Is He Ill?

[Colin_T]

hi sorry to butt in but i have had a similar issue with my thread fin acara and recently seen it on my JD the only symptoms i have seem are the ripped fins nothing else is this similar to the problem in hand

This sounds like aggression from the other fish nipping at their fins. It could be happening at night or when you aren't home. The fish gets nipped by one of the tank mates and the fins look tattered and frayed. Then they heal up and a few days later it happens again. It could be any of the fish in the tank and is quite common in cichlid tanks.
The other cause would be a minor bacterial infection that keeps flaring up. If the tank is clean and well filtered, and the fish fed a varied diet then they should be able to fight off any minor infections without the need to treat them. If the fish are really old then their immune system will be going downhill and that would leave them susceptible to minor infections that don't heal up properly.

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For Jimbo

The keyhole looks all right although a bit slim around the belly region and appears to have intestinal thread worms. Just treat the tank with an intestinal wormer and see how it goes.
Stop using the other medications because it will make the problem worse. In fact there is already a possibility the fish is an addict from all the previous medications you have used. After the worm treatment you should not add any other medication and just leave the fish to settle down. If it is addicted to medication it will look and act like crap for a few weeks and then gradually recover. After a month or so it should be looking and acting normal again.
Myxazin and Protozxin do the same thing and kill bacteria, fungus and skin parasites. Myxazin is safer for use with scaleless fishes and inverts.
Run the Flubenol and make sure you are treating the tank for the correct amount of water.

To work out the volume of water in the tank
measure Length x Width x Height in cm
divide by 1000
equals volume in litres

When measuring the height, measure from the top of the gravel to the top of the water level. If you have big rocks or driftwood in the tank, remove them before measuring the height.

Before you treat the tank do a 50% water change and complete gravel clean. This will reduce the gunk in the tank and allow the medication to work more effectively. It will also lower the pathogen count in the water and mean there are less nasties around to infect the fish.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating otherwise it will absorb the medication out of the water. Also clean the filter if it hasn’t been done in the last month.

The ripped fins are probably from the flying fox nipping at him during the night. Both fish (keyhole and fox) are bottom dwellers and if the keyhole gets too close to the flying fox he could be chased away. The white stuff that is coming off him is probably excess mucous and that is either caused by poor water quality or chemical poisoning. But anything that stresses the fish will cause it to produce more mucous and this will slough off as white slime or filament. The stress could also be from harassment and or the intestinal worms. The worms suck the life out of the fish and weaken it leaving it susceptible to other problems. Also it won’t be absorbing the nutrients from its food very effectively and this adds to the problem.
If the fish had an internal bacterial infection it would have puffed up (bloated) and gone off its food. It would also do a stringy white or pale coloured poo and usually die within a week or two of developing the infection.

Feed the fish several times a day with frozen and live food. This will give the fish more food to digest and hopefully it will be able to absorb a little more nourishment, thus keeping it a bit healthier. When the worms have been killed off the fish should start to improve. However, if there are lots of worms or the worms have caused significant scarring to the intestinal wall, the fish may never be able to digest food properly and will always suffer from malnutrition and look unwell.

 

[Jimbo1984]

Hi, thanks for all that Colin.

So should I do an extra 50% water change even though there's flubenol active in the system and then add more? I dosed some more last night as the instructions state up to 10 times the normal dose can be used, along with some Myxazin.

Also don't add any more Myxazin?

 

[Jimbo1984]

Is it possible Seachem Prime, Flourish and Flourish Excel would cause skin irritation? I dose Prime double bottle dose at water changes, Flourish weekly after a water change and Flourish Excel daily/every other day.

 

[Colin_T]

Don't do a water change until you are meant to while treating with the Flubenol. I don't know what the treatment regime or directions are but most wormers are added once a week for several weeks. The active ingredient usually only works for a day or two and then starts to break down in the water. However, that is normally enough time to kill the adult parasites. Then a week later you re-treat the tank to kill off any young that have hatched out.

If the Flubenol can be used safely at 10x the normal dose rate, and the worms do not appear to be coming out, then increase the dose next time you treat the tank. Just do a big water change before you treat to get rid of as many free floating organisms in the tank and as much gunk out of the gravel. The cleaner the tank the more effective medications work.
Sometimes if the worms have been exposed to low doses of medications they can develop a resistance to it. Increasing the dose to maximum strength will usually kill off any of the parasites.

I wouldn't treat with Myxazin yet. Wait and see how the Flubenol works and if the fish develops a bacterial or fungal infection, then treat it. Otherwise don't use it.

