Royal Gramma fish clear gills and flashing

[KSum89]

My gramma has transparent spots on all over his gill on his/her left side. It has these clear bubbles on his body on the left side too and flashes/scratches against the sand every now and then. I will post a pic when he comes back in front of the rocks. The lfs is trying to sell me some $20 fish medication but there has to be another way...

-I think my percula let something loose in the water, but he is doing alot better now. The perc started off not eating for a week n a half, now his spots are gone and he is eating.. Alot.

 

[0o.Kelsey.o0]

Maybe ick but hard to tell without a picture.

Just remember to never treat anything in your display tank! It will kill any coral and inverts you have. It also gets absorbed into the rock and sand so you won't be able to keep inverts/corals even after water changes. (there may be some safe treatments but I'd check on here first)

 

[KSum89]

I dont think its ick, unless ick is different between FW and SW. Ick looks like table salt or sugar on the fish, these are different spots.

Uploaded two pics of the gramm, its on ONE side. I also only have FOWLR tank.

I uploaded my perc clowns spot too, his has gone away after a couple water changes and freshwater dip. I cant catch the gramma... Too much rock, didnt wanna chase him too long for more problems.

 

[0o.Kelsey.o0]

hmm I'm not too sure what it is then. I thought I read that you had a peppermint shrimp or something? If not you could treat your tank with hyposalinity, lowering the salinity to 1.009 for a few weeks. To do this you need a refractometer though. Treating with hyposalinity will not effect your tank long term like medicating would. (you should do some research on this before trying it)

If you are not planning to do reef or get any inverts ever then i guess you could medicate your tank if you really wanted to, I still wouldn't do it personally.

 

[KSum89]

Yeah i have 1 peppermint shrimp. What can i do? I did have a cleaner but lost him in 2 days.

I dont want to lose this fish, it may be brooklynella, my LFS said percs are prone to it. My percula had it bad a few days ago. Introducing the perc is leading me to trouble, i do not have a QT tank, just a little "Lees professional specimen container (large) hanging onto the Aquarium."

 

[hackteck]

Yea if that clownfish was sick it might have made the rest of your fish sick as well with a parasite that is

 

[KSum89]

So what can i do?

My gramma is the only one thats sick, my 6 line wrasse and other 2 clowns are okay

 

[hackteck]

well do you have the extra money to buy a cheap 10G tank? you can find one used on craigslist for under 20 bucks sometimes you can use that as a QT tank

 

[KSum89]

Yeah. But i dont have enough for a full setup right now.. Heater, filter etc.
I was trying to focus on getting a skimmer for my DT.

 

[0o.Kelsey.o0]

It's probably not brooklynella since this disease kills fast, like within days I'm pretty sure. You are going to have to get a tank or container to treat the fish in, maybe go to wal mart and get a bin of some sort. You will also have to do a lot of water changes since this tank/bin will not be cycled.

You could try increasing your water changes on your tank and feeding the fish very well, perhaps they will fight it off on their own.

 

[0o.Kelsey.o0]

I once treated a clown goby by floating an ice cream pail in my main tank. The pail had a bubbler and copper treated medicine in it, I had to be very careful not to spill the water into the main tank. I don't see this working very well for you though since the fish are larger and your main tank will carry the disease for quite awhile, putting the fish back might result in them getting sick again.

 

[KSum89]

Im doing alot of water changes, my water keeps going from 0 one day to inbetween .25 on my api testing kit. So far i have done 2 changes in 4 days.
So am i just going to have to hope for the best, there is no guarantee on my fish.. Dont wanna lose another fish after losing my cleaner shrimp. 50$ worth of fish 

 

[0o.Kelsey.o0]

I have also heard of people having success with giving their fish freshwater dips or formalin dips whenever they saw any signs of disease. This could be very stressful for the fish though and you will have to research how to do it properly.

 

[KSum89]

I did the freshwater dip with my clown when i think he was going through the same exact thing as my gramma is now. I tried to give my gramma a fw bath, BUT i have a lil over 65 pounds of rock in my 55 so imagine how hard it is catching a small gramma who squeezes inbetween rocks.. I really dont wanna reaquascape.

 

[0o.Kelsey.o0]

Just keep up with your water changes, also parasites don't like warmer water (that's what I've read anyways), you could slowly raise your temp to around 80 (not more than 1 degree per day though).

 

[KSum89]

Yeah i figured. its been at 82 for a while now.