Michigan Cichlid Association
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Steve on February 23, 2015, 10:39:50 AM
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(http://imageshack.com/a/img540/741/VZDZQp.jpg)
Got an issue with one of my haps that I could use some input on so I can hopefully get him on the road to recovery. For the past 10 days or so I've noticed he has been getting more and more of a sunken belly on him and his color is not what it use to be. I've been watching when I feed them and he takes the food, but he spits back out any pellets and styx. The only thing he keep in him is flake food but you can't get enough flake food in him to fatten him back up.
No real signs of ich or anything else. All the rest of the fish in the tank act fine and look normal so I'm not really sure what to do at this point. Any suggestions?
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Do you have any metro flakes?
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No metro flakes, I do have two tubes of metronidazole powder though. Could I soak some flakes in the metro that way?
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Yes, sir!
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Okay cool. I've never done that before though so about how much metro should I mix in with say half a cup of water, and how long should I soak the flakes?
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Okay cool. I've never done that before though so about how much metro should I mix in with say half a cup of water, and how long should I soak the flakes?
follow the directions on the meds. I'm not sure, because I buy it already infused.
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Looking at the tube it says "To feed- blend 1 measure with about 1 tablespoon of frozen food paste" :o....So I'm guessing maybe just mix up 1 measure with 1 tablespoon of flakes in a little water would be about equal maybe?
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Steve,I've got metro flake,your more then welcome to have some.
Are you going to around the downriver area this week?
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I should be good with soaking it I think. Thanks for the offer though.
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Started treating today, Soaked some food plus added metro to the tank. We'll see how it goes and report back.
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Do you have him in a separate tank? Sometimes it's more effective to have a fish that's not getting enough food or sick in a quarantine tank to reduce competition for food, and if the tank is smaller you end up using less medicine.
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He's still in the 55g right now with the others, if he doesn't start to get better soon I think I will move him to a 20g q-tank and see if I can get him fixed up.
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Just wanted to update this....
It was for sure Ich. White spots showed up on him a few days later. odd thing was he was the only fish n the tank of 12 fish to show ich, which seemed odd. But I trested the tank with 86f heat and salt for 10 days )still treating for 4 more) and now the spots on him are gone, his color is coming back, and he's eating and keeping food down. Seems he's gonna be okay.
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The ich was probably secondary. Good to hear that you got it under control.
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Just wanted to update this....
It was for sure Ich. White spots showed up on him a few days later. odd thing was he was the only fish n the tank of 12 fish to show ich, which seemed odd. But I trested the tank with 86f heat and salt for 10 days )still treating for 4 more) and now the spots on him are gone, his color is coming back, and he's eating and keeping food down. Seems he's gonna be okay.
Good to hear. So being that hexamita is the most commonly found issue with Africans, Wild and Tank raised, the metro bath was most likely what did it!?
Very good to hear! Pet station (now tail fin) could have used this method a few times. I remember they used to always have Africans with sunken bellies swimming with a wobble. They would always say "oh it's because we don't feed them much when we get them if they are going to be sold quickly"...?
The ich was probably secondary. Good to hear that you got it under control.
I agree with you here. Although the Ick parasite is not in every tank, it can pop under times of heavy stress in those that may have a couple floating around. but it's an easy fix. Just glad I haven't seen it in about 15+ years.
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Just wanted to update this....
It was for sure Ich. White spots showed up on him a few days later. odd thing was he was the only fish n the tank of 12 fish to show ich, which seemed odd. But I trested the tank with 86f heat and salt for 10 days )still treating for 4 more) and now the spots on him are gone, his color is coming back, and he's eating and keeping food down. Seems he's gonna be okay.
How much salt are you using? When do you start counting down 10 days?
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There's a bunch of different suggestions on how much that I found online, but I went with a happy medium which was 2 table spoons per 5g of water. I added half the tanks worth on e day then the other half 24hrs later so I started counting the days after the full amount of salt was added.
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There's a bunch of different suggestions on how much that I found online, but I went with a happy medium which was 2 table spoons per 5g of water. I added half the tanks worth on e day then the other half 24hrs later so I started counting the days after the full amount of salt was added.
Without casting blame and only from a point of wanting to help, I have suspicions that you've never fully gotten rid of it to be honest. I've been battling it as of late, while previously I was like Andrew and I hadn't dealt with it in double-digit years.
Ich isn't something that always persists within a tank. It requires cycling through it's growth stages, which at some point requires a host. The length of the stages is dependent on temperature. I know that higher temperatures it cycles through stages faster, but that 10 day period IMO shouldn't start until you've observed no spots.
I'd also insure that for the last 5 days, no additional symptoms are observed. The ich "swarmers" that don't find a host die, but if treatment isn't kept up you might get some sticking around on the gills, or other hard to see areas that allow it to persist.
There is also a strain that isn't as easily impacted by salt and a strain that can withstand 90F, though supposedly they are independent strains.
I used Nox-ich to treat the new cats and loaches once I realized they still had it, but that wasn't before via water changing equipment managed to transfer it to my show tank after one Sunday when I decided to do my entire fish room, cats/loach quarantine last, then decided to do the show tank as well. Shit really hit the fan then.
After testing with a scrap piece of background, I found Nox-ich was going to stain my tank decor green and tearing it all out was going to be a HUGE PITA. Non-staining medication was going to run something like $150-$300, so I went with salt and heat too. For salt I'm using "Solar Salt", a naturally made NaCl advertised for water softeners ($6/40lbs instead of pricey food-grade salt or premium aquarium salt; keep in mind that I'm measuring in cups rather than tsp or tbs).
I'm running 1350 watts of heaters to reach 86F and started out with the same amount of salt per gallon, though I've been slowly upping it 48tsps at a time, now running a salinity of around 1.006 (the original salt amount started around 1.002). I found it took 5-6 days for the white spots to finally disappear from my big loaches, but am going to keep this up for another 1-2 weeks to insure it's eradicated.
Based on my past experiences with ich, I think the medication treatments with malachite green or copper (wouldn't recommend copper though) are a bit more definitive when it comes to killing that stuff. The salt/heat route doesn't have the same quick results all the time.
As for the rest of my tanks, I don't work on any of them on the same days as I deal with the 2 problem tanks and insure my equipment fully dries out for a period of a day to insure any parasites on it die off.
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Actually the cats and loaches were never in the tank with this fish Ron. This hap is in my hap and peacock tank which hasn't had any new fish in it for over a year, and has all it's own nets/Wc'er etc etc so how this hap first picked up ich is something that baffles me since this tank has never came into contact with any fish that could have ever had it.
I actually did try a copper based med in the past on other fish (Cupramine) and wasn't real impressed by it. It cost a lot ($19) and after doing the recommended treatment it didn't seem to do much.