Zebra Danios Sick; Wasting, Red Around Gills And Fins

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Monique

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Hi all, back again with another question:

first of all, thanks a lot for your help when my fish in my newly established tank were dying. it was a case of no mature media and being over-vigilent in cleaning the tank and changing the filter too often. I'm still doing 20% water changes twice weekly and just rinsing my filter media in the dirty tank water every two weeks or so. Every thing has been going really well, until . . .

My community tank is 45 gallons US and houses neon tetras, platys, pearl tetras, rummy-nosed tetras, a pair of mellow cichlids, a silver hatchetfish, a pleco, a loach, and another catfish, light blue, i can't remember what he is right now because he's my husband's fish . . . I also have six zebra danios which have been in the tank almost since the beginning.

The tank is graveled with lots of natural rock shelters and is well-planted with live plants. In general I'm quite proud of it as everybody is shiny, happy, and active, and the platys have bred and the ciclids are nesting . . .

ph is a little high but always has been because of the water i have. ammonia and nitrites are zero, nitrate is around 30 ppm.

They have a fluvol heater and a bubble wall - the bubble wall is a recent addition, to improve tank circulation (cured the constant "lf" on my heater) and i think my plants like it. and the tetras, danios, and ciclids seem to like to play in it too.

Originally there were nine danios. When I was having trouble cycling the tank one of them died on its own and two of them i 'euthanized' after they developed similar symptoms to the first (scared it was contagious). they developed pinched stomachs and redness around the gills and fins. they appeared active but seemed to be wasting away. After the third one i saw nothing else like it in the tank.

Last week a platy that's never looked right died too. It seemed like it was bleached out in colour, it was losing its fins - like they were eroding away or something - and its eyes got red and a 'staring' look about them. It became less and less active until i found him kind of 'sitting' under a leaf, no longer alive.

Now two of my danios have got that pinched look again, and seem to have some damage around their fins. One of them looks like it has an actual wound of some kind, like the flesh has been eaten away.

I feed them quality flake and frozen blood worms. I know I have a lot of fish swimming at all different levels, so I feed them two or three times daily, not much each time, to make sure all the fish get a fair chance to eat. They get a frozen blood worm cube every other day. I'm confident I'm not starving them because I have a way-too-healthy pest snail population ( and a happy loach) and I also feel they're not over-fed (as long as I keep the fish food away from my four-year-old) because when I clean the tank with the siphon there isn't an excess of discarded/ignored food.

Could you please help me? Again? I don't want to lose my danios; they're among my favorite fish in the tank and seem able to live through almost anything, but I also don't want them to suffer or contaminate the rest of my tank . . .

Thanks!
 
Sounds like a bacterial infection, maybe fin rot? I haven't had experience with fish disease but it could be an option. Take a look at this link and see if the symptoms match, it also says how to treat.
 
Thanks for the link, librarygirl, but I don't think that's it.

The fins themselves seem undamaged. It's the flesh of the fish adjacent to the fins that is affected. It appears red and transluscent, and on one fish seems to have progressed to an actual open wound. Also, the body condition of the fish itself is very poor, and if these fish follow the same path the other three did a month and a half ago, their condition will deteriorate quite quickly. The only fish I allowed to die on its own was completely emaciated, which is why I flushed the next two before they suffered so much. Oddly, the fish are still as active as the others of thier species in the tank, and they eat well. I hesitate to destroy two more of them if there's something I can do. My next regular water change is Tuesday, but I might do a larger one tomorrow . . . would love more input if anybody has any.

Thanks again, and take care.
 
Flushed? There are better ways of euthanizing fish. Clove oil is very effective, for instance. As for the danios, I don't have experience in fish illnesses, so I can't help :no: Good luck with them, though. Hopefully they'll pull through.
 

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