A lot of flashing from my large group of cherry barbs. Opinions please.

[skylane]

All I can think of is that your tank, plants and the environment you gave them, is perfect!!!
Happy fish man!![emoji39]

On another note, I noticed my Serphea tetra's are also flashing, what I did see them do one day was a spiral roll , as they were locked nose to nose, and spiraled together rite across the tank, for a few seconds. I've never seen them do that before, it was so fast my friend they made it look like a tornado was coming, it was an awesome sight to see!!![emoji50]
I actually saw them do it as I was posting this, really cool!!!

Clem.

 

[cass95]

If you don't mind me asking, are your cherry barbs aggressive? Or like to fin nip other fishes?

 

[philipraposo198]

There is only barbs otos and Cory's in the tank. They dont fin nip anyone. Not aggressive at all.

 

[philipraposo198]

A little update. I dose a full dose on Monday night. Since then the fish have improved in color, mainly the female Cherry's. Very little flashing is taking place compared to before.

Had a little scare today with one of the alpha male cherry barbs. He was breathy pretty heavy this morning and his swimming wasn't too good. I used my power heads and my outlet of my canister to create more than normal surface agitation for the day. Came home to him.still alive and doing much better. Normal breathing and swimming.

I think if I keep this up and let the meds run the full course everything should be fine.

 

[Brookster123]

Whatcha dosing?

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[philipraposo198]

Prazipro. I came to the conclusion that the fish are likely dealing with gill flukes. From what I read, the fish can deal with them for a long time if the tank is healthy. Hard to see in small fish and would explain the flashing.

 

[philipraposo198]

Little update. I have lost two fish during this battle. Both were male barbs, both showed slight loss of color and heavy breathing for a few days before passing on. They would exclude themselves from the rest of my barbs and become lethargic, not really eating or swimming. Just looking like they are out of breath and fatigued.

With that said, its now been 2 weeks since the first dose and thing are continuing to improve. Almost all fish have improved color and less flashing is occurring. The females are showing the biggest improvements. I will continue to dose for another two more weeks as suggested by many when it comes to flukes to ensure everything is killed off.

I am more certain now then ever that I in fact dealing with gill flukes and prazipro is working to kill them off.

I will keep updating this while the fight for a healthy tank continues.

 

[philipraposo198]

feeling defeated and don't know how to proceed

The problem: Cherry barbs are flashing, 99% of the time the flashing is off of plant leaves. No visible signs other than their color was off a bit. I suspect gill flukes. I do have lava rock and other type of rock in the tank and they don't flash off these items. Other fish in the tank are otocinclus cats and cory cats. These fish don't flash and all seems well. during the first week of treatment I lost 2 male cherry barbs.

Their symptoms before they died was:
1. away from the group, not being social
2. not active
3. bottom of the tank and near it.
4. hidden
5. heavy breathing

What I have been doing: Been treating using prazipro as per directions. I am close to being down my 4th week of treatment. The females barbs have showed a drastic change in their color (improvements), the males are doing better too. Richer and more darker color to be clear.

Even after the almost 4 weeks of meds some fish are still flashing but their color is now really good. I am not sure if its gill flukes or not because the meds should of taken care of them by now.

Also since gill fluke eggs resides in the substrate, you would think my corys would be worse off then my barbs... I even have young cory fry in this tank and they are all fine..

I just don't get it, I am at a loss of what to do and how to resolve this. But for my sanity, I need this to be over with so I can stop worrying about my pets that I care for.

If anyone have some suggestions I am open, I will try anything.

Thanks!

 

[philipraposo198]

here is a video of the tank, maybe seeing what is going on might help id the cause.
https://youtu.be/2W_Zd_4CsUQ
The last two days, I performed 2 60% water changes and while the flashing isn't often or consistent, its still happening.

I can't imagine my nitrates are so high that even after 2 large water changes its still irritating some barbs. Also, if it was nitrates, i would think it would bother my corys and my otos.

 

[philipraposo198]

here is another video (underwater)
https://youtu.be/jEGlQB39nwI

 

[philipraposo198]

So today made a big move to see if things would improve. Up untill this point the barbs keep flashing and while same days its not as much its still very much and issue. I can't stand watching it anymore and needed to try something different.

I decided to move all barbs to their own 30g where I have a couple angels. I first removed the angel and dropped acclimated them to the 75g because of co2, didn't want to gas them.

