blue gourami dwarf with popeye

[general tzao]

Neon blue dwarf gourami has popeye and is lying on bottem of quarentine tank ( fishbowl) but still puffing. i got air and light with about 78 degrees.
and tetracycline in water.. is he done or do ya think he has a half a chance?

P.S. its a mixed opinion so far but is popeye contagious??

 

[Mushime]

well, i think it depends on what caused the popeye whether it will be contagious or not...popeye is really more a symptom of a problem rather than a disease in and of itself.

i believe (in my experience at least) popeye is usually caused by poor water conditions. dwarf gouramis are fairly sensitive to water quality, so i would tend to lean towards this being the cause of his popeye more than the other causes. clean water and tetracycline SHOULD clear it up if that's all he has wrong with him (cross your fingers).

more rarely, popeye can be caused by parasites such as eye flukes...i think this is exceedingly rare, though...it's much more likely that it's water-quality related...just my opinion.

i don't think popeye is often fatal unless you just let it go without doing water changes or treating it. in severe cases they can lose the eye, though. just keep his water as pristine as possible and hopefully he'll be back to normal shortly.

 

[lmw80]

He, he!! For those of you that don't know...this is my signifigant other! I got him addicted to aquariums and now hopefully, this site! woo-hoo! But onto the other issue.

What he is not telling you is that we have had problems with this tank from the beginning and that now the neon is in a quarantine bowl. The tank we got for free with the fish....it was poorly maintained and we have just been having problem after problem. We had an ich outbreak and treated the tank....do you think the ich medicine could be making the water cloudy? Do you think it's still lurking in there? He did a MAJOR water change last night cause that's what we figured.

I have read that popeye is mildly contageous.

 

[general tzao]

HI HUNNY

 

[general tzao]

SPEAKING OF WATER QUALITY!!!

EMERGENCY WATER CHANGE has been invoked, due to the inpending disaster of several fish dying in 2 days, nitrates up the whazoo, and previous ick and cloudyness that WONT EVER go away.. i changed about 60% of water in the 46 gal bowfront ( left the filters and gravel untouched ofcourse) removed all the food ridden plants out and cleaned them off, refilled, treated for one day with maracyn as a pecaution, and i am now running activated carbon... BUT I CAN STILL NOT GET MY PH UP PAST 6.25!!!! the tap water rated at 7.5 and ive used a WHOLE BOTTLE of PH UP! WTF is going on here.... P.S. still have some cloudyness??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

 

[Mushime]

well, like i said, i believe whether it's contagious or not depends on the cause of the popeye. i mean, if it's caused by a parasite like eye flukes, yeah, it's probably going to be at least mildly contagious. if it was caused by nasty water conditions, probably not (although other fish can get popeye from the nasty conditions, they're not "catching" it from the gourami, if you get what i'm saying).

after you gave some background on where the gourami came from, i'm almost 99% sure that water conditions have caused his popeye. i've got this (good/bad, whichever way you stand on it) habit of picking up really sickly bettas at petstores because i can't stand to see them suffer. i see a TON of popey caused by horrible conditions...you know, that half inch of thick brown sludge they call water that they leave these poor bettas in...anyway, that sort of popeye isn't contagious. it's just that they can't handle all the poisons in the water and it's a symptom to let you know "i need to be really careful about this guy's surroundings."

as far as ick treatment making the tank cloudy...it can. certain ick medications can kill off parts or all of your bio filter (if you did a large water change, this too can cause cloudy water)...as the bacteria try to build back up to handle the fish waste, it can cause a "bloom" which turns the water cloudy. if it's this sort of cloudiness, it's not really something to worry about, it should sort itself out in a couple of days. if it's cloudy because you stirred up a lot of poo and waste, you may want to do small water changes every day (like 10%) while vaccuuming the gravel to get rid of that gunk. if it's a green cloudiness (like if you shine a flashlight on it and it reflects green), you're getting greenwater. this is usually caused by having too much rotting food/plant material in the tank, and/or too much light...reducing the amount you feed and leaving the lights mostly off for a few days while doing small water changes can correct this.

hope some of that helped a bit.

