Cherry Barb isolating itself

[dohaver]

I bought 3 cherry barbs 2 weeks ago. Fell in love with them and went back to my LFS and bought 2 more. A couple of days ago, I noticed 1 in particular is isolating itself from the others. Fins clamped, not eating. The others are playful and active. No apparent sign of external parasites. Eyes are clear, no body or fin rot. I have a cycled tank, its been 4 months. 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite an 5ppm Nitrate. I am running a small sponge filter in a Aqueon 10 gal. kit. I am not using the filter cartidges. I made a DIY changeup of media. Ceramic in a mesh pouch and blue cut polyfilter pad. I purchased a sponge that fits the intank tube. My quarantine 2.5 houses 4 little male guppies I took out of the main tank because they were stressing my female betta. I don't know how to treat this fish. Please advise. Thanks
Betta Mom

 

[Colin_T]

Clamped fin is a sign something is not right. I would treat them for a protozoan infection. If you don't have any wild caught discus, angels or Corydoras in the tank you can salt them up. Or buy a broad spectrum medication containing malachite green. Waterlife Protozin would do the job if you can get it.

For salt you add 1 heaped tablespoon of rock salt, swimming pool salt or sea salt for every 20 litres of tank water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours add another heaped tablespoon of salt (so there is 2 heaped tables of salt per 20 litres). Keep the salt level high for 2-4 weeks and then do 10-20% water changes each day for a couple of weeks to dilute the salt level.

To work out the volume of water in the tank,
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000
= volume in litres.

when you measure the height of the tank, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water.

If you use any medication, remove any carbon (black granulated stuff) from the filter before treating.

It is a good idea to wipe the inside of the glass, and do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean before treating with medication or salt. And clean any power filters before treating too.

 

[dohaver]

Clamped fin is a sign something is not right. I would treat them for a protozoan infection. If you don't have any wild caught discus, angels or Corydoras in the tank you can salt them up. Or buy a broad spectrum medication containing malachite green. Waterlife Protozin would do the job if you can get it.

For salt you add 1 heaped tablespoon of rock salt, swimming pool salt or sea salt for every 20 litres of tank water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours add another heaped tablespoon of salt (so there is 2 heaped tables of salt per 20 litres). Keep the salt level high for 2-4 weeks and then do 10-20% water changes each day for a couple of weeks to dilute the salt level.

To work out the volume of water in the tank,
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000
= volume in litres.

when you measure the height of the tank, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water.

If you use any medication, remove any carbon (black granulated stuff) from the filter before treating.

It is a good idea to wipe the inside of the glass, and do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean before treating with medication or salt. And clean any power filters before treating too.

Thank you for responding. Early this morning I saw a white dot on the barb's body. Then looked at my Otto cat and at the tip of his snout is a dot of white fluff, pic attached. As I started to think a few days back my 2 of my ghost fish died. To me, they were turning milky and I thought they were going to molt. Lastly, yesterday one of my neon teyras was turn milky white also. So something is terribly wrong. I do a 25% water change and vac up and left over waste every other day. So, this morning I did drain 75% water/deep vac, wiped the glass, filled with clean conditioned water. I have NOX-ICH, which has malakite blue in it. Should I clean the impeller also? Directions are 1drop per gallon for 3 days. If I need to I can redose after I skip a day. I hope my 3 corys and 2 cherry shrimp can handle it. I don't use carbon, but I do use a blue polyfilter with my ceramic bio media. I do squeeze the 2 small sponges to clear out debree in the old tank water. I will update you soon. All my other fish are fine. My beloved female blue betta is my girl and so far she is fine. Pic of her attached also.

 

[Colin_T]

the otocinclus has excess mucous on its body and that is causing a cream grey colour to it. The white patch on its nose is probably a bruise with fungus on it.

fish produce excess mucous when there is a water quality problem or a protozoan infection like costia, chilodonella or trichodina.

25% water changes are not that good at diluting stuff in the tank. A 50-75% water change makes a much bigger difference.

--------------------------
Nox-ich contains sodium chloride (salt) and malachite green. Salt should be fine but I don't know if the shrimp can tolerate malachite green.
Corydoras are scaleless and only tolerate half dose medications with malachite green so if you use that medication, I would move the shrimp into another tank and only treat the main tank with half strength medication.

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re: cleaning your filter, yes you should clean the impellor, impellor shaft and housing that the impellor sits in.

 

[dohaver]

the otocinclus has excess mucous on its body and that is causing a cream grey colour to it. The white patch on its nose is probably a bruise with fungus on it.

fish produce excess mucous when there is a water quality problem or a protozoan infection like costia, chilodonella or trichodina.

25% water changes are not that good at diluting stuff in the tank. A 50-75% water change makes a much bigger difference.

--------------------------
Nox-ich contains sodium chloride (salt) and malachite green. Salt should be fine but I don't know if they can tolerate malachite green.
Corydoras are scaleless and only tolerate half dose medications with malachite green so if you use that medication, I would move the shrimp into another tank and only treat the main tank with half strength medication.

--------------------------
re: cleaning your filter, yes you should clean the impellor, impellor shaft and housing that the impellor sits in.

Thank you, you have been so very helpful. Honestly, I have no idea why my water quality would be the cause. I am diligent every other day, vaccing out water and 25-30% changes is about 3 gallons of water. I will clean that impellor and the housing with the uptake pipe. Should I remove the blue polyfilter and of course just leave the ceramic rings? The polyfilter is making the blue color in the water dissipate to clear water, it acts like carbon.

 

[Colin_T]

The blue plastic housing has some white filter material and some cream bags? The cream bags might have carbon in and if they do, it will remove medication from the water.
The white filter material can be kept until it breaks down in a few years, then replaced. Until then just squeeze it out in a bucket of tank water like the sponges. Alternatively find some filter sponges for a different filter and cut them to fit in the filter. Aquaclear hang on back (HOB) filters have reasonable sized sponges that can be cut down to size with a pr of scissors, but any brand of filter sponge will do.

Leave the ceramic rings because they help to hold beneficial filter bacteria. However, if you find sponges that fit, you can put the sponges in the filter (or the tank) and after a couple of months, remove the ceramic beads and just have sponges. But do not replace all the filter materials at the same time otherwise you will get rid of the beneficial filter bacteria and have ammonia and nitrite problems.