Alyssum
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2014
- Messages
- 33
I have a 55g planted community tank. I discovered my fish flashing from possible introduction of gill flukes, so I started treating the water with prazipro and metro. Apparently all of the fish I bought or were given to me from other sources had several parasites and I was an idiot for not quarantining them all. My cories don't look well (I've had these guys for over a year) and I almost am leaning toward septicemia. The base of some of their fins are blood red and some have redness around the gills. I want to say it it is improving a bit, but they are not always cooperative when I'm observing them through the glass. I figured I might as well try to clean the substrate as best as I could. Perhaps it's not clean enough and it's infecting their skin. They've shown all kinds of odd behavior, the most notable being some of them having intermittent but severe balance issues. One in particular would "faint" and become lifeless, like a tumble weed. I thought it'd be dead by now, but it has been at least a month with those intermittent symptoms. He seemed to improve and he doesn't do it nearly as much as he used to, so I'm really confused about that.
I'm only explaining all of this because it may be related to the odd brown thing sticking out of one their gills. It's been there about 5 days. He swims around and eats like nothing is wrong and I have no idea what this thing is. I do weekly 50% water changes and vacuum the substrate at least once in the middle of the week. To top all of this off, my tank seems to be going through a mini cycle. I checked the nitrites to make sure things were okay and to rule out for the septicemia like symptoms. The water is apparently not okay, because my nitrite was at .25 ppm. I don't know what I did, all I can think of is that I overfed and created an ammonia spike. I did a water change as soon as I found out and today it's right back up to .25-.50. I have medicine in the water and it's very expensive to keep throwing it in there after every water change, so this is all very frustrating. I can't use prime because it affects prazipro's effectiveness, but if I have to, I will use it. I feel like such a putz, especially after reading over what I just typed. Please help me.
I've read that nitrite poisoning can cause browning of the gills, but he is the only one who has it and I don't even know if that's gill tissue. Now I don't know how long this mini cycle has been going on. It could be the source of my fish's behavior, but it's hard to say. I haven't tested the water in about 2 weeks and the blue ram I bought was flashing before that. Oh yeah, the brown thing is only on one side.
Video:
http://v8.tinypic.com/player.swf?file=35co95g&s=8
I'm only explaining all of this because it may be related to the odd brown thing sticking out of one their gills. It's been there about 5 days. He swims around and eats like nothing is wrong and I have no idea what this thing is. I do weekly 50% water changes and vacuum the substrate at least once in the middle of the week. To top all of this off, my tank seems to be going through a mini cycle. I checked the nitrites to make sure things were okay and to rule out for the septicemia like symptoms. The water is apparently not okay, because my nitrite was at .25 ppm. I don't know what I did, all I can think of is that I overfed and created an ammonia spike. I did a water change as soon as I found out and today it's right back up to .25-.50. I have medicine in the water and it's very expensive to keep throwing it in there after every water change, so this is all very frustrating. I can't use prime because it affects prazipro's effectiveness, but if I have to, I will use it. I feel like such a putz, especially after reading over what I just typed. Please help me.
I've read that nitrite poisoning can cause browning of the gills, but he is the only one who has it and I don't even know if that's gill tissue. Now I don't know how long this mini cycle has been going on. It could be the source of my fish's behavior, but it's hard to say. I haven't tested the water in about 2 weeks and the blue ram I bought was flashing before that. Oh yeah, the brown thing is only on one side.
Video:
http://v8.tinypic.com/player.swf?file=35co95g&s=8
