Pop Eye In Silver Sharks

[SirK]

HI all i have a juwel 180litre tank with internal filter which has been up and running for just over a year now. i recently added 2 silver sharks to go with the other 2 i have in the tank after being told they should be kept in 3's or more. One of the silver sharks eyes started to "pop out" after 2 days he was fine before that and the following morning he was dead i have just gone to feed them and found the second new one dead with the same thing. I have searched the fourm and found some very good links i guess my question is, is this likley to kill my other 2 silver sharks both of which i have had since babies. I started a course of Myxazin yesterday and plan on doing a 30% water change today although my api testng kit says everything is fine.

Thanks in advance

 

[rabbut]

If it is pop-eye, Myxazin isn't going to be strong enough Can you post a pic? I would use the interpet med for this type of ailment, but there are other options depending on where you are based. Can you post the country and county/state you are in, to help us make meds recomendations please, if they are needed. Also can you give us;

Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate
pH

All with numerical values and based on results from a liquid drop test kit

Thanks
Rabbut

 

[SirK]

If it is pop-eye, Myxazin isn't going to be strong enough Can you post a pic? I would use the interpet med for this type of ailment, but there are other options depending on where you are based. Can you post the country and county/state you are in, to help us make meds recomendations please, if they are needed. Also can you give us;

Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate
pH

All with numerical values and based on results from a liquid drop test kit

Thanks
Rabbut

I would post a pic but both of the new silver sharks are now dead and returned to the shop for a refund. I am in the UK kent from the tests i did today the results are as follow

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitriate 0ppm
Nitrite .25 ppm

ph is 7.2

these seem fine to me and my tank has been this way for approx 4 months (bit of a geek keep a spreed sheet on it )I am just worried about this posibly spreading to my other fish.

thanks

 

[rabbut]

Dropsy is contagious, but also usually secondary IME, some other stressing factor caurses it Is 0.25ppm the lowest your nitrite kit reads, and is this a constant result. If 0.25 isn't the lowest the kit does, can you give me a brand name please, as any nitrite reading other than zero should be ringing alarm bells. Also, that spreadsheet could be useful. Could you post your data for the last 4 weeks, with all the details you have recorded. This could help identify the caurse of the issue, so that can be remadies on top of the origional issue of the infection also.

At this point, if no fish are showing symptoms, I wouldn't treat anything personally. End the caurse of Myxazin and do some gererously sized (say 30-50%) water changes over the nest few days to clear the meds. If it comes back, you then has a system thats ready for any treatment that may (though hopefully won't) need it, rather than having to wait as the fast moving infection spreads, while carbon removes the med for you, making a med change safe...

All the best
Rabbut

 

[SirK]

hi ya

well the test kit i have been using is the API test kit, the kit reads from 0ppm all the way to 5ppm my results from the last 4 weeks are all between 0-0.25ppm for nitrite and 0 on the ammonia and nitrates. I think the pop eye comes from the newly introduced silver sharks but at persent none of my other fish are showing signs of ill health. I did a 30% water change today and shall be doing the same thing for the next 2-3days. Is there an incubation peroid for this diease and if so how long is it.

Thanking you for all your help so far Rabbut

 

[rabbut]

The API kit should always give a zero reading for nitrite.... The constant fluctuations of this reading tells me that something isn't right.. What filter are you using, what media are you using in it and how often is it cleaned, and how do you clean it when you do??? Sorry for all the questions, but a dodgy filter/media/maintanance is the most likey caurse of raised levels of nitrite in a mature tank IME.

It could take upto 3 weeks for symptoms to re-surface, though the disease never "incubates" in the traditional sence of the word, so you need to be vidulant for a fair while. Once symptoms show though, it is often hard to cure the ailing fish. Treatment for this basically kills the infection while it isn't caursing symptoms in infected fish, and prevents it spreading to fish that aren't infected

Do you get any ammonia or nitrite in the tap water?

All the best
Rabbut