Help!

[kishi]

One of my discus has Popeye and his belly is like a balloon. As I read some articles here, I'd bought some maracyn-2 to treat it. Today is the 2nd day of treatment. The water is really cloudy. I don't know whether I should change more water before the 3rd dosage. I only changed 25% of water yesterday before 2nd dosage. Because the instruction on the medicine doesn't even mention how much water needs to change between treatments, I just take the usual method to change 25%.
Also, after 2nd day, I still don't see improvement on that poor guy.
Anything else you guys can think of to help me to treat him?


Thanks,
Kishi

[Carol_Roberts]

It sounds like he may be too far gone to help. I don't know if the erythromycin in Maracyn is strong enough to do much good . . . test for ammonia as it may impact your biofilter. . . I don't know what to tell you to do, sorry :-\

[brewmaster15]

hi Kishi,
Maracyn 2, takes up to 5 days to see visible improvement, and if may require and extra 5 day treatment. It is an excellent antibiotic to use, but be sure to use it all. When I use it I do a 50%-75% water change before each dose.

This med will discolor the water as its related to tetracycline and all these meds turn the water brown . It becomes more obvious as the days pass.

my advise.. stay the course 5 days and see what the fish looks like...if there is any improvement -redose.

I should note though that popeye + swelling abdomen may mean TB>.mycobacteria.. dangerous to you and contagious to all your fish....also not very treatable if at all...(debatable)

hth,
al

[kishi]

Thank you both for your response.

Brewmaster,

Your last paragraph really got me worried. Here's what actually happened. This fish's stomach started swelling maybe a couple weeks ago. Since he's always a big eater, I'd never thought that was a sign of disease. This past Saturday, I noticed his eyes suddenly turned out like 2 light bulbs. It's not so hard to identify that he's got Popeye. So I came here, as I always do, to search the remedy. From your disease forum, I learned that it's not fatal disease and it's quite easy to treat. So, I waited till Sunday and bought Maracyn-2. I took him out from the community tank which had 7 discus 4 cories 1 pleco and 1 baby arowana and put him in my quarantine tank.
According to you, this combination is deadly and contagious. What should I do now to prevent this contagious disease to spread out in my community tank? If you suggest me to put any medicine, will my baby aro, cories and pleco be OK?


Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kishi