Recovering from Secondary infection, now not eating.

[dskidmore]

I have a black skirt tetra that seemed to have a clear case of ick. I put him in the QT, and used a salt/heat treatment. The ick seemed to clear up, and I waited a couple more weeks before starting to return the tank conditions to normal. It seems the ick reappeared, although not as clear cut a case, the fins had milky spots, but did not have the caracteristic salt grain appearance. I reinstated the heat and salt treatment, but now one of the white spots is ringed in red. Is this a secondary infection? Heat resistant ick?

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

Sounds like a secondary. Ich doesn't really show up in different forms. I would start a round of melafix--it helps fish to heal after being damaged. Melafix and clean water is your first course. If it continues to progress, you will need to go with heavier antibiotics.

 

[dskidmore]

Should I continue the salt/heat at the same time, or just the antibiotic? The salt is easy, but it's really hard to keep the temperature up while doing water changes in winter.

 

[Simpte]

I'm not a big fan of using salt. I use melafix and clean water to "cure" most illnesses. Clean water will cure almost all external problems with fish. May take a little more time, but using any med (note melafix is not a med), will stress out a fish.

Tetras are not very tolerant of salt either. That could be causing as much damage as its curing.

 

[dskidmore]

The salt seemed to work well on the ick.

I'll start diluting the salt now then. Do some daily 10% water changes. With guests in the house I don't want to run out to the pet store, but I have some antibiotics on hand to try. Annoyingly out of Prime, so I'll have to keep a close eye on ammonia with the anitbiotic use, and do alot of water changes.

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

it sounds like columnaris, tetracycline is good if you have some, in food is often better IMO.

a good site to see what things look like in real world (not drawn) is

http://www.fishpalace.org/Disease.html#External (that will take you right to columnaris, at the top is a list)

 

[dskidmore]

Interesting: Maracyn-Two treatment in third day. Ammonia has held steady, but nitrites are up. I was only testing ammonia, but the water started smelling funny, so I pulled out the nitrite kit to find out why.

I think the spot is shrinking, but the water is awfully cloudy at the moment.

We recieved a digital camera for Christmas, but the hubby won't let it out of his grip, and used the wrong compression level when pulling the picture off the camera, so my fish picture is all blury. If the spot is still there after the 5 day treatment is over and the water clears up, I'll get you a picture.

 

[dskidmore]

it sounds like columnaris,

Could be. Hard to tell. None of those pictures look exactly like what I'm seeing, but there is enough variance between them that I'd be willing to believe I have yet another variation.

tetracycline is good if you have some, in food is often better IMO.

I've had very little luck with medicated foods. I've tried gel-tek, and a jungle food. The gel-tek wasn't recognized as food by most of the fish. The jungle stuff was giant dry pellets, that the fish could not fit in their mouths.

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

You can break it up by crushing it. I was a little leary on the gel aswell, thinking they wouldn't know it was food.

 

[dskidmore]

You can break it up by crushing it. I was a little leary on the gel aswell, thinking they wouldn't know it was food.

The angel ate it, and the goldfish, but the smaller fish ignored it completely.

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

IME patience is key with the gel-tek. When they get hungrier, they will eat it.

 

[dskidmore]

A bad day for fishies: Found another fish in the main tank that's sick, with completely different symptoms. I need to inspect my greenery better, it looks like this must have been happening for awhile, and I just didn't see him where he was hiding. His stomach is all sunken in, he has no appetite, and little energy. Sits upright on the bottom of the QT. (When I found him, he was perched on a plant.) I was tempted to just euthanize him, as his disease appears very advanced, and the QT is already occupied by a recovering fish. I couldn't bring myself to it though, and put him into the QT. I'll have to extend the antibiotic course now another two days. I'm going to try live foods on this poor guy, as well as the water changes and antibiotics.

 

[dskidmore]

Hrm... Can't delete my own double-post?

 

[dskidmore]

The gaunt fish predictably died in 24 hours. I hope I didn't introduce another pathogen into the QT in my attempt to save him. The tetra seems to be improving, although the medicine induced haze makes observation difficult.

 

[dskidmore]

The secondary infection has greatly dimminished, but the fish seems to have lost his appetite in the course of treatment. Am I battling a third disease, or side effects of the medication? I'm going to try to get some live food this evening, they were out when I went shopping last.

 

[Devilishturtles]

Could just be stress from all the meds. Is your temperature holding steady? Have you started to lower it yet, from the ick treatment? I think with daily water changes and melafix, the infection should have cleared on its own. A high temperature will do nothing but allow the fungal infection to spread faster.

With the already deceased fish, sounds like something internal definitley. Did you recently add anything new to the tank? Feeding live/frozen foods?

 

[dskidmore]

I fed some live foods after the fact, not before. I usually stick with a flake diet. I feed occasional vegtable bits. I was hoping to encourage the Black Skirt Tetra to begin eating again, but apparently he doesn't like blackworms. (Former owner used to regularly feed frozen brine, so they usually go for brine, should have stuck with that to entice eating despite the nutritional diffrences.)

Nothing new in the tank prior to finding the sunken belly.

This whole batch of fish was very unhealthy to start with. As soon as I think I've dealt with everything but the torn fins that may never grow back, something else gets sick. My water seems to be cleaner than ever, if the smell, look, and water tests are any indication. Some of the fish are trying to spawn, usually a sign of healthy conditions.

I need to invest in a python. The daily water change thing is difficult for me right now, I'm having trouble with my wrists. I fill a bucket with dirty water and wait for hubby to get around to bringing me clean water back. I'm doing every 2-3 days right now. I have another submersable heater on order so I can pre-heat the bucket of water, to reduce temperature swings. (I've been pouring back the replacement water in small batches for the in-tank heater to heat up, causing small temperature swings in the process.) The origional heater I bought for the purpose ended up replacing the old QT heater.

 

[Devilishturtles]

Reason I asked about the live or frozen foods was because sometimes, they can be tainted with parasites, which it sounds like your deceased fish had.

Sounds like you got bad fish from the start. The temp swings definitley aren't good, but I doubt they are doing too much to harm anything.

Best of luck.

 

[dskidmore]

Thanks.

I've just pretty much resolved to not get any new fish untill these all die off, or stop dying for a reasonably long period of time. I enjoy the gardening aspect more than looking at the fish anyway. I used to say I was keeping guppies just so people wouldn't ask me where the fish were.

 

[greenmaji]

Did you ever get your temperature down to a steady 78 F or so?
what medications are deluted in the water or currently being used for treatment?
have you moved to medicated foods only?
if none of the medicated foods take you can try soaking the normal diet in the perfered medication..
HTH