Poorly cherry barbs

[pookie2]

Any advice greatly received, my daughter has set up her own 125 litre tank. She fishless cycled it, it now has 6 leopard danios and 5 zebra danios which were put in over a month ago, they are happy. Over a week later she got 6 cherry barbs and 6 green neon raspboras. The raspboras are happy shoaling with the danios.

One of those original cherry barbs has since disappeared mysteriously, she then decided to get some more to make a bigger group, they have been in since last Saturday. Two of this new group are very unhappy I think, they hide behind the filter and spend most of their time near the top of the water, one especially has lots of very fine almost silvery threadlike poos. When they do swim around it's almost seems like they are a bit lopsided.
They are fed tropical flakes and once a week they get a bit of frozen food.
Water parameters are
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 20
Ph is around 7.2
We hovered and did about a 40% water change yesterday temp is 23C
I know that cherry barbs can be a little shy but the others in the group are merrily dashing about, rooting around in the gravel and doing all the fishy things.

These 2 don't seem interested in food, when the lid opens the whole tank goes mad except for these 2

Does anyone have any thoughts? My 10 year old has paid for all this, tank equipment and fish from her own savings and she is very worried.
Many thanks


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[Delapool]

How are they doing?

Do they look in good shape otherwise with good belly size? Perhaps they have been knocked around a bit at the store.

Do you have any plants in the tank they can get some roughage from?

 

[pookie2]

One has quite a good belly size but the other is really quite skinny, we only have plastic plants in the tank, as my daughter is a complete beginner.
She will try them on some frozen food today, mind you they have to be quick as the others don't let the food stay around too long!

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[pookie2]

Well I have just come home and noticed some bones in the tank, which I have now removed. I must assume it's one of the sick cherry barbs as everyone else seems present and correct. The other poorly one is still just hovering around. Shows no interest in anything, he had another very thin silvery thread coming from his bottom. I have just tested the water and all the others came to try and get my fingers except home

Does anyone have any clues? My daughter is very upset that we have found this

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[pookie2]

So the cherry babe that has been poorly seems to be losing weight, I don't think we have seen him eat ever, we have had him two weeks now.
We hoovered and did a water change yesterday and parameters are
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20
He seems to be really struggling to swim now and just sort of floats, he looks like he is trying to swim but doesn't get anywhere.
I haven't seen any more long headline poos.
He seems so miserable and I don't want to risk any of the others in the tank.
Is he just a poor specimen that we got from the shop or is there something that we can do to help him?
Please any advice greatly received

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[pookie2]

Just to add a picture of the little man, it's not great but it may help

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[Delapool]

Might be just a poor specimen.

Water chemistry looks good. Temp feels a little low - was that to suit the fish?

You could try prazi and metro for internal parasites / worms.

 

[pookie2]

Hi, thank you for this
I will get some meds and see what happens

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[ImACoolguy]

I have 5 cherry barbs in my new tank and 4 out of the 5 swim around exploring and stuff. I have 1 that will eat if food comes by, but otherwise hides all the time.

They came from a tank in the LFS that looked absolutely horrible(looked like it never had a gravel vacuum and tons of algae), but the fish themselves looked very healthy, even a little fat.

How was the tank you got them from in the LFS?


Caleb

~10g 7 ghost shrimp, Betta,2 ADF
~45g ick is fixed! 5 White skirt tetras. Soon to add Corys
~75g NEW! dojo loach, 5 black Skirt Tetras, 5 cherry barbs, live plants

 

[pookie2]

The tank in the shop looked really clean, the guys in there have always seemed very knowledgeable. I have ordered some sterazin, we can't seem to get metro in the UK. Hopefully it will arrive and make a difference before it's too late

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[Coursair]

Silver threads ?
Google Camallanus Worms.

If they have those, don't add anymore fish until you can make sure all your current fish are healthy.

In the future a QT tank is a good idea.


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[pookie2]

Thanks for this, definitely not adding any more fish! Hopefully the medication I have bought arrives and does the trick in time

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[Delapool]

The tank in the shop looked really clean, the guys in there have always seemed very knowledgeable. I have ordered some sterazin, we can't seem to get metro in the UK. Hopefully it will arrive and make a difference before it's too late

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Waterlife do good products I think. Can you post ingredients if listed? It looked like a wormer was included in ingredients list but wanted to double check.

 

[pookie2]

I will post the ingredients when it has arrived, hopefully it does the trick

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[pookie2]

So we are still waiting for the medicine to arrive, it is due tomorrow. Unfortunately the really poorly barb has lost his fight against whatever this is. Thankfully I have managed to remove his body before the others ate him.
The other barbs are all starting to lose their colour now, we have 8 left. Along with the 6 leopard danios, 5 zebras and 6 neon green raspboras who all still seem to be doing ok, although I wonder if they are also losing their colour a bit, but not sure if this is me just being paranoid now.
I put some garlic in yesterday which most of them seemed to enjoy. I have turned the temp up to 27c gradually to see if this helps.

We are really struggling and my daughter is so upset, each time we find a body, she worries how long it will be until the next one

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[pookie2]

Hi Delapool, the sterazin has arrived, the ingredients listed are acriflavine, malachite green, piperazine citrate and formaldehyde as a stabiliser. It days on the bottle treats internal worms and that it is a parasiticide. Lets hope for the best!

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[Delapool]

Hi Delapool, the sterazin has arrived, the ingredients listed are acriflavine, malachite green, piperazine citrate and formaldehyde as a stabiliser. It days on the bottle treats internal worms and that it is a parasiticide. Lets hope for the best!

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That was the one! Wouldn't overdose that cocktail. Does it say if it kills the worms / eggs or anything on gravel vacs?

Good luck with them. Keep us posted.

 

[pookie2]

It doesn't give any instructions as to gravel vacs or water changes. It is a 10 day course of medication but I don't think I would want to leave it that long before a water change, so I may do just a small one so that I can do a bit of a gravel clean.

We have lost another one today, it was one of the healthiest males we had.

The 7 remaining ones are still not interested in food, and are gathered behind the filter.

If it is a parasite or worm is it likely to transfer to the danios and neon green raspboras or is it species specific?

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[ImACoolguy]

It doesn't give any instructions as to gravel vacs or water changes. It is a 10 day course of medication but I don't think I would want to leave it that long before a water change, so I may do just a small one so that I can do a bit of a gravel clean.

We have lost another one today, it was one of the healthiest males we had.

The 7 remaining ones are still not interested in food, and are gathered behind the filter.

If it is a parasite or worm is it likely to transfer to the danios and neon green raspboras or is it species specific?

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After this long and ONLY the barbs infected I'm thinking species related.


Caleb

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[pookie2]

Thanks and I really hope so! Lets hope the sterazin works some magic

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