Sick fish

[eudielynn]

Two days ago, I noticed something hanging from the "chin" area of my betta. I thought maybe he had eaten some tubiflex worms that had come back out thru his gills and was hanging there. He is in a 20 gal community tank (came from one at the store and has always been fine in mine) and I had trouble catching him to check him out. While I was trying to net him whatever it was disappeared. Didn't think anymore about it although I checked on him several times that evening. The next morning it was back. I tried to catch him, but he was more determined than ever not to be caught. I was running late for work and since he seemed to be eating and swimming fine, I decided to wait until that evening to get him out.

I posted on the betta forum and was told it could possibly be a parasite like gill flukes or anchor worms. I went home last night, finally caught him and put him in the water changing bowl I use for my other bettas, with a touch of salt. I observed him for about 5 hours and could see nothing. The "thing" was gone and there was no redness around the gills, no labored breathing, no rubbing on anything, just a few stress bars from being taken out of his tank.

He was stressing so bad, I put him back in the tank before I went to bed since there did not seem to be anything wrong.

This morning he was hiding when I first turned the light on which is not like him, he ususally comes right out for his pellets. Then I noticed my blue dwarf gourami had a long stringy white poo. When my betta finally came out he also had long stringy white poo.

I know I need to treat the entire tank now since they both are showing symptoms, but I need to be really careful because of the other tank occupants. I don't want to kill them by treating the betta and gourami. Any suggestions what I could use that would treat them but still be safe?

My 20 gal tank has an UGF with no carbon.

Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 0
Amonia - 0
Ph - 7
Temp - normally 77; raised it to 78 last night and turned it up another degree before I left home this morning.

Contains
1 betta
1 golden gouarmi
2 dwarf gouarmis
2 female guppies
6 zebra danios
4 otos
3 ADF's
5 ghost shrimp
1 apple snail

Thank you in advance for any help or advice.

 

[black angel]

the first thing that struck me is that you have no nitrates. how old is the tank and what levels of nitrate do you have from the tap water?
have you recently added anything to your tank before the symptoms started. from the poo i would think a bacterial infection but with the adf and snail i dont know any treatment unless you can move them.

 

[eudielynn]

I've never checked the levels in the tap water, just in the tank. ) Never thought about checking it in the tap water. The tank finished cycling the first part of February.

I have a 2 gal tank with a betta and a snail in it, it is heated, but does not have a filter in it. I know I could move the other snail in there, but I don't know about the betta and the frogs, since he killed and ate the ghost shrimp I put in with him. I do have a 1 gal kritter keeper I could put the frogs in but it doesn't have a filter or heater so I'm not sure how they would do in there.

I will recheck my nitrates when I get home tonight. Can you recommend something good for bacterial infections. I have a really great LFS that will help me out I'm sure, but I'd like to have an idea of what I'm looking for when I go in there tonight.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I second that too, if you have no nitrates, from what i have gathered, somthing is amiss in the water in the bacterial cycle; try remember if you've changed anything recently in your tank regime if the tank has been set up for a while because some things can cause the tank to mini cycle.
The white poo i would have said is an internal bacterial infection.

Im not sure on which meds are safe to use with your particular tank occupants, but most good meds will state that unless otherwise; i would suggest using "anti internal bacteria" by interpet, i've checked roughly on the leaflet and it doesn't state anything about snails and shrimp(although don't totally quote me on that) and i know when i've used it in the past it hasn't affected my snails in my tank although they are just ordinary pest snails, so...

If you can't see what was stuck to your betta earlier i would leave treating it until you know for sure what it was, hopefully whatever it was has now disapeared fingers crossed.
How long have you had your betta?

 

[eudielynn]

I will definately recheck the nitrates. I live in a small town with crappy water that's either brown, or has chlorine in it so strong it will make your eyes water when you turn on the tap, so I always declorinate and then age the water overnight before I do my water changes, but you never know.

I am a fanatic about water changes and gravel vacuuming and the water is crystal clear. Could I be keeping it too clean and causing problems with the bacteria?

The only other thing I can think of right now is that I started giving them the tubiflex worms. I had never fed them those before.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

How exactlt do you go about your tank cleaning regime and how often do you do it?
Things i know for sure that can cause mini cycles are;
a. Washing your filter media/sponge in un-dechlorinated water when you clean it.
b. Doing 100% water changes.
c. Cleaing your filter out too regually(like more than once every 10days)
d. leaving the filter turned off for long long when doing tank maitanence(if you turn your filter off at all) i.e more than 10mins.
e. Cleaning the filter media/sponge out too much; when you clean it, it is best to do it in water from water changes and to just remove the worst of the waste in it, you should never clean it sparkling clean.
Some people(those who have 2 sponges+ in their filters) just clean out one of the sponges leaving one dirty.

