Blood parrot pale, not eating not pooping for at least 1 month.

[Jnikki66]

Hello. I have a blood parrot fish that has not been eating and is getting worse. I'd been away for a while and my mother was feeding him. When I came back, I saw my parrot fish pale, lethargic and he had pop eye on the left eye and my mom says he hasn't eaten in around a month, maybe even 2, he just won't eat the food. There is also redness at the base of the pectoral fins. I don't believe he has been pooping either. As of yesterday, he is sort of loosing balance while swimming and sort of bobbling as he swims. He just drifts around and bumps into things as he swims now. There is a large bell for hiding that he used to love going into and now, he no longer cares to go inside. This fish is at least 10 years old and has survived hole in the head quite a few times and has always been very strong (he was originally my dad's until he moved away). Since I've been back, I've doing 25% water changes every other week. I did a 50% water change about a week ago and cleaned the filter and tank ornament. I've tried medicating the tank first with kanaplex and after about a week and a half of no change, I tried polyguard which seemed to get rid of the popeye before it came back on the opposite eye a few weeks later. I stopped the polyguard and am now using a combo of metro plus and kanaplex. I've only used this combo for two days now. I've also tried switching pellets. My mom says this began when we ran out of the Spectrum pellets he used to love. I've since bought another bottle of the Spectrum pellets and no luck. I've also bought Northfin cichlid pellets which just turned into mud in the water and now feeding Cobalt Aquatics cichlid small pellets. The pellets just sink and he ignores them. There is also another parrot in the tank and he ends up eating what's left. They have co existed together for years and are about the same age. I am at my wits end and don't want to lose this fish, but I dont know what this is, wondering if septicemia is possible because of redness on pectoral fins. I want to upload a photo but it keeps saying uploaded file too large for server to process.

Here are the tank parameters:

1. 
   Tank size: 35 gallon
   pH: 7.2
   ammonia: 0 ppm
   nitrite: 0 ppm
   nitrate: 0 ppm
   kH: ?
   gH: ?
   tank temp: 75°

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior):
Small "pimples" that come and go on face, pale washed out color, redness at base of pectoral fins, slight pop eye on left eye, bobbly movements while swimming, lethargic, refuses to eat, not pooping. The crater on his head is from hole in the head disease from years ago.

Volume and Frequency of water changes: 25% every other week, then every 2 weeks. Last week however, I did 50% water change plus cleaned canister filter.

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: No media.

1. 
   Tank inhabitants: 1 other blood parrot (2 fish total.)
   
   Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): None
   
   Exposure to chemicals: Alkaline buffer to adjust ph. Antibiotics: Kanaplex, Polyguard, Metro plus. Garlic guard mixed with pellets.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Any chance of a picture and short 30 second video of the fish?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

If the video is too big for this website, post it on YouTube and copy & paste the link here. We can view it at YouTube. If you are using a mobile phone to take the video, have the phone horizontal so the video takes up the entire screen. If you have the phone vertical, you get video in the middle and black on either side.

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Hole in the head and pop eye are usually caused by a dirty environment.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a couple of weeks or until the problem is identified or resolved.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. Wash filter media in a bucket of tank water and re-use it.

 

[Jnikki66]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Any chance of a picture and short 30 second video of the fish?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

If the video is too big for this website, post it on YouTube and copy & paste the link here. We can view it at YouTube. If you are using a mobile phone to take the video, have the phone horizontal so the video takes up the entire screen. If you have the phone vertical, you get video in the middle and black on either side.

----------------------------
Hole in the head and pop eye are usually caused by a dirty environment.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a couple of weeks or until the problem is identified or resolved.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. Wash filter media in a bucket of tank water and re-use it.

Hello, thank you for replying. I managed to add 3 pictures of the parrot fish. I hope they are clear. The tank has no gravel, but how often should the 75% water change be done? Once weekly for a few weeks? The water used in the tank is R/O water from the fish store, we fill up containers at the store and bring them home to do the water changes. The ph is slightly off, but all other levels are normal according to the testing kit I have. I've been using buffer to try to get the levels to around 7.2 Should I continue with the metro plus and kanaplex? I've tried leaving him alone with no antibiotics and he got worse. Also, any advice on how to get him to eat a little? I've tried blood worms as well as soaking pellet food in garlic guard, but no luck....

 

[Colin_T]

Try doing a 75% water change every day for a week.

Why do you use reverse osmosis (R/O) water?
If your tap water is clean you should be able to use that. Possibly even half R/O and half tap water depending on what the GH of the tap water is.

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If you have problems with the pH dropping below 7.0, that is caused by the R/O water, which should have no minerals in. You can add a piece of limestone rock or some shells or dead coral skeleton to the tank or filter and these will help buffer the pH and stop it dropping.

If the pH is higher than 7.0 and you add something to drop it, then perhaps stop doing that and check the R/O water because that should have a pH of 7.0.

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If the Kanaplex (Kanamycin) did not work the first time, there is no point using it again because it has no effect on the fish.

Metro Plus contains Metronidazole and a few other things and won't do anything unless the fish has an internal protozoan infection, which it might have but we need to know what the poop is like. And if it isn't pooping, we can't tell.

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What sort of filter is on the tank?
How often do you clean the filter?
How do you clean the filter?
What filter media/ materials are in the filter?

If you have carbon (black granules) in the filter, this should be removed before medicating because it removes the medication from the water.

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You can try feeding the fish some live brineshrimp, available from most pet shops.

You can try raw or cooked prawn/ shrimp. Buy some frozen prawns from a fishing store (bait freezer) or from a supermarket and keep them in your freezer. Take out one prawn and defrost it. Remove the head, shell and gut (thin black tube in body) and throw these bits away. Use a pair of scissors to cut the remaining prawn tail into small pieces and offer one or two bits at a time.

You can get a sewing needle and thread and have the thread about 2 foot long. Tie a couple of small knots in the end of the thread. Cut a piece of prawn and push the needle through the prawn and slide the piece of prawn along the thread until it gets to the end. The knot should stop the prawn falling off when it goes in the water, but the fish should be able to pull the prawn off the string without any problems.

You can lower the piece of prawn into the water and hold the needle, then gently move the prawn up and down a little bit to attract the fish. If the fish grabs the food and pulls it away from the string, that is great. The fish still has an interest in food. If the fish ignores the prawn or live brineshrimp, then it's an issue.

Feed the other fish before adding live brineshrimp otherwise it will eat them all and the sick fish won't get them.

Turn the filter off for 5 minutes when feeding live brineshrimp so they don't get sucked into it.