gill flukes properly is with a microscope though. So I'm going to try and look into things a bit more, see if I can find someone with a microscope XD

[Edit]

Cdale, quick question, does Carlos gasp at the surface of the tank often?

I asked about the gasping, because I've actually gotten to the bottom of things.

I believe Lucky has ammonia poisoning, hence the gasping all this time and I wouldn't be surprised if the veins in her tail would be related either I could kick myself for thinking it was my test giving off readings. I had my water tested at the LFS at the beginning of all this -October last year- to double check against my testing and they said ammonia was 0ppm, so I thought my test was being off -having had the tank set up for around a month at that point, with nitrates showing, I believed it to be cycled-. But now I'm beginning to think maybe it was their test that was being off and not mine.
So this entire time I didn't think the water quality was to blame, which would explain why I couldn't figure out what bacteria or parasite I was dealing with >.<

I am in great suspect of the tap water for ammonia to have been present this ENTIRE time, will test it tomorrow morning.
So I'm now cutting down on food to reduce the amount of her waste, will have to up the water changes again and see how things go.....

Well either way, it's good to hear Carlos' isn't gasping! Lucky does it quite frequently and I thought originally it was just the small tank causing issues that she was in before...... I only hope she'll get better and there's no lasting damage. How on earth she's survived my n00b care I have absolutely no idea.

How's the ammonia looking in your tank? I imagine Carlos will be absolutley fine, so please do not feel worried by what I've had happen, you have caught this much earlier than myself I am sure once the tank is fully cycled, that Carlos will be absolutley fine
If there is still ammonia you could possibly cut down on his feeding too?

Well once I've figured out if the tap water is the culprit -currently in the process of doing that- then I'll know where to go from there.

Hopefully it will resolve itself, I'm not sure about any long last damage, but I personally thought if anything, it would have lowered her immune system and she would have gotten sick with something, as this is usually what happens with poor water quality. Well I suppose no other fish is quite like my little Lucky! She is a tough old boot!

A varied diet sounds good. I fed daphnia to Lucky once and when it came to gravel cleaning, my word, there were bit's of it everywhere XD So in case you are worried somethings not been eaten just give the gravel a quick hoover

Awww its so lovely to hear that about Carlos!
I was super excited when I finally got Lucky to eat from my hands, now she nibbles my fingers whenever their in the tank, even if I'm cleaning or filling a test tube for water testing, she always checks my fingers or any other hand that goes in the tank for food XD

She also nibbles my arm from time to time if it's in the water and always swims in the same spot when I'm hoovering the gravel, which is a pain when I get to that area, because I give her a gentle nudge to move her out of the way and she just swims back to the same spot XD

Oh yes, I was a fish hypochondriac too, when I first spotted the veins, you should have seen the illnesses I thought Lucky had

Well I found that the tap water does have a trace of ammonia, but the Stress Coat should be dealing with that, so it is probably a case of letting the tank cycle, evidently it's not done yet.
The previous water conditioner I had, didn't however deal with the ammonia, so it is possible, that there was always a trace of the stuff, because when ever I changed the water, I'd be adding some in. Or it was just a case of the tank being too small for the fish I had in there, that the water quality was never perfect. It's hard to know really

Do you have a sea weed clip cdale? I use that to feed Lucky brocolli, so she can just nibble bits off herself and I rarely have it going everywhere in the tank. I have one like this, that I got at my LFS quite cheap;

[image]


Just clip on the brocolli and stick it in the tank