Red Line Bloated And Guppys With Silver Coating

[pridmorej]

Hi All,

Long time no post which means my tank has been holding up OK, but now I've a problem and wondered if I could ask some advice

I have 4 Red Line Torpedo barbs in my 180l tank and one of them (which I first thought was pregnent) is now definately not well.

His scales on his back are darkened and sticking out. His body is bloated apart from a thin band around his body behind the eyes and his eyes are buldging.

The other problem I've got is several of my Fancy Guppies have a silver coating on their backs. Any idea what that could be?

All fish are still swimming around and feeding - although not as much and they're still swimming normally, i.e. not at funny angles. I can't see any furry stuff or whitespot on them.

Water is OK. Regular changes and a good filter mean my Amonia and Nitrites are 0 and my Nitrates (although I can never get them really low) are pretty normal for my tank at about 20-40ppm. PH is the usual 7.2 and GH the usual and really high 18. (I know, I know, tell me about it. South of England water for you).

So, any ideas what would make the scales stick out and swell the body and cause the silvering?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I don't want any deaths over Christmas!

With kind regards,

Jeremy

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

The scales sticking out is dropsy, the eyes bulging out is pop-eye and the silver coating on the guppys is either velvet or a slime coat disorder.
If you water quality has been good for the last couple of weeks(ammonia and nitrites always 0 and nitrates kept under 40), then i would say you dropsy is either constipation related or internal bacteria- the pop eye is also internal bacteria, but until we can diagnose wether your guppys have velvet or a slime coat disorder, its difficult to say.
Here is an excellant site for ID'ing deseases, i would just post the pics straight off here, but it is probably better that you scroll down and check out velvet, dropsy and pop eye yourself as hopefully it will be more efficient that way ;

http/www.fishpalace.org/Disease.html

For treating the dropsy, you will need to increase the amount of veg you feed the affected fish- things like algae wafers, chopped up peas, blanched cucumber and tomato are all good- your fish may not know what to do with them at first if you havn't fed your fish veg yet, but they will soon eat the veg if you cut down on dried foods like fish flakes or freezedried foods like bloodworms and tubifex .
Alot of fish can live entirely off bog standard fish flakes, but fish flakes often lead to constipation that can bring on other deseases and fish flakes do not offer much in the way of fresh vitamins or fibre etc.
A good med for treating things like pop eye and dropsy is Primafix, which treats internal and external bacterial infections plus fungal ones as well, but its best to add a 70% dose to start off with and gradually increase it to a full dose if the fish seem unaffected by it as it is quite a powerful med. This med will also treat your pop eye too .
If you want to lower nitrates, adding live plants will help alot as plants will naturally absorb them, but be careful as to what plants you get as not all plants sold as aquarium plants in local fish stores, are actually aquarium plants. Here is a link with the basics of plant keeping and buying ;

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=119572

Does the silver coating look much like velvet in the link i gave you?

 

[pridmorej]

Thanks for you help.

From the look of the pictures it is definately dropsy and popeye.

But I can't get teh fish to stand still long enough to get a good photo of the silvering. It doesn't look anything like the pictures of velvet. It is more reflective, like a mirrored finish on the scales. The photo shows nothing more than the colour. I can't get focused on the detail.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

The silvering, if definatly not natural coloring, looks like columnaris to me- i have noticed in the past, guppys who have later become affected with columnaris, have shown the weird sadle back discoloration before getting full on columnaris- your best bet would be to get hold of some Primafix which deal with every fish desease you have currently .
Buying some StressCoat(helps aid the fish's protective slime coat) and some liquid aquarium multi-vitamins/minerals would also be beneficial for your fish's health at this stressful stage .

 

[pridmorej]

Hi All,

Just phoned my LFS to see if they stock Primafix. I was told that Dropsy is not curable and that I'd be wasting my time trying. The best thing I could do would be to take the affected fish out and pop it into the freezer to humanely kill it, but to also use Primafix to stop any further cases occuring.

So, the only consistent thing about seeking advice it that it will always be conflicting!

With no disrespect to Tokis's advice and thanks for taking the time to reply, but can I get a second opinion to support either side? I'd really like to save the fish if possible, but if I can't then I suppose I'll have to take it out. I was told that it will eventually burst and perhaps infect the other fish. I think I'm going to need a hospital tank if I am going to try and save it.

Please let me know ASAP.

With kind regards,

Jeremy

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Dropsy is a hard desease to treat but is treatable, if the fish is eating and swimming well then its a good sign that it may be cured- dropsy can also be brought on by constipation, and constipation is quite easy to treat, so in my opinion its best to treat the tank and give the fish some veg and cut down on dried/high protein foods and see what happens first before you start euthanising fish .
As to humane methods of euthanasia though, freezing isn't very humane on adult fish, the 2 most humane methods of euthanasia on fish are preparing some clove oil and putting the fish in it, or severing the spinal cord and destroying the fish's brain with a knife or hammer.
If you feel you need more peoples opinions on this though thats cool though B) .

