Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => The Emergency Room => Topic started by: Mervyn on March 23, 2013, 04:12:17 PM
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Hi,
Firstly my amm is 0ppm,nitrite 0ppm and nitrate about 30ppm.
The story is, that about a week ago, a mollie decided to bend itself nearly in half. It was attacked and being eaten by other fish, so I put it in a floating fry box for some isolation. Then one of her eyes went cloudy with her head pointing upwards and she started spinning non stop. Sadly I had to put her to sleep.
Now 3 of my tiger barbs colouration has gone greyish. I have been treating with myxazin but they are still the same, with one of the tigers gone into hiding. I understood that slime/velvet disease was in patches not an all over greyness.
The problem is I do not know what to treat them with now and how dangerous it may be to my other fish.
To complicate matters I believe that, if I can get proper medication, I cannot treat with a different medication until 4 days have elapsed from treating with Myxazin.
I cannot get pics at the moment but they are an overall grey colour. All my other fish appear perfectly healthy.
any advice please.
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Velvet is reasonably easy to diagnose. When it's dark turn all the lights out and shine a torch on the fish. If they have a goldish sheen it's velvet in which case you need a medication that treats whitespot.
If they still look grey, it could be costia, and since that is another parasitic infection, you'd need the same treatment as for whitespot and velvet.
You can change meds faster than 4 days if you do a big water change to remove a lot of myxazin then run some carbon to adsorb the rest. But don't forget to remove the carbon before adding the second med!
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Hi Sue and thanks for that....as I am an early to bed man...I will check that in the morning at 3.30am when I rise.
I have however just been to my LFS and the owner actually put me off buying dedicated velvet treatment. After I had explained what is happening and describing (it is so much easier face to face) she feels that it is bacterial and to carry on with the Myxazin for now!
If in the morning, the light test is negative can I continue with the myxazin beyond the 5 day course?
Also if it is velvet I will have no problem with a large water change but do not have carbon to fit although I could cut up and cram in some unused Juwel carbon filters.
Thanks for the help Sue
What I should have said is that the LFS did not want me to buy anything as I already had Myxazin and felt that should do the job.
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Yes you can continue the myxazin. I did several consecutive courses of the similar eSHa 2000 when my last but one betta had fin rot.
The Juwel pads will be fine so long as they haven't been used before. If they have, they could be full and not remove the myxazin. I keep a box of carbon in the cupboard, a cheap one like Wilkinsons sell. And a piece of net fabric to make a sort of bag out of. If you ever get any, carbon needs washing well before it goes in the tank.
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Thanks Sue,
Yes all the carbon filters are new. Thanks for the advice on the Myxazin use. I would have preferred Esha but that LFS stopped stocking it a few years ago as there was a problem with the stock they had.
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Hi Sue,
Me again...hopefully you're still talking to me? :)
On reading Mervyn's thread, it occurs to me that perhaps I should keep a first aid for fishies in my cupboard... or would the things I need go out of date too quickly? What do you recommend I should have? What do you mean by carbon? Is it in powder form? You said you could get it from Wilkinsons, if that's right I could get my son to get a box and send it to me in my next 'Red Cross Parcel'. There is always something I need from the UK that I can't get here....or haven't found out where. Hopefully of course, I won't need any meds but you can bet that if I do, it will be on a Sunday or a bank holiday when everywhere is shut! They are notorious here for having what they call 'le pont' or bridge. This is when a bank holiday (which is always held on the actual day it falls, rather than always being a Monday like the UK) falls perhaps on a Thursday of one week with another falling on the Tuesday of the next week, so they take off the entire period between the two days as well!!! That's ok, if you realise in time, otherwise you can get a surprise when you go shopping....and NOWHERE is open! May is a particularly bad/good (depending on your outlook) time as the whole month is littered with bank holiday days!
Anyway, it was just a thought as I would guess if you have a problem you need to get on to it pretty quickly to give the fishies best chance of recovery.
Thanks Sue.
Resa
:)
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Carbon comes in nice little pellets about 1/8 inch long or rough looking lumps about 1/4 inch across. this (http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/aquariums+fish-tanks/supa-activated-filter-carbon-125g/invt/0149751) is the brand Wilkinson sells, it's one of the cheapest. The only problem with loose carbon is that it comes covered in dust, which is why you have to wash it. And you need a bag of some sort to put it in.
The only problem with keeping bottles of medication in the cupboard is that they have a use by date and you could well find you don't even open them in time. If you want to risk it, then a whitespot med and something like myxazin by Waterlife or eSHa 2000 are good standbys.