Help Required

[stevensykes]

Sorry to be a pain. My guppy females have been been wobbling from side to side swimming but not going anywhere. This started sunday evening. Went to my lfs where he said it was shimmy. So he said this will treat it (paragon) so i calculated the size of the tank and dosed with the treatment also he said raise the temp so this has been done. Looked at them this morning 2 of the females are by the filter housing and 2 are at the bottom of the gravel. The male guppy isnt looking so good now. Please can you give me any ideas, i dont want to loose them. The water test shows that nitrates,ph,ammonnia etc are fine. Am at my whits end now. There is nothing in the tank to bully them.Tank has been set up since march. Thanks for any advice given.

 

[OldMan47]

What are your water parameters and what is in the shimmy "medicine"? The only thing I have ever seen cure shimmy was to improve the water quality.

 

[leviethan]

hi, you could try a product called prime, it helps with your water levels and replaces slime coat on your fish. How long has your tank been set up? And what are exact water parameters please?

 

[stevensykes]

Update the guppies are recovering well now. They have started swimming in a more normal manner. After i posted this thread i did a 50% water change. Added paragon and interpet anti internal bacterial the day after i did this they were improving. I also raised the tempreature from 24 to 26.

 

[OldMan47]

If you see new deterioration in your fish, do another large water change with appropriate dechlorination. Tyhe antibacterial is not needed unless you have positively identified a disease organism that is bacerial in nature. Most of us do not have access to anything that would tell us that was the case.

Soapbox time: Never use any antibacterial or other similarly focused medication unless it is indicated by the specific disease details. The fish that we have in our tanks are almost always able to shake off any disease with little more help than providing good water and abundant food. If you use medications, you are establishing the conditions necessary for a bacterium to become resistant to medications. After that it is a matter of time before the resistant organism is the one you will need to treat and it will resist whatever medication you are using. It is the reason that I use nothing but salt and elevated temperatures for most disease treatments, especially for things like ich that are known to respond well to such treatments. By avoiding the medication route, my fish all recover well and I do not end up with any resistant strains of various diseases in my tanks. The experience of fish keepers in areas where medications are forbidden to any hobbyist are that diseases are no harder to control than in places where medications can be bought right off the shelf. Do not dose any medication indiscriminately, it is not a good idea, ever.