No....

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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Read this before posting!!

Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.

Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
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The Fisherman
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No....

Post by The Fisherman »

I can't beleive this is happening. My beloved F8, Chubby is not well at all. He was perfectly fine last night, energectic as always.

A few minutes ago, I came into the room to find him resting on the tank floor, barely able to move his fins :cry:

At first I thought he was sleeping, but I bumped him and he cant swim right either. He bumps into things, while he swims.

I just ran out of test strips, but I know that the ammonia is 0 from a liquid test kit that I used.

I also noticed his gills are red. :cry: I;m not sure why this would happen.

I've been suspecting that he has parasites, and this morning, I noticed he was thinned out, on his sides (not tummy, his sides) a bit more then usual. I wonder if the parasites finally caought up to him :cry:

The only other thing I can imagine, is that I changed salts a couple days ago, when I did a WC. Although that was a few days ago, so I would think the effects would have been sooner.

I plan to do a WC, and then i'm heading to my LFS to see if they have a parasite medication.

Can anyone offer any help or advice?

I would be crushed if my Chubby died :cry:
-John
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Post by OraLacerta »

Oh no, not Chubby! :(

When I read red gills I immediately thought of gill burn from marine salt. You think that might be a possible culprit?
-Michelle

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Post by The Fisherman »

OraLacerta wrote:
When I read red gills I immediately thought of gill burn from marine salt. You think that might be a possible culprit?
Possible. Can it take a few days for the gills to get burned? I did the WC a few days ago.

I am considering doing a WC, and putting in FW instead of water with marine salt.

Is there anyway to recover from a gill burn?

:cry:
-John
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Post by OraLacerta »

I'm not positive about this, but I'm pretty sure that gill burn usually occurs when the salt is added straight to the tank or when it has been premixed but added before it is completely dissolved into the water. It could be that the new salt mix you bought is different than your old one and didn't dissolve all the way when you added it to the tank?

I wouldn't change the salinity and stress the little guy. Maybe give the new salt mix extra time to dissolve on your next WC, just to be sure, and until then add some stress coat & melafix to help with the burn? That's if it is indeed gill burn.


Hopefully someone else will weigh in on this. I don't know if it would take a few days for gill burn to show, and I don't think that explains the sunken in sides.
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Post by The Fisherman »

Hmmm...It just doesnt make sense why it would take several days for him to show symptoms. I figured adding some freshwater would dillute the thing that may still be burning him.

Here are pics, albeit bad ones. my peace of junk camera.

Image
Image
-John
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Post by OraLacerta »

Marine salt can cause chemical burns when it is dissolving, but once it's dissolved it can't do any more harm. I'm with you though, I don't think it would make sense for the symptoms of gill burn to show up after a few days and not immediately.

Aww, poor guy. Those gills do look very inflamed. How has he been eating lately? Maybe the discomfort of whatever is causing that inflammation is making him lose his appetite.
-Michelle

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Post by The Fisherman »

He has been eating as amazingly as always.

He was perfectly normal last night.

This is strange....

I am currently discussing the matter with an old friend. We'll see if we can't figure something out.
-John
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Post by OraLacerta »

Ok, good luck John, I hope you figure this out. Hold on there Chubby. :grouphug:
-Michelle

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Post by The Fisherman »

Thank god I got him to eat 1 bite of food, although I had to asisst him. Hes so weakend that I had to put his body in the right direction, and put the food in front of him. Even then he struggled to take a bite of even a soft mussel.

:cry:

I added stress coat and melafix.

If anyone else can chime in here, that would be awsome. I still haven't figured out what to do.

I don't know how this happend so fast....He was fine this afternoon...
-John
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Post by The Fisherman »

I have formed a plan of action, with some help from a few friends.

We will see how it goes.

Will keep you posted.
-John
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Post by puffermama »

I hope Chubby gets better, in good time.
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Post by Myaj »

How's he doing John? I rarely check the hospital forum so I didn't see this.

I'm assuming you checked all the obvious things, salinity, ammonia, etc? Ran carbon on the tank in case something accidently got sprayed or dropped in the water (cleaning product, hairspray, etc)?
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Post by The Fisherman »

Hey.

He is improving. Some of his color is back, he has more energy and is swimming around.

Yup, I checked all the obvious things, although I didnt run carbon. I did WCs, Prime, stresscoat, and melafix.

I also got a tip from a fella named Nick, and he soaks blackworms overnight in the Geltek parasite treater, and then feeds it to the puffs. Its done wonders so far, Chubby has been crapping out white string all day. I think parasites were the culprit, maybe something else being a contributing factor.

I don't want to say Chubby is outta the woods, but he is certainly looking a lot better then yestersday afternoon, whern he could hardly move. I'm working hard to keep him full of Parasite killing food, as well as doing WCs.

His gills apear to be less inflamed.
-John
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Post by Myaj »

That's great! White stringy poo is definately a sign of parasites, that's for sure.

Defiantely keep up with the water changes and do extremely good gravel cleanings right now (daily if you can). He's purging dead and dying parasites, and there's a chance some of them might survive to reinfect him. By doing some really good gravel cleanings, you'll hopefully clean them up before they have a chance. And of course the whole process of the parasites dying is going to be hard on his system, so the extra water changes will help keep everything as perfect as possible.

I'm glad to hear he's feeling better though. Things like that are never fun to wake up to.
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Post by Boxermom »

Good! Keep up the treatment for at least a week. 3 days (as the bottle says) isn;t long enough.
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