The barbs went from my 75g to a bucket the. Directly to the 30. I keep the same temps and they get very similar amount of water changes a week.

Since putting the barbs in they haven't flashed. Not once... Their color is just as it was in the 75g, nice and bold. They are all acting normal just a little spooked cuz of the switch.

I will be keeping them in there for a while and observe to see if the flashing starts up again. I am honestly so confused why it all of a sudden stopped.

Now that the angels are in the 75g I will watch them closely to see if they pick up where the barbs left off.

All peppered Cory's (40ish) are still in the 75 with some otos. None of them flash ever, they are do great, and continue to spawn what seems like a weekly event.

If anyone have some clues as to what's going on I would love to know. Either way, o will be selling off the barbs at some point down the road because they are just not happy/working in the 75g.

 

[Brookster123]

You just cross contaminated your angels??

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[philipraposo198]

Lol... No because its not a disease...

 

[Brookster123]

What is it?

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[philipraposo198]

That's the issue that I can't figure out. But fish who are sick and flash all day long do not boast incredible color, eat like pigs, spawn constantly, and most importantly stop flashing the second they are in the new tank.

The fact that they haven't flashing in hours and hours since the moves is in my opinion enough to prove its something more like an irritation from something in the water vs a disease or bacteria.

 

[Brookster123]

That's the issue that I can't figure out. But fish who are sick and flash all day long do not boast incredible color, eat like pigs, spawn constantly, and most importantly stop flashing the second they are in the new tank.

The fact that they haven't flashing in hours and hours since the moves is in my opinion enough to prove its something more like an irritation from something in the water vs a disease or bacteria.

Sounds like you know everything and nothing all at the same time?? Either way... vetting the situation would exclude cross contaminating the specimen. Throw anything into a new situation and they'll most likely "freeze" for a minute or two. I hope for the best bit I would have done things differently.

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[philipraposo198]

So I finally figured it out and wanted to share my findings with everyone. Hopefully it can save someone alot of grief.

I'm short the problem was created by spikes in ammonia. This tank is almost 2 years old with the same filter and media. The spikes were caused by excess feeding.

The long.
I had been overfeeding my tank ever since I got into keeping my cherry barbs. I got them small and wanted to growth them out and fast. I would feed loads of food and never thought about how my bio filtration would handle things. Always assuming it wouldn't be an issue. Turns out that it was. Tests at different time showed ammonia readings of less than .25 but more than zero. With my nuetral soft ish water its not very toxic which would explain why it was able to go on all this time with no real deaths.

To verify this was in fact the culprit I did a big water change with prime and stopped feeding for a few days. Sure enough all flashing stopped. Colors popped even more and life was good again.

I have learned that I really don't know much in terms of feeding the "right" amount. It's even harder because I keep so many Cory's and always struggle to determine if I am feeding too much or not enough. With you get fish I always like to dump a ton of food so they can always be full and grow quickly. Seems like I could be doing more harm than good.

I moved on from cherry's and now keep 5 angels in my 75g. I time myself as I feed them. I only feeding once a day for now. I put the timer on for 2 min and feed them only what they can eat in this time.

The scary thing is realizing how this small amount compared to that of which I was feeding before know about the ammonia spikes. I can honestly say I was probably 10-15 times more food before as opposed to now that I time my feeding of my angels.

As for feeding 40 Cory's, its difficult. The timing guideline doesn't work for them. So I only feeding in one part of the tank each time and watching how much they are eating. Also keeping an eye on the smaller younger corys weight. I will use this as measure of how much to feed.

I also ordered eheim substrate pro biomedia to convert one of my mechanical trays to biological as a precaution.

I am just glad I finally found the cause and have corrected it.

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[Brookster123]

You ever check tds?

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[Nils]

Wow! Glad you found out why it was happening! So you got rid of the cherries? Just for fun can we have an FTS?

 

[philipraposo198]

You ever check tds?

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No, I have been meaning to buy a tds meter and do this.

Wow! Glad you found out why it was happening! So you got rid of the cherries? Just for fun can we have an FTS?

I did, mostly because I thought it was something with them being sensitive to something in my water and I found a local shop to take them all off my hands at a good rate.

I always wanted to keep angel fish and always worried about aggression but I figured this is a good time to try.

As requested, not the best quality pic but here it is. This is a new tank I got at Christmas, my old 75g cracked and needed to be replaced asap. Plants didn't suffer to bad but its going to take a bit before its all thriving and growing like crazy again.


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