What disease is this? Need help! Overloaded slime production?

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cokers

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Hi Guys,

Hope you can help me out. Today my fish seems to have been hit a a disease I haven't seen before and I need some help identifying.
As you can see from the images below, the symptom appears to be excessive slime growth and fins appear to look like they've got fin rot.
The ones with severe slime are disoriented and swim around in circles.

I've treated my tank with Sulfaplex and Pimafix, but hasn't seem to have stopped the disease from progressing.

vEaGnBi.jpg


Swordtail with this disease. She was perfectly fine yesterday!
4vey9uD.jpg


I've got alot of other fish with more mild symptoms that I'm hoping to save. Any help at all is appreciated!

Thank You
 
whats the water quality like?

-------------------
Wipe the inside of the glass with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for at least 1 week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise oxygen levels in the water.

-------------------
Add salt.
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate will not affect plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.
 
whats the water quality like?

-------------------
Wipe the inside of the glass with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for at least 1 week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise oxygen levels in the water.

-------------------
Add salt.
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate will not affect plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.
@Colin_T what do you think this is? Just trying to learn.
 
Just did a water quality test and the results are...
Ph: 6.0(or below)
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 60ppm

I have not a clue how the ph got that low since the ph out my tap is a nice cool 7 and I just did a water change Saturday night.

I suspect the low ph might be the culprit that is irritating the fish to produce more slime and also might be dissolving the fish fins, which would explain the rapid fin damage.

I'll do a 50% water change, top up on the meds I just removed, and add some aquarium salt. I things don't improve by tomorrow I'll do another 50% water change and call in the fungus meds.
 
you don't need chemical medications for this. just clean water and salt.

what is the nitrite and GH?

low pH and high nitrates damage the fish and allow fungus and bacteria to get in. cleaning up tank conditions and making the water better will help but the fish needs salt.
 
Swordtails and other livebearers are hard water fish. What is your GH and KH? pH for livebearers, pH is supposed to be over 7.0 and not acidic.
Your nitrate is too high. How much water changes do you do weekly? What is your stocking and size of the tank? How much do you feed? Do you clean your substrate?
 
Alright, good news folks. no new casualties this morning. And one of the swordtails I was considering euthanizing is still alive.

What I did was a 50% water change, added aquarium salt, and also used baking soda to balance out the ph to 7. Honestly, I probably added too much baking soda at once as the ph has jumped up a whole number. Fortunately, the fish do not appear to be shocked.
 
salt will raise the pH too so be careful adding things like bicarb. if you want to raise the pH slowly, add some shells, limestone or dead coral rubble to the tank or filter.
 

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