Loridakay
New member
- Joined
- May 3, 2020
- Messages
- 6
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 1
- Location
- Portland Oregon
- Country
- United States
Hi y’all, I’m looking for advice on what I can do to help my girl get her gills back to being fluffy again. I have a 6-year-old female golden albino. Any and all advice is welcomed!
Here’s some background (not sure if it’s all necessary):
We were originally living in Oregon, and the issue there was that the water didn’t contain the correct levels of KH and GH—they were practically nonexistent. Because of that, she kept getting fungus. With some help from her breeder, problem solved, and her gills became nice and fluffy again. We lived there for about 3½ years.
In 2023, I moved back to Texas. I started having issues with the tap water here. I would do a water change to lower the nitrates. But I would have an ammonia spike a day or two later. The cycle would eventually cycle out the ammonia and then I was left with high nitrates. Just an endless cycle. She ended up getting fungus a couple of times, and her gills shrank.
After dealing with this for about 4 months, I switched to spring water—probably looked crazy at the store buying 50+ gallons at a time. But even when using bottled spring water, her gills never really grew back to how full they originally were.
After doing some research, I found out that the water here is treated with chloramine. Since then I’ve figured out how to properly remove the chloramine, so I’ve gone back to using tap water with Fritz Complete. However, her gills still aren’t as fluffy as they used to be. I feel like I’m missing something, but I’m not sure what else to do or to check.
Her current tank parameters are in the ideal range:
Here’s some background (not sure if it’s all necessary):
We were originally living in Oregon, and the issue there was that the water didn’t contain the correct levels of KH and GH—they were practically nonexistent. Because of that, she kept getting fungus. With some help from her breeder, problem solved, and her gills became nice and fluffy again. We lived there for about 3½ years.
In 2023, I moved back to Texas. I started having issues with the tap water here. I would do a water change to lower the nitrates. But I would have an ammonia spike a day or two later. The cycle would eventually cycle out the ammonia and then I was left with high nitrates. Just an endless cycle. She ended up getting fungus a couple of times, and her gills shrank.
After dealing with this for about 4 months, I switched to spring water—probably looked crazy at the store buying 50+ gallons at a time. But even when using bottled spring water, her gills never really grew back to how full they originally were.
After doing some research, I found out that the water here is treated with chloramine. Since then I’ve figured out how to properly remove the chloramine, so I’ve gone back to using tap water with Fritz Complete. However, her gills still aren’t as fluffy as they used to be. I feel like I’m missing something, but I’m not sure what else to do or to check.
Her current tank parameters are in the ideal range:
- Ammonia: 0
- Nitrite: 0
- Nitrate: 15–20
- KH: 4
- GH: 10
- pH: 7.4
- Temp: 65°F
