Have you been treating only the sick fish each time?
Or have you done a full tank treat...?
Do you test your water, 30 gallon is a small tank and with 6 fish and all the feeding it is possible the water is fouling quicker than you can change it
This is long story of sickness in my fish. I am not able to identify the issue.
Sep 20. I received 6 ~3"+ trombetas vs straightline fry from a reputed hobbyist. He had bred them in tap water. I set up a 33g tank with daily 95+% aged water wc and scrubbing of tanks for them. They started eating the next day and things went well. I had two sponge filters running and plenty of surface skimming. I fed them four times a day.
Oct 12. The smallest of the pack started showing signs of illness like white poop and refused to eat. In addition, he had flared gills. Qt with kanamycin (1/2 tsp per 10g) +methylene blue (1tsp per 10g) + salt (1tsp per two gallon) was suggested and I stuck to the treatment for ten days. At the end of ten days, I saw that the sick one was eating and so transferred to the grow out tank. In the tank, the sick one was always shy. I thought it was due to medications and let the fish heal.
Nov 6. I come back from a two day work trip (during which a friend helped me with wc and feeding) and see that the sick one died. I cleaned up the tank thoroughly.
Nov 12-22. I had one (1/5) more fish refusing to eat. In addition, he had flared gills. Breeder suggested a metro (1.2 tsp per 10g) + heat 92F + salt treatment (1 tbsp per 3 gallon) for ten days. I reduced water level to 2/3 on Day 5. On Day 7, as the sick guy still didn't eat, I fed them live brine shrimp from local pet store. I cleaned it well in tap water before feeding. All five of them ate it. At the end of ten days, I was confident that the fish are back on track. I saw lots of black poop in the tank and no white poop. I saw 4 of the 5 fish poop.
I kept with wc and feeding and didn't see the sick one take fdbw. Fast forward to today, I have two fish with flared gills and 4/5 are eating.
I have attached videos.
1. https://youtu.be/6u6XDzBPQNY
2. https://youtu.be/1u-j_E5coig
Question: Do I have any hope? Or am I better off culling and starting over?
My water comes in at 7.2 pH, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 5ppm nitrate.
All my medications came from Jehmco (ARG brand).
I fed them fdbw (canadian aqua farm)90% of the time, pellets (hikari bio gold) (~7% of the time) frozen beef heart mix (myrtle beach discus) (~3% of the time).
I had occasional ammonia 0.25 ppm. Whenever I saw it, I did a water change.
Have you been treating only the sick fish each time?
Or have you done a full tank treat...?
Do you test your water, 30 gallon is a small tank and with 6 fish and all the feeding it is possible the water is fouling quicker than you can change it
Kanamycin was only for the sick fish.
Metro for the entire tank.
33g with 4 small feedings and large sponge filters should be able to handle the bioload with 95% wc. I did check parameters and they are stable for the past week.
I would not give up, look like nice fish... Maybe try and up your water changes to twice a day if possible?
What other symptoms are you seeing... give them a break from the meds and a bunch of clean water
Thanks. They are indeed nice. Current symptoms are 4/5 eating and flared fins on two of them. Am afraid it will spread across the pack.
Increasing water change is an issue as I try to fill cold water in aging barrel and warm it up. water heater in my house is old and irritates fish when I mix water to bring up the temp. Can't ask landlord to change it. With 300W heater in a 55g barrel, it takes about 24 hours for it to warm up.
Could you do another barrell? At least the 55 gives you almost 2 full 100% changes...
Do you see a lot of red in the gills? Do you have enough air in the tank, maybe add an air stone...
Id just do clean water or some more salt to see if that helps. you seeing white poop from the 2?
I can do another 50% during the day but I feel the issue is something else. Not sure what's keeping them sick. There is plenty of air in the tank. Two sponge filters and two 6" air stones running on Danner 8w 4 outlet air pump. I don't see white poop on the two yet. I added salt for 10 days along with metro and that helped with the flared fins. I feel like salt hides the issues but one has to deal with the root cause.
Last edited by aravind90chan; 11-28-2017 at 04:51 PM.
Ok I am not too sure then , sorry was just trying to think outloud and help ya!
Maybe someone else with more medication advice can help you. I am hesitant to have you treat the tank again after a metro treatment...
I still think something is missing w the water, again, I know it seems ok, but 6 growing fish 4 feedings, some messy like beefheart in 30 gallons of water...
I bet if you get them in a bigger tank even a 55 w huge daily 100% changes you will see them improve...
I appreciate you taking time to respond. I feed beef heart before a water change. And beef heart is fed only once a week max. Most of the feed is fdbw. I have a 75g waiting for them to move into. Am hesitant coz if I have to medicate again, that's hell a lot of meds and work to shift between two set ups.
Yea I hear ya... my opinion is move them when you can and go that route if you want a chance with them... even the fact that you were gone 2 days and a fish died shows me the tank may not be able to handle the load...
Again I could be way off but that seems to be all I gather from what you told... hey at this point might as well try...
Again, maybe someone can say if metro was the right treat for you, maybe it only attacked one of a few problems.
Hi aravind90chan, as I am reading thru your history with your fish I have a couple questions/observations;
1. How big was your QT when treating with kanamycin (1/2 tsp per 10g) +methylene blue (1tsp per 10g) + salt (1tsp per two gallon)? This too me seems odd to treat for a non-eating fish. Was the fish also bloated? Treating any fish with meds is hard on them especially juvies. With this fish being the weakest of the group I am not surprised it later died. Also know that kanamycin can wipe out your bacteria in your filter. Did you monitor your water parameters during treatment...ammonia, nitrite etc?
2. Was your friend whom was doing WCs during your trip using prime/safe when doing the WCs? I assume you have chlorine/chlorimine in your source water.
3. For the metro treatment you want to use 500mg per 10 gallons (best to use a gram scale). Not sure how much 1.2 tsp (teaspoon or tablespoon?) is. Treatment protocol for discus is to do a daily 50% or better water change and redose the entire tank either daily or every other day depending on the treatment. With metro I redose every day for the entire tank volume. Also I suspect your metro treatment was not long enough. Generally I will maintain the heat after the metro is done until the fish are all eating and pooping dark for about a week or so.
So currently you have 4 fish not eating and two with flared gills. I think Phil gave you some good advice about moving them to a larger tank and no more meds, just clean water. I would suggest doing 75% or better daily water changes and ease your tank temp to about 88. Lets see if the higher temp helps with restoring the appetite of the fish. Feed very lightly if at all. The fish need time to flush the meds from their systems and the clean water will help the flared gills to heal. Give this a week and lets see how they do. Also add a lid or cover to heat your water quicker in your 55 aging container. Do you have an airstone running in the aging water?
Pat
Your discus are talking to you....are you listening
Update: After a long process of discussion with other experts, I realize that my fish DON'T have flared gills. They are breathing harder but their gills aren't flared.
I feel like there is enough air but i can always increase air flow.