 

[foley69]

that may bne right but the JD has torn fins and he litrally ownes the tank i still geta nitrite reading but im going to let the bacteria do the job over that and do a water change i have added some mature media from my other tank to the fluval 4 just to speed the cycle up in that due to it being a fairly new filter due to the fact i never thought my 205 was good enough... other than that all that i see is damaged fins they look teared and holes in them they heal upa bit then come back i am thinking of adding some anti bacterial meds but not until i have the nitrite back down to normal the fish in the tank are still young the biggest being 4" which is the thread fin

 

[Jimbo1984]

Ok, to update, I just found a strange gooey clump stuck to the filter inlet so I turned the filter off and fished it out with a net. It's hard to describe but I have a feeling it's something keyhole's passed. He also appears to have no more swelling around the anus which is good. It looked a bit bloody and had what appeared to be disintegrating worms in it. A truly disgusting thing to be honest. I've never seen anything like that in the tank before so can only presume it's the worms coming out. I thought about taking a photo but decided against it. Gone down the sink now... Does this sound like what I think it was? He's still quite dormant in the day but out and about in the evening and eating.

 

[WILDER]

The flubenol will kill the worms.
It does sound gross but the fish will be better for not having them inside them.
Good Luck.

 

[Jimbo1984]

Also, what do you think caused these worms?

 

[Colin_T]

Most fish carry intestinal worms but they don't often show up. They get the worms when they are kept in outdoor ponds in Asia or when they are fed live foods like daphnia that are collected from ponds where water birds and snails live. They can also catch them from an infected fish that is introduced into their tank.

Quarantining all new fish and deworming them before they go in the display tank will prevent most problems like this from occurring.

 

[Jimbo1984]

Interesting...

He seems to be doing ok. Eager to accept food still. I only feed the fish once a day on Tetra Pro Crisps with alternating frozen bloodworm and brineshrimp once a week. I've fed frozen food more frequently recently as he is particularly fond of it. It's quite funny to watch actually. I defrost the block in a small net in the tank, then release a bit at a time. All the other fish keep a safe distance but he just dives in, actually swimming in the net to get at the food!

Anyway, is once a day enough for the food?

Also is it worth doing a mid-week dose of flubenol?

Lastly, still doing a lot of scraping/flicking. What do you think is the cause of this?

Thanks!

 

[Colin_T]

feeding adult fish once a day is usually fine. I feed dry food first and then add some frozen or live food after. That way the greedy fish get to fill up on dry food and the slower feeding and often more delicate fishes can eat the frozen food.
Frozen food should be fed 3 or more times a week. For optimum health it should be given each day. However, frozen food will cause the water quality to deteriorate a lot quicker than dry food so you must monitor the water quality and do more water changes if required.

Unless the directions on the Flubenol recommend doing a mid week treatment, just do it once a week for a few weeks. It takes most worm eggs a few days (or more) to hatch and it takes a week or two for the worms to mature and be able to produce more eggs. Therefore a weekly dosing regime is sufficient to kill off any newly hatched worm larvae and kill them before they can mature and produce more eggs.

Wait until you have finished the Flubenol treatment and then see how the flicking/ scraping is. If the scratching gets significantly worse over the next week or so then think about treating for external skin parasites. But I am pretty sure Flubenol kills a lot of skin parasites as well as intestinal worms.

 

[Jimbo1984]

Thanks once again. I thought you were only meant to feed frozen food once a week due to its high protein content? Is that what causes more waste production?

 

[Jimbo1984]

Also are any of the additives i've listed likely to cause skin irritation?

 

[Colin_T]

Any medication or chemical (except pure dechlorinator) that you add to the tank can cause skin irritation. It can also be caused by chemical contamination when you put your hands in the tank, when you use a gravel cleaner to do water changes, or when you are filling the tank back up with a potentially contaminated bucket.

Frozen foods will usually cause a higher ammonia reading and subsequently higher nitrate levels in the tank, but they don't make the fish produce more waste. The fish will only produce an amount of waste that equates to the indigestible parts of the food they eat. It doesn't matter if they eat a spoonful of dry food or a spoonful of frozen or live food. If the food is good quality it will be digested more efficiently and produce less waste. If the food has lots of fibre in, there will be more waste. Generally with most small to medium sized fish, the food fed doesn't really make a lot of difference to the amount of waste produced. Bigger fish like Oscars and Plecostomus are different and produce heaps of waste, especially with high fibre foods.

 

[Jimbo1984]

Ahhhh. You know your stuff! Where'd you learn all this?

So why a higher ammonia reading with frozen foods?

By the way, i've just come in and I think he might've lost a bit more weight.