Sick Female Swordtail

[fwells2]

Having a few problems with my new fish. first off 4 of my neon's got eaten now one of my swordtails is sick. I have a spotted molly in the tank which seemed to be bullying the swordtail by chasing her around the tank. This morning the swordtail lloked quite stressed, staying at the back of the tank, not going to the surface at feeding time etc. So i bought a breeding tank and put her and the male swordtail in together to keep the other fish away and hopefully calm her down. Although sadly it seems she has gone from bad to worse. I noticed her face looks like it has been nipped, her mouth is open and recently she has started to lay on her side and not move for periods of time. she occassionally gets up and swims about and her balance seems okay, but in a breeding tank its hard to tell. She has now developed a red sore on the top of her head, like she has been hit by soemthing.

Has she got some kind of illness or is it a sad result of bullying? She doesn't seem like she has long left, is there anything i can do to help her?

Any help would be gratefully appreciated

 

[WILDER]

Bless her, need size of tank, full stock of fish of how many and which type, plus water stats in ammonia,nitrite,nitrate, and ph, laying to one side isn't good news sorry, the sore on the head does it have a circling of white around it, can you describe it in more detail please.

 

[fwells2]

tank is 2'x1'x1' and slightly over stocked. contains:
1 gourami
2 rainbows (not sharks)
2 swordtails
4 rosy tetras
3 redtailed tetras
1 plec
4 mollies

ammonia 0, nitrite 0.1 nitrate 45 pH 7.8

no white circle, just looks like a pressure wound. its on the top of her head. also noticed her fins have little red dots on them but i cant remember if they were there before

She's acting very strange. one minute she isnt moving on the bottom of the tank, the next shes swimming frantically then suddenly stop dead and sinks back to the bottom. could this be stress induced?

now she has managed to flip herself out of the breeding tank and is laying on the bottom of the normal tank... i don't know if i should move her back into the breeding one or leave her alone

 

[WILDER]

Do a water change as you have a slight nitrite reading, sorry she not sound good with the red dots on the fins as this is septicemia.

Not the writer of this information below.
I'm not the writer of this article.

Tail and fin rot can be prevented by keeping ammonia and nitrite levels low, adding salt at regular intervals, and quarantine of new fish. Guppies are particularly susceptible to this disease, and you will first recognize it as a ragged edge on the tail fin. Healthy adult tail fins should have a fairly straight edge, though sometimes adolescents will have temporary ragged fins due to uneven growth. As the disease progresses, the other fins become ragged, and the fins develop a white (sometimes though not always, fuzzy) margin. Sometimes, the fins will also develop red bloodspots. If the disease is allowed to continue, your guppies will die. In most species of fish this disease is a combination of bacteria and fungus on the fins themselves, however guppies tend towards acquiring an internal bacterial infection which spreads to the fins. You may try the salt treatment (instructions given later), as this sometimes does the trick. If that doesn't work, an antibiotic such as tetracycline can be used. Let your pet shop help you. They will specifically need to know if you use a bio-filter as many antibiotics will kill your filter.


http/healthybetta.com/articles/Illness%2...sis/finrot.html

Red spots on skin can be caused by:
Regarding the small red dot, small pinprick like haemorrhages (called petechiae) can be due to a local lesion, a generalised septicaemia or toxaemia caused by acute viral and bacterial infections.

 

[fwells2]

thanks very much for your help but i'm afraid she's already passed away the male swordtail seems a little bit lost without her and keeps swimming by her body.

Is septicemia contagious? I don't want the other fish catching anything off her

 

[WILDER]

It can be if they peck at the body of the fish so ge her out fast, do some water changes for a few days on the tank, bless him usually 2 females to one male in livebearers, sorry for your loss bless her. R.I.P.

 

[fwells2]

thanks for your help, i'll make sure I do some water changes. Will have to get him 2 female friends in a week or two to make him feel better! poor little swordtail

thanks again for your quick reply

 

[WILDER]

Sorry wish it was a better ending, good luck.

 

[rEvolution27]

Sorry wish it was a better ending, good luck.

Sorry about your loss. It is sad when you loose a fish.
I have a lonely swordtail too... make sure you get some good mates for him. they're very sociall fish.

Sorry to take over but i didn't want to start a new thread. i still don't know the cause of my tank epidemic. i lost my two angelfish and now the swordtail is all i have. It can't be ammonia because i do very frequent water changes and have filter inserts to remove ammonia nitrates and nitrites. The tank has to have cycled after so long anyway.

I've had swordtail since the start, he had outlived both the tank epidemics. I think he is immune, but may be a carrier. He has a small whitish/creamish patch at the base of his tail, doesn't look like finrot, ich or velvet. Many be a cotton infection? but it's not spreading, nor does it seem to bother him much. Should i use a cotton swab to take it put?

 

[WILDER]

If he's not flicking and rubbing against objects i would treat it as a bacterial infection like columnaris.

As columnaris has many diguises that can come in patch forms.
http/article.discusnews.com/cat-02/columnaries.shtml

 

[rEvolution27]

Would you recommendsalt dips? The only thing seemingly wrong with him is that he seems a bit lazy (less active than usuall)

 

[WILDER]

Would you recommendsalt dips? The only thing seemingly wrong with him is that he seems a bit lazy (less active than usuall)

You need a bacterial med, if the fish is acting sluggish there in definately something wrong, try anti internal bacteria med by interpet.

 

[rEvolution27]

Would you recommendsalt dips? The only thing seemingly wrong with him is that he seems a bit lazy (less active than usuall)

You need a bacterial med, if the fish is acting sluggish there in definately something wrong, try anti internal bacteria med by interpet.

Ok i couldn't get interpet but i got aquari-sol by aquarium products. It's an antibacterial. I put in the recommended doseage and he's moving around alot more and flaring out his fins (but the temp has also wormed up to 79 so that may be the cause)
my hopefully last question is will this medicine hurt my apple snails?

 

[rEvolution27]

Glad to say all my fish are doing fine.

As for the snails, there was no worning on the box the meds came in but after noticing today that my snails hadn't moved since morning, i looked at the bottle which sure enough said DO NO USE ON INVERTIBRATES OR AMPHIBIANS so i quickly put them into a container and they started to move immediately. I think that's more proof that snails apple snails are more higly evolved than humans.

 

[WILDER]

Glad they are ok, good luck.