sick fish

[bryalk1]

i have a bunch of new fish that are ill. red pandas. blue diamonds and some ghosts. i got them from a reputable dealer and they did well for about 3 weeks then i moved them to a larger tank. the ph is 7.8 nitrates negligable. i started to notice the diamonds and ghosts were distressed breathing fast skittish, normal stools and still eating. i raised temp to 92 added salt x 3 days no improvement. they became more lethargic and i added maracyin lowered the temp to 88. i lost 3 fish this am. the blues seem alot worse but i imagine it will travel. any suggestions?

[Mike_Selley]

Have you checked for nitrites or amonia to see if your filter is working properly? I think I would try to change as much water as possible, as long as the change water is fairly close to your tank water in ph and temp. I would try to do a aminimum of 50% 2xdaily, if I could age the water first. If not, I would try 25% change from tap as often as I could without affecting tank ph too much. Sometimes good clean water is the best medicine, especially when not sure what the problem is.
Maybe somone else has some other ideas. Hang in there!

[keith_cny]

Hi Bryalk1,
How has your situation been progressing since your initial post? Post some more information if you can like age of fish, type of tank setup, filter being used. What are you feeding them and how are you doing water changes?? Where did you get them and what were they being fed there? What meds have you tried? Also please add any new developments. I hope things are getting better.


Keith

[bryalk1]

hi. the fish are stabilizing but not without some additional losses. i treated with formalin at the advice of a fish farm owner i have become friends with. later i was fortunate to have cary visit while he was on vacation and he confirmed gill flukes. i treated formalin 2 drops per gal. rotated fish out the next am. majority looking better. i now am treating with prazi and will moniter. i did separate 2 that still look ill into their own tank. the bad thing is the fish i lost were the ones i wanted to keep, all nice blue diamonds. lesson learned. it could have been much worse i guess. anybody treat regularly for these critters? the fish farm owner said they are always a problem and he did. thanks bryant

[yogi]

Flukes seem to be an on going problem with a lot of discus owners. A lot of times people don't realise they are causing problems and misdiagnose what is going on. An example is when someone says there fish is not eating or is spitting out food. Many times they guess hex, but flukes can cause these same problems.

Formalin at 2 drops per gallon is a great first hit and will get fish eating and looking better in one day. Now that generic prazi is readily available at about $2.00 per gram in bulk. Maybe we can really cut down the problems of flukes. It sounds like you have been given good inforamtion already. And that you are taking all the right steps to combat this problem.