catfish - gray-green patches around gills

[wmoonw]

Hi everyone,

I'm a newish aquarium owner, we recently upgraded to a 60G tank and added some additional fish (went from 3 danios and 2 cory cats to 6 danios and 6 cory cats). We just added some fish last week.

Yesterday, we noticed that one of our catfish was at the bottom of the tank, breathing really hard. We moved him to our hospital tank, bumped up the temperature to 80, added some aquarium salt and added some all-in-one medicine....I guess we threw the kitchen sink at him, really. We added a little bit of aquarium salt to our main tank as well, at the recommendation of our LFS.

Today, we went to check on him, and he's not really doing any better, but we noticed that he had gray-green patches around his gills. We checked out our main tank and it looks like all 5 of the other catfish have similar gray-green patches around their gills. I feel like their gills are looking a little inflamed too, but it's hard for me to tell, I've never really paid attention to how their gills looked.... The danios are looking... okay? I think?

What the heck is going on here? Does anyone have any experience with this? Poking around online a little is making me feel like it's a parasite problem, but it's really a guess on my part. I'm really worried about these guys, we've had our two oldest catfish for over a year and I would be really upset if they bit it.

We do weekly 25% water changes, and our ammonia and nitrite levels are rock-bottom, nitrate stays in the 10-20ppm range, and pH is currently around 7.6, I think. Tank is heated to 74*F.

EDIT: added some pictures here, dunno if it helps.... http://imgur.com/5EKGona

 

[Eggheadfish]

Hi moon,
Cories aren't very tolerant of salt, so in the future just be careful with your dosage or do the general meds alone (someone else may have better info, I don't know a ton about treating illness). Heavy breathing sounds more like stress if no other symptoms are present IMO
Cories do have a little bit of iridescent coloring on the gills, all of my lighter color guys it's easy to see. I guess you've been staring down your tank a bit! Haha. I would worry if the gills were red and inflamed but sounds normal to me, I checked out the pic. Take a look at my guys, you'll see what I mean, I'm thinking you're noticing the same thing.

 

[wmoonw]

Haha, so I'm being paranoid, then? I'm really glad to hear it, actually... we've just lost so many lately I guess I'm jumping the gun. Thanks for the input, Egghead!

 

[Eggheadfish]

I hear you! Seems like one thing goes wrong, then another, and then your scrutinizing every fleck of everything in the tank, I do it plenty! Losing fish sucks. The best I can tell you is to keep testing your water parameters, make sure you get fish that don't look sick from a reputable place, and quarantine before adding to your tank. Some people prefer to preemptively treat fish with meds while they're in quarantine just as a safety measure.
It's great that you care! Keep us posted

 

[Coursair]

Cories are scaleless. No salt and only 1/2 strength meds. Read labels and look for warnings for Scaleless fish.

I hope the fish is fine.


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