Ahhh ! A Very Sick Fish........

[Scott MacAdam]

well i just got home from school and i looked in my tank about to do a water change when my iridescent shark comes flying up about at mach 2 out of the water splashing me then back in. so he got my attenton.... when i saw him again he was swiming crooked and on his side...... and upon closer examination his eyes are REALLY bulging out and he seems really effortless excrpt for random bursts.....he lays on his side and breathes heavily. i have no idea what is going on. i also have another iridescent in there with him so i don't expect and water problems because it would have affected the other as well..... is there any common disease that charicterizes this apperance and behavoir? and what can i do to treat it?

 

[SamUK]

nopt the writer of the followin info but

nternal Bacteria

Symptoms

a. In some cases fish will darken in colour, become listless, stop feeding and die.

b. In other cases, severe symptons exist, ulcers, abdominal (dropsy) and eye swelling (pop eye), destruction of the central nervous system and then the fish dies.

Influencing Factors - Poor water quality will stress the fish and make them susceptible to infection. Also fin and body tissue damage will give the bacteria a site to start infecting.

My Experience -I recently lost one of my Mollies she was black so i did not notice her darken in colour, but she hid all the time and stopped eating, then died. At the point she died four other mollies and two platies started to hide and not eat. Also around this time started to notice that some of the fish had long stringy white feces (poo), it was 5 inches long in some cases.

I did a 30% water change and added Interpet No 9 for internal bacteria, plus two spoons of salt. Next day I added two more spoons of salt. On day four I put in the second dose required of Interpet No 9. Then nothing else and no water changes for the next 8 days. On the day four (after second dose) one of the mollies passed a lot of white gooey stuff and after that he started to come out at feeding time and occasionally take one or two nibbles.

All fish were fine at the end of the 8 days, out from hiding and eating again. Some did however still have a bit of stringy poo. I was therefore advised to do a 25% water change and clean up and redose the medication without salt. This is mainly as a precaution because the disease can come back if it is not "completely" cleared up.

Reason it happened - I did not know at the time buy my pump housing was blocked my pump hardly running at all. My water parameters did not show there was a problem but the pump must have been getting slower and slower over a period of time and therefore the oxygen was getting lower and lower. I believe this is what caused the bad water conditions that kicked in the infection for my fish.

What I have learnt - Fish commonly get ill because of poor water quality. I knew I had not introduced anything new, I did regular water changes and my tests were all good. How could it be poor water quality. It was because of the pump problem. I say don't give up looking there is always a reason, don't just treat the disease, find out why and learn from it.

GOOD LUCK




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[Ami]

Sounds like you've got pop-eye, normally comes as a result of a severe case of dropsy which is an intestinal bacterial infection as Sam said. It's not always poor water quality that can allow the bacteria to take hold, other types of stress (being chased by another fish for example) can also cause it. I had danio's that suffered with it years ago, partly because of their dashing about everywhere but mainly because I didn't know about ammonia etc at the time, so rarely did water changes and never tested.

You'd have thought I learned my lesson but I was a tad lax in the checking stats over xmas, although I did my normaly weekly water changes, so thought everything would be okay. Checked the stats Monday and scared myself silly. Now I've got a beautiful female cherry barb with severe dropsy (major pineconing) and need to keep an extra close eye on the rest of the FW fish just in case. )

It could still be your water just affecting this one fish, but if you've got one with a bacterial infection, others may come down with it as Sam mentioned. If you can, isolate your fish in another tank. Not easy with ID sharks I know. You want to give them as much clean water as possible so do a larger water change if you think you can get away with it. Might also want to raise the temperature to the highest point your fish can take, normally around 28-30c, as this will help clear out their intestines.

Also, follow Sam's advice and get some Interpet 9 - Anti Internal Bacteria. That always worked for my danios when they had pop-eye / dropsy and I'm now trying it on my barb, though I doubt it will do her much good as she's too far gone I fear. If you are able to isolate the shark, give the tank he came from a single dose as well to kill any bacteria in their tank. With dropsy, the bacteria is passed in the urine and poo so it can still cause you problems if you don't treat it. Using a dose of aquarium salt with it will help to increase the effectiveness - but make sure all your fish can take having salt added first.

Oh, and remove any activated carbon from your filter or turn it off if that's your only media whilst you treat the tank, otherwise it will just remove the medication you add.

Good luck, I'll be thinking of you and your poor fish.

Ami