There are more, but these are just an example.

 

[eudielynn]

I have an UGF filter in the tank with no carbon. I do water changes every Wednesday and Saturday on all my tanks. The 20 gal gets about 10 % changed on Wednesdays and 20-25% on Saturdays. I vacuum the gravel with both changes, but on Wednesday I just vacuum the front surface area, on Saturdays I take out the rock arch, fake stump and a couple of other decorations so that I can do a better job. I have never done 100% change in the tank, and did a 50% change about six weeks ago (I had an overfeeding accident. Left the open flakes on top of the tank when I went to answer the phone. I came back and it was floating in the tank).

I always use declorinated water to clean decorations. I have left the filter off for more than 10 minutes though. Usually on Saturdays when I do my major cleaning it takes about 15 or 20 minutes.

I don't have any sponge and my filter media is gravel, so maybe I am overcleaning it.

Edit: Oops, missed the question in the previous post about how long I'd had Jericho. He was my first betta and I got him on 2/14/05. He had a slight case of ich and shredded fins from being in with neon tetras when I got him, but he had recovered nicely and hasn't shown any signs of illness at all in the last few months.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Ah, sorry when i said sponge/media i meant wether you had an ordinary sponge filter or one with carbon in it, anyways...

Leaving the filter off for so long could have caused a mini cycle- i know i have made that mistake in the past. The good bacteria in your filter which deals with all the waste needs to have running water to survive and so when you turn if off for long periods of time the bacteria starts to die off meaning that your filter isn't as capable of dealing with the waste in the tank.
When i clean out my main tank what i do is fill a bucket up with water from a water change in the tank and then quickly give the filter sponge a quick wash in the water and then set it back in the tank straight away before continuing with the water change or any other tank maintanence im doing; i clean the filter once a fortnight.
If im doing a large water change but not cleaning the filter but the water level isn't higher enough to run the filter in i just take it out a leave it one in a bucket filled with water from the tank before moving it back into the tank afterwards and hey presto, i havn't lost any good bacteria .

I would give you more advice about water quality but its not realy my area and its probably better to wait til somone else posts; other than that im sure if you follow what i do with my filter your filter should be ok.
The only other thing i'd be worried about in the tank water quality is you said your water in your area is very high in chlorine; are you positive you are using enough dechlorinator? come to think of it, if you aern't using enough that could also cause a mini cycle/water problems..

I would treat the tank with the Interpet med i mentioned earlier although make sure to double check it on the packet as i only had the leaflet in mine and not the packet so im not positive it says otherwise about using it with your more unusual tank mates like shrimp.

 

[eudielynn]

Neither, no sponge, no carbon. I have an undergravel filter, and I took out the carbon when I was told that I didn't really need it and that it would leach impurities back into the water after a period of time. I keep extra carbon packs in case I need it to clean meds out of the tank, but I don't use it on a regular basis. My gravel is my filter media.

I just unplug the pump when I do the water changes. I don't do anything else other than just vacuum and change the water. I do take some of the decoarations out of the tank to clean it better, but unless they're gross I don't even clean them off. I just put them back in when I'm done cleaning. Even if I do clean them I use tank or declorinated water.

You could be right about the water being so chlorinated though. I hadn't thought about that. The chlorine is so strong some days that I would swear I was at a public swimming pool. Maybe I do need to use more declorinator.

Anyone experienced chlorine problems before?

 

[WILDER]

Can you see anything attached to the fish, did the long stringy thing disappear, are they flicking and rubbing, heavy breathing, red inflamed gills or pale gills, white stringy poo can be internal parasites, is the bum inflamed,can you see anything prutruding from the anus.

 

[eudielynn]

Just the white stringy poo. Nothing else. They both seem to be swimming fine, no flicking or rubbing, no labored breathing. The long stringy things came off of them and I guess they did disappear. My tank has a lot in it so it's hard to be sure, but I didn't see anything floating around or laying on the bottom. No reddness or swelling around the anus, it also seemed normal.

(Thanks for looking btw)

 

[WILDER]

First try some shelled peas, how many of the fish have the long stringy white poo, do they look skinny or bloated in any way, have they darkened in colour.

 

[eudielynn]

Only the two are showing any problems at all. I haven't given peas for a couple of days, so I will try that. Not skinny, not bloated and the only color change was when I got Jericho (the betta) out of the tank last night to observe him. He stressed out and had bars all over him, but was back to normal coloring this morning in the communtiy tank.

 

[WILDER]

How long have they had the long stringy white poo.

 

[eudielynn]

Just noticed it two days ago. I fed them some frozen bloodworms and peas last night. The gourami gobbled the peas down, but the betta wouldn't come out. He is pouting about me taking him out the other day. Hopefully he ate some when I left. He's usually a good eater. Just will have to keep watch on him.