 

[pridmorej]

Thanks for your understanding Tokis.

I don't really want to start killing my fish off. From the photo above, the fish is not looking in a good way though. But, it did just try to evade netting with enough enthusisam to make me change my mind about taking it out.

I'm going to give the Primafix a couple of days and if I see a reduction in the 'pine-coning' I'll continue. The last thing I want is to loose a large number of my fish again!

I think the root of my problem is not being able to get my Nitrates down enough. I have plants, bog wood and regularly replace the green nitrate sponge in my filter as well as doing regular 25% water changes each week, but can never get it down to 10 or 20.

I think the only option I've got left is to try cutting down the amount of food I give them. ATM I give them a couple of cubes of frozen food a day and on the other days give them a pinch of flake and a couple of other dry types of food. Little balls - one green, the other dark green (I think - colourblind!). I have about 25 various fish in the tank BTW - so I don't think I'm over feeding them.

OK - off to the LFS with a water sample.

Wish me luck!

Jeremy

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Good luck with your fish , also when you get your water tested, ask for the exact results for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates . Test your tap water for nitrates as well, as your tap water may naturally contain high nitrates straight out of the tap- either way though, your nitrates should be fine for your fish as long as they are kept under 40 .

 

[sylvia]

While you're at it, lower the temp to 75-76 deg F and that should make a huge difference for the columnaris and a little difference to the dropsy. If you have no scaless fish, a little aquarium salt may also be of benefit - particularly to the guppies. Lots of water changes - and large ones at that - are also very important to keep the water quality excellent.

Increasing the amount of veg. you feed your fish is still good for their health but is unlikely to help the fish with dropsy. Considering it's the nly fish suffering from it and it has both dropsy and pop-eye, it sounds like the fish is suffering from an internal bacterial infection and that this brought the symptoms on. Your fish probably wont make it if it is at this stage but any strong antibiotic could help - at least it would the remaining fish. Having said that, many antibiotics will mess with your biological filtration so consider isolating the very sick torpedo and treating it seperately from the columnaris. If you can get some medicated food or mix your own, that would likely prove more effective: http/www.fishdoc.co.uk/treatments/medicatedfood.htm

Here's a bit of info on pop-eye and dropsy: http/www.fishpalace.org/danscomments.html#Popeye
http/www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/hddropsy.htm

and look here if you're not sure about the diagnosis: http/www.fishpalace.org/Disease.html

Here, also, is a good link on columnaris: http/www.flippersandfins.net/flexibacter.htm

One last thing - I agree absolutely with tokis on the euthanasia. Clove oil or destroying the brain are the only two truly humane methods that we fishkeepers can use. However, if you use clove oil, leave the fish in the clove oil for at least an hour afterwards - you don't want it recovering when you take it out and dying slowly of suffocation. Alternatively, having used the clove oil, also destroy the brain so there's no chance of recovery.

 

[pridmorej]

Good idea on the temperature. My temp is normally between 78-80.

I'm going to take the fish out and try to treat it, but the LFS really didn't want to sell me the Primafix.

What is the difference between Primafix and Melafix?

I add a capful of Melafix each water change. Is this too much? Could it have lowered their immune system?

Thanks.

Jeremy

 

[sylvia]

Melafix doesn't realy do anything as it's just some plant extract with something like 0.1% active ingredients (can't remember exactly the number). It does help calm fish down though and has that tiny bit of an anti-bacterial in it which, I suppose, may be a little beneficial. The downside is that it reduces the oxygen concentration in the water but I doubt this caused your problem. One capfull is about right for 20 gallons if I recall correctly so it's fine for your tank (which is about 45 gallons).
Why didn't your LFS want to sell you the pimafix? Try again with a different antibiotic or something .

 

[pridmorej]

OK. I know know why they are called Torpedos!!!

I've set up a hospital tank with several litres of water from the main tank and a heater.

I've now just spent the past 10 minutes trying to catch the thing without demolishing my tank or killing the other fish.

He's now hiding under one of the plants pretty stressed out. So I think I'll leave him for a while.

Damn he's quick. Almost as quick as my Plec whose equally as annoyed by my fumblings!

I'll go to another LFS tomorrow and get some Primafix, now that I've seen it and know what it is.

At least with the seperate tank, if the Torpedo does keal over he won't infect the other fish.

As for the velvet, I'm not sure it is that anymore. Having seen some more of these fish back at the LFS it looks like the silvering is particular to that strain of Guppy. Strange how I never noticed it before. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid because of the Dropsy.

Thanks for your help guys and gals.

Jeremy

 

[pridmorej]

Interesting link there Sylvia. The dropsy link mentions Interpet#9 and Octozin.

Anyone know if these are the same/better/worse than Primafix?

Thanks again

Jeremy