elephant nose - help!

Question
I have a 50 gallon tank, 6-7 years now. I bought 3 new elephant nose 3 months ago ((1 died 3 weeks later) I have 2 remaining with no domination issues)), after loosing almost all my fish 1 1/2 years ago, due to red hair algie. I have had fish tanks all my life. I've moved to a new home 1 year ago and now have well water. When I made the move I saved 2/3rds of my tank water in gallon jugs. Everything has been fine. In the tank I also have, 1 angel, 2 parrots, 3 sharks, 2 placos & 1 rope which all appear healthy. The problem is my PH is to high for the last 2 months (7.6) in the last 5 weeks, I have made 3 - 1/2 tank water changes with vacuming the rocks clean, changed all (cascade 1000)filter materials (excluding carbon)& tried to adjust the PH with stabilizer & PH down, nothing works. The tank gets a yellow haze to it. The major problem at this time is both elephant nose have lost their noses today. I noticed that their color started to get gray/white in the last 2 days, but are still very active, playful & eating well. I need help - will they be ok, will their noses grow back?  

Answer
Hi Jane;

Poor guys. Don't mess with the pH anymore. 7.6 is not bad at all and the fish will get used to it just fine. The goal in pH is to keep it a stable pH, not a "specific" pH. Your fish are stressed out from the rollercoaster effect of all the adjusting going on. The large water changes will stress them out too. Replace only 25% at a time. You can do the water changes daily if the need ever arises, but no more than 25% in a 24 hour period.

Have the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate tested. The ammonia and nitrite must be "zero". If they are anything else it indicates the biological balance has been compromised and more frequent small water changes are needed until it corrects itself. Overcleaning of the filters and overcleaning the gravel can cause it, as well as overcrowding. (more about that later) There is beneficial bacteria living in the filter pads and in the gravel that can be killed or removed if too much cleaning is done or replacement of the filter media is done. The filter media should only be replaced if it is literally falling apart. Rinse some of it occassionally if it slows down the flow of water. You definately don't want to clean the entire filter all at once and never replace or rinse any filter media at the same time as a gravel vacuuming. It's too much stress on the bacteria colonies. Nitrate is okay at levels up to 40 ppm. Water changes are the only way to lower nitrate. Nitrate is the end result of the biological process of your tank's filter system.

The elephants may be going at each other at night and/or the rope fish decided he wanted to pick at them since they are all nocturnal and cruising the tank in the dark hunting at the same time. Ropes like live food and he may have thought he found some. I don't know if they will grow back. I've never seen them lose their "noses" before.  

Looking at the entire picture in your tank, it is actually overcrowded. Some of those guys can be pretty aggressive so they need more room than smaller types of fish do. The "one inch of fish per gallon" does not apply to the kinds of fish you have. Even under the one inch per gallon rule your tank is packed anyway because these guys are all going to grow. A LOT!  Parrots get to be 8 to 10 inches each, plecos get anywhere from 6 to 12 depending on the type, sharks get 4 to 12 inches depending on the type, Angels 5 or 6 inches, and elephants get to be 7 to 9 inches or so, ropes get to be about 12 inches. Doing the math......(calculator keys tapping) on the low end which is VERY conservative, you have a potential of 66 inches of fish. Just too much for big types of fish like those guys. On the high end you have a potential of....... (more calculator key tapping)....I'm glad you're sitting down.....A Whopping 106 inches! Yikes! You might want to seriously reconsider what you have in there. They are all going to get bigger and become sexually mature. That makes for major chaos when the fish are too close to each other. Even docile fish can get nasty in close quarters like that. People too! ;-)

I hope everything goes all right and your elephants get their "noses" back. It's actually on their chins really. Regardless, they would do better if you had a isolation tank. Two would be ideal, or just a 10 or 20 gallon with a divider. No gravel, no filter, just a heater, airstone with airpump and full cover with lights. Change 25% of the water daily and watch to be sure their injuries don't get infected. If you need an antibiotic or antifungal, be sure it is labeled okay for sensitive fish.  

I know this is all a lot of info I just hit you with, so if you need clarification, feel free to respond with a followup question. Or two. Or three.......

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins