Need help identifying problem on rainbow fish

So i came home today to my big 120 gallon and i was looking around at my rainbow fish and i noticed that my 3 blue rainbows had holes in their fins. I find it strange because they are the only fish in the whole tank that have anything wrong with them. they also have discoloration on their sides and it seemed like white fuzzy stuff was on the side of it. Im guessing the holes in the fins is just fin rot (which ive had problems with before but it went away right away and havent seen it since). Im doing a 40 percent water change tonight along with adding some salt into the water. Hopefully someone can help me figure out what this is .

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What's the nitrate level in the tank?

I just did a 40 percent water change and before i changed it it was 1.0 and after its under .5 i dont know if its related but i just took out all my water lettuce and cupped salvinia and im noticing little white dots jumping around on the surface of the water. not sure if they are related or not.

I get those jumpy bug things too. I don't think it has anything to do with your fishes health but I am curious what those bugs are too now that you mentioned it.

That would be little water fleas, fish eat em, harmless.

Nitrates should be a number that is like 20ppm, or 40ppm etc.

NiTRITE which is very toxic to fish should always be at 0. I recommend getting that to 0. I believe you said you had been servicing your canister filter a lot lately due to floating debris. You may have disturbed the biological bacteria. I would cut food back by a lot and change water until water parameters are perfect. Then observe to see if their wounds heal.

Aquarium Co-Op wrote:That would be little water fleas, fish eat em, harmless.

Nitrates should be a number that is like 20ppm, or 40ppm etc.

NiTRITE which is very toxic to fish should always be at 0. I recommend getting that to 0. I believe you said you had been servicing your canister filter a lot lately due to floating debris. You may have disturbed the biological bacteria. I would cut food back by a lot and change water until water parameters are perfect. Then observe to see if their wounds heal.

Ah ok it just worried me seeing them jump everywhere. And i was looking at nitrite which was at .5. the Nitrate was at 60ish and now its down to 20.

Ill do another decent size water change tomorrow. Would aquarium salt help any of this?? i put about 6 tablespoons in this evening when i finished with the water change.

Salt makes nitrites less toxic, and will also help fight off mild bacteria infections. 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons is harmless to plants etc.

Getting your water parameters in line asap will be the key to fixing things.

Killybeys wrote:So i came home today to my big 120 gallon and i was looking around at my rainbow fish and i noticed that my 3 blue rainbows had holes in their fins. I find it strange because they are the only fish in the whole tank that have anything wrong with them. they also have discoloration on their sides and it seemed like white fuzzy stuff was on the side of  it. Im guessing the holes in the fins is just fin rot (which ive had problems with before but it went away right away and havent seen it since). Im doing a 40 percent water change tonight along with adding some salt into the water. Hopefully someone can help me figure out what this is .

When i see fin rot, I think stress. When I think stress, I think water quality. Or a mean tank mate. Wait.... Do you have Boesemani Rainbow (Melanotaenia boesemani ? Can be a mean pushy rainbow. Maybe picking on the more timid blues or turquoise. A boisterous fish like the Boesemani maybe triggering enough stress to cause this...

Or, what about water parameters? Big water changes on some species can be stressful. Do you usually conduct large water changes?

What is this fishes profile? Does your water parameters closely match this fishes profile?

fishNAbowl wrote:

Killybeys wrote:So i came home today to my big 120 gallon and i was looking around at my rainbow fish and i noticed that my 3 blue rainbows had holes in their fins. I find it strange because they are the only fish in the whole tank that have anything wrong with them. they also have discoloration on their sides and it seemed like white fuzzy stuff was on the side of  it. Im guessing the holes in the fins is just fin rot (which ive had problems with before but it went away right away and havent seen it since). Im doing a 40 percent water change tonight along with adding some salt into the water. Hopefully someone can help me figure out what this is .

When i see fin rot, I think stress. When I think stress, I think water quality. Or a mean tank mate. Wait.... Do you have Boesemani Rainbow (Melanotaenia boesemani ? Can be a mean pushy rainbow. Maybe picking on the more timid blues or turquoise. A boisterous fish like the Boesemani maybe triggering enough stress to cause this...

Or, what about water parameters? Big water changes on some species can be stressful. Do you usually conduct large water changes?

What is this fishes profile? Does your water parameters closely match this fishes profile?

Ya i have a male and a female bosemani but they are both very subdued. They are also about half the size of the the blue rainbows. And i normally do about a 25 percent water change every 5 days to a week but i havent done one in about a week and a half due to me working 12 hour days at work.

Also another question i have baby mollies in a homemade breeder tank inside the tank will that much salt harm the fry??