I have a 36 gallon bow front aquarium. I have a RTBS. Heās about 3 years old. He recently started swimming strange and has white strands coming off him. See pictures. Other fish are 9 Zebra Danio and 1 bristlenose Pleco. I did have about 20 baby plecos but recently had a power issue and the tank heater turned off. Temperature dropped to about 68 so all the babies died. Since then my RTS has been sick. Maybe for 4 days. All the other fish seem fine. All water perimeters are fine. I have a Eheim 2215 filter, and 30% water change weekly. Does anyone know what this is?
Sick Red Tailed Shark
- Thread starter Albytron
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Hi and welcome to the forum 
The fish is covered in excess mucous (the cream stuff that looks like skin peeling off it). This is normally caused by something in the water irritating the fish. The best thing to do is a big water change and gravel clean each day for a week to dilute anything that might be in the water. You should also clean the filter.
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Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.
Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for one week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.
Clean the filter. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.
Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.
If there's no improvement after a few water changes, then post more pictures.
The fish is covered in excess mucous (the cream stuff that looks like skin peeling off it). This is normally caused by something in the water irritating the fish. The best thing to do is a big water change and gravel clean each day for a week to dilute anything that might be in the water. You should also clean the filter.
---------------------
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.
Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for one week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.
Clean the filter. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.
Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.
If there's no improvement after a few water changes, then post more pictures.
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