Whats growing in the tank?

Question
I work at a pet store that sells fish and recently I have been asked what to do with the following question:

"I have a 30 gal. tank that I just set up and moved my fish (fresh water fish) into it (1 large fish and a few smaller ones) My old tank that I had the fish in kept getting a white slime that covered the rocks and clogged up my filter. The tank also stunk badly. And now, after only 3 days of having my fish in their new tank, the white slime is back along with the smell. Now, my large fish has clowdy eyes and is developing some spots. I have treated him for ick but that didn't clear it up. What can I do?"

I tested his water and everything was fine except for the ammonia levels. They were in the highest danger zone. He told me that his kids would feed the fish, so I figured that their over feeding led to the spiked ammonia. What advice would you give to him and what do you think is wrong with his fish?

Answer
Hi Michelle;

I'm so glad you asked me! There are far too many people working in pet stores that just don't seem to care if they give the right advice or not. It's a shame. You are indeed an asset to your employer and your customer's pets. Keep asking questions and learning whatever you can. I still find out as much info as I can absorb, even after all these years. You can keep the fish healthy with the right info and encourage repeat business. Since you will know how to help your customers keep them healthy once they leave the shop too, it will be even better for everyone.

As for the slimy tank; Sounds like a serious case of overfeeding for sure. The fish are being poisoned by the ammonia from the excess food. The white gunk is either a slime mold attached to the excess food and waste or a fungus or bacterial growth growing on the excess food and waste. Those organisms don't just hunker down and go crazy without something to feed on. This means excess food is in there anyway. They need to vacccum the gravel and replace 25% of the water every day for the next four days. Cut feeding in half and only feed once per day. Monitor ammonia and nitrite so they know how it is progressing. They will have to replace 25% of the water weekly later on as a normal maintenance procedure anyway, but twice a week or more may be needed until the crisis is over.

Another problem is that the newly set up tank is going to go through a break-in period. That's why the ammonia levels are high. It will then cause a nitrite spike in a couple of weeks. If the tank is still overfed, the ammonia will stay chronically high. Here is a link to my web page on new tank syndrome;

http://www.xanga.com/Expert_Fish_Help

Feel free to share it with your customers. I will give you a list of sites after this email for you to browse that can help you know more about overfeeding and other common problems so you can tell your customers how to handle it. Feel free to share those links as well. Just first make sure your boss doesn't mind you accessing 'out of the store' information and passing it on.

It would help to know what kind of fish the customer has and how big they are exactly, but here is a list of links that should help you give some basic advice to them about their "slimy tank". If you already know about this stuff, just ignore them. I'm just really into making sure people have the information they need. ;

http://www.elmersaquarium.com/c104feedingtips.htm
http://www.bestfish.com/overfeed.html
http://tinyurl.com/gg2eg
http://www.elmersaquarium.com/c107problemchart.htm

Here are a few you might want for yourself, some of my favorites;

http://fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin.html
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/charts/good_bad.html
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/community.html
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/fish_chart.html
http://www.aquariumpros.com/articles/fishcyclefw.shtml
http://www.fishprofiles.com
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/beginnerinfo/a/fishcalc.htm
http://www.fishinthe.net/html/sections.html
http://www.firsttankguide.net/steps.php
http://www.fishpalace.org/Community.html
http://www.fishpalace.org/Tank.html
http://fins.actwin.com/species/index.php?t=3&f=1

Followups welcome.......

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins