Netting worse than medicating?

[Guest]

One of my boryeli cichlid (rather large, about 5 inches), in a mixed African tank, had some sort of body fungus. I put it in a hospital tank and treated it with various meds...coppersafe, melafix and maroxy. I also put salt in the water and had the temp around 80 f. It seemed to improve substantially after a week.

It was very difficult getting it out of the community tank to begin with. It was maniacal in trying to avoid being netted. When I netted it to put it back from the hospital tank, it went even more ballistic...smashing around the tank, really berserk.

I put him back in the community tank and within hours it was panting, going verticle, and looking suddenly much worse...pale, whitish film appearing. It died overnight. I had the fish a long time...it was probably 2 inches when I first got it.

Anyone ever had such bad experiences with netting? I think the netting literally scared it to death. Makes me wonder about whether using a hospital tank for a fish that clearly doesn't want to be removed is really viable. I suppose it's good so maybe the other fish don't catch a disease, but it might be better to just medicate the whole tank.

What do you think?

 

[Devilishturtles]

Maybe it wasn't the netting but the sudden change in water conditions. How does your hospital tank vary in temperature from your community tank? Or possibly all the medications you used could have affected the water conditions or just the fish in general...and when you went to put it back in it's home tank, it just freaked out?

 

[brotherd]

Ya know,I wondered about that too.I have not lost any to netting directly but Ido notice that netting to move to a hospital tank is extremely stressful to the fish.Is it better as you say to medicate the whole tank?Very interesting.Replys?

 

[Allivymar]

I always move my fish. In fact, I pulled 2 rams out of my 25g into their own 15g yesterday and they did great; they didn't run from the net (actually, they kinda wandered into it themselves LOL only prob was the angelfish babies wanted to get in too). Thing is, my hands are in the tank pretty often, between gravel vacs, feeding the fish (we are teaching them to take bloodworms from our fingers) and moving plants that the net was simply something else and not a scary thing.

Now I DID acclimate the rams even tho they were moving from one of my own tanks to another; the 25g has a pH of 6.0; the new tank a pH of 7.0. Its quite possible the QT had a diff pH as my guess is its not an established tank (established tanks generally have lower pH).

And I believe sick fish need to be QTed. No reason to medicate all fish; some meds are even dangerous to certain types of fish, and no reason to expose all the healthy fish to the sick one.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. The temp was only about 2 degrees higher in my hospital tank. I did acclimate the sick fish before putting into the hospital tank, but not when returning him to the community tank...essentially because he was going berserk.

 

[Allivymar]

*slaps self in the head*

There I was giving my reasoning for QTing fish and I never even said a thing about your poor guy; I am sorry you lost him even if I'm too busy yapping to say it LOL

In the future, you might want to look into tricking the fish into the net. When you feed it, put the food IN the net. After a couple of feedings that way, you should be able to pull it up quickly when its in there eating, and avoid the chase around the tank.

Oh, and if its not the pH (which I guess we don't know), its also possible he cracked himself hard enough on the head to do serious damage. That too may be what killed him.

 

[An t-iasg]

Hi 105man,
Sorry about your cichlid That's good that you had him for so long. He had a good life with you!

I agree to use a QT tank, but netting is sometimes traumatic and I always feel like such a meanie. I netted my betta last week to go into the QT bowl, and luckily I caught him on the first try. If you treat the whole tank (and sometimes it is necessary) then you risk losing some of the good bacteria that has built up, if you're treating with an antibiotic. That's not too fun either, to go thru a mini cycle while treating the whole tank. In my case, I may go thru a mini cycle, because the betta tank is empty now. I'm still feeding the tank in hopes that some of the good bacteria will not die off without the betta, but we'll see.

I put a drop of pH down in my QT tank when I made up the water. I don't use it in the main tank, but I know the main tank's pH is 7.2 and when I mix up my water (half RO and half tap) that it mixes to 7.4. When I'm changing a gallon out of the main tank (5.5 gallons) I don't get a pH rise, but for the QT I thougt I would use some pH down, just a little, so the betta doesn't get stressed. He's in the QT now, flaring away! But he can't come out yet! The last time he was in QT, and I put him back in the main tank, he went crazy and tattered his tail fin a little.

So I guess some fish are just not at all happy about netting and moving to another tank, even if it is back to their home tank. It must be the change that they just don't like. My betta acted like he didn't remember his home. He just kept attacking the one wall of the tank until he tattered his tail. My other betta is very calm. Nothing seems to faze him.

Sorry again about your fish, and I hope the rest of your fish are ok.

 

[Menagerie]

I have in the past had to give up on netting an African cichlid. They are insane to net. Usually, I try the next day and combine it with a serious gravel cleaning--all rocks out of the tank! It is a pain, but in the long run I believe it is worth treating a sick fish away from the others.
105man, I am sorry for the loss of your boryeli cichlid. You said you had this fish for a long time; take solace in the fact that you were able to care for this fish and you were trying to do the right thing.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, all, for the feedback and thoughts.

 

[deli_conker]

I had some issues with trying to netting fish a while back and got a lot of help from others on this board. Here's a couple of threads that have a lot of netting alternatives...

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=13678&highlight=

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=14561&highlight=

 

[Christmasfish]

i have a couple fish that are like that. I got a different colored net and made one out of a baggie. There are some fish that simply must be caught by hand has much as a pita that is. My dwarf gourami and two of the tetras. A small piece of slime coat is small price for stress and injury (not to mention what the tank ends up like chasing it!) to it and its tankmates. stupid fish!!(or am I the stupid human?heh!)