I'm not in the habit of frequenting these forums so I apologise in advance and in retrospect to those who help(ed) if I don't reply immediately (or worse, at all...), BUT...yet again, my fish are in peril.
I have several young killifish of the F. gardneri variety and all was going reasonably well until recently, when several took ill. The illness presents with symptoms of clamped fins (that is, instead of fanning out in the typical shovel or round shape, the edges taper into a point at the end, or in the case of fins on the body itself are held against the skin), followed by a decreasing ability to swim properly (this begins as slight difficulty and progresses to an inability to remain buoyant), and a gradual (though not so gradual it's unnoticeable or not the cause of distress for me) ceasing of feeding, concurrent with a "wasting away" in which the gastric region becomes hollowed and eventually looks as if someone's come along with a knife and excised it entirely from the fish silhouette.
I'm not sure what the story is. I've not had this problem until the recent months and never so prevalent - at first I thought it was just the result of perhaps an inborn illness, but that has proven not to be the case. I'm aware illnesses are often associated with water quality, although I have an undergravel filter so it isn't a filtration issue and I've had no other problems in my other tanks while sourcing water from the same place. I don't have a water testing kit, and mean to remedy this - actually, I meant to remedy it a long time ago but being on a student's budget has thus far prevented me from doing so.
According to different sources, my guess it's a bacterial infection; however, there are no signs of exophthalmus, nor of any cloudy eyes. I called a pet shop of good reputation locally, and they suggested it may be internal parasitism; however, I can't see any signs of worms. Worse, I was informed that the medication used for worms is no longer being imported into the country due to some of the chemical constituents (although whether this stands up to further investigation I don't yet know) - so if it is worms I'm not sure how much luck I'm going to meet with.
Has anyone any recommendations in terms of which treatments to use? Methylene blue seems not to have any effect despite repeat doses being given. Might the answer be as simple as adding aquarium salt?
Related to this is the presence of white, stringy faeces in one of my fish; it isn't presenting with any other symptoms or signs, aside from a general lack of desire to move or feed. Again, help is appreciated because I do care a great deal about my fish, and I'd hate to lose more to some unknown illness.
I have several young killifish of the F. gardneri variety and all was going reasonably well until recently, when several took ill. The illness presents with symptoms of clamped fins (that is, instead of fanning out in the typical shovel or round shape, the edges taper into a point at the end, or in the case of fins on the body itself are held against the skin), followed by a decreasing ability to swim properly (this begins as slight difficulty and progresses to an inability to remain buoyant), and a gradual (though not so gradual it's unnoticeable or not the cause of distress for me) ceasing of feeding, concurrent with a "wasting away" in which the gastric region becomes hollowed and eventually looks as if someone's come along with a knife and excised it entirely from the fish silhouette.
I'm not sure what the story is. I've not had this problem until the recent months and never so prevalent - at first I thought it was just the result of perhaps an inborn illness, but that has proven not to be the case. I'm aware illnesses are often associated with water quality, although I have an undergravel filter so it isn't a filtration issue and I've had no other problems in my other tanks while sourcing water from the same place. I don't have a water testing kit, and mean to remedy this - actually, I meant to remedy it a long time ago but being on a student's budget has thus far prevented me from doing so.
According to different sources, my guess it's a bacterial infection; however, there are no signs of exophthalmus, nor of any cloudy eyes. I called a pet shop of good reputation locally, and they suggested it may be internal parasitism; however, I can't see any signs of worms. Worse, I was informed that the medication used for worms is no longer being imported into the country due to some of the chemical constituents (although whether this stands up to further investigation I don't yet know) - so if it is worms I'm not sure how much luck I'm going to meet with.
Has anyone any recommendations in terms of which treatments to use? Methylene blue seems not to have any effect despite repeat doses being given. Might the answer be as simple as adding aquarium salt?
Related to this is the presence of white, stringy faeces in one of my fish; it isn't presenting with any other symptoms or signs, aside from a general lack of desire to move or feed. Again, help is appreciated because I do care a great deal about my fish, and I'd hate to lose more to some unknown illness.
/www.fishforums.net/content/Disease-...Levamisole-Hci/