*edit as i didn't see the last post*

the cloudiness can be made worse by doing severe water changes. you are getting rid of a lot of the bacteria that convert your ammonia/nitrite to nitrates...as they try to keep up with waste conversion they will "bloom" and do a small mini-cycle if you're removing too much water. what level of nitrates are we looking at? they are not nearly as toxic as ammonia or nitrites, so if it's not a huge number, leave the tanks alone for awhile and let the bacteria even themselves out. you could be making it worse with these large water changes (and stressing the fish).

when you test your pH out of the tap, are you letting it sit 24 hours? pH straight out of the tap can be completely different if you let it sit awhile to let the gasses dissolve...yours could settle to the pH in your tank. i don't like the idea of trying to adjust your pH - any change in pH larger than .2 per DAY is going to stress the heck out of your fish...on top of everything else they're going through i don't think this is a good idea, or necessary. fish will adjust to the pH you have, you're making more work for yourself and putting stress on the fish when you really don't need to by changing the pH.

one last thing...ick is usually something that happens to stressed fish. your fish are very obviously stressed, from the conditions it sounds like they came from and from all the moving/water changes/meds they've been through lately. doing large water changes will only stress them more and i'm not sure it's doing anything beneficial for them...again, if your nitrates aren't off the chart, i'd leave them alone for awhile and let them rest...

don't panic yet.

*end edit*

 

[general tzao]

well its been cloudy for 3 weeks... and i know about bacteria bloom but i havent been able to get the nitrate levels back down. so i figured a bacteria bloom is better than whatever i have... GRRRrrrRRrRRrRRRRrr

 

[general tzao]

WHAT CAUSES LOW PH TO NEVER RAISE????? if there is a fungus, or baterial problem that does that then that may be what i have ( no plants in tank yet)

 

[lmw80]

We are also going to try and add some live plants to the tank. This will help, I believe. This will probably be done over the weekend. Any suggestions for plants?

*Edit*
We will be getting a better light in the hood for the plants....something with a 6700-10000K rating..right now it's 30 watt something

 

[general tzao]

30 watt coralife spectramax light bulb by the way... lol

 

[justDIY]

see sea shells sitting on the sea shore

grab up some sea shells and put 'em in your filter (ps you can get shells at a crafts store, or maybe elsewhere, just make sure they're not painted or otherwise treated)

their calcium will dissolve in your water and raise the ph well as making your water more stable to avoid wild ph changes

try to keep water changes in the 10 to 15% range daily ... any more than this will disrupt your biological filtration as stated already, causing cloudyness and/or ammonia and nitrite spikes. if possible, draw your water change water 24 hrs ahead of time, add some simple dechlorinator (chlor-out, start-right, aquasafe) and then let some of the shells you got soak in the water for at least 24 hrs. Then do your water change.

your high nitrates may be due to other chemicals that have been used to raise the PH or treat for sickness... or some areas have high nitrates in the water due to fertilizer run-off or other water contamination

after running the shells for a day or two, retest for nitrates, as well as ammonia and nitrites - your readings will be more accurate as your ph stablizes and the water hardens up a bit.

once you stabilize your water, your fish's health should improve - all the sicknesses described are stress related.

 

[lmw80]

SEE!! This is why Gordon (glmclell) rules!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks Gordon!

 

[justDIY]

oh, I hear the lfs claims your PH is like 8 or something?

that's not right - the water is just unstable and the test tube or whatever at the pet store skewed your results.

run the shells for a few days and recheck your ph - it should be abound 7.6 ... which is a tad high, but should provide a good stable water for your fish to recover in.

depending on the ammount of time you have available, keep the shells in the filter and they will maintain your PH and hardness.

If you like I can help you with "mixing" custom water to achieve about any PH you want, but it does take time and patience.