Electric Yellow Sickness ?

[TimB]

1. Description of the symptoms, obvious signs of disease and behaviour of your fish. Hasn't eaten in past 4 days, seems to be "coughing" and flaring gills, sitting on bottom moving occasionally, lethargic, gasping, shaking head.

2. List the fish that are exhibiting the above symptoms/behaviour: genus and species name. Only 1 small electric yellow, all other fish are 100% fine.

3. When and how did the symptons/behaviour start? I first noticed it 4 days ago when it wasn't eating and zipping around like it and the other yellows usually do.

4. How old are the affected/sick fish? Not old, about 5-6cm.

5. Have any new fish been added to the tank? Yes,but they were added through a process that didn't allow any of their water to enter the tank.

6. Has anything 'special' happened recently? No

7. What are the water parameters? No other fish are showing symptoms, so parametres would be as normal (nitrate low, nitrite 0, pH 8.4, gH and kH definitely high enough (can't remember specific results but they were substantially over the minimum for africans), temp is 27 deg.

8. Describe the aquarium and its contents Newly set up tank, (was cycled before the addition of fish), contains benga peacocks, electric yellows, julidochromis, OB zebras, leleupi. Filter currently running is a fluval 205 (new and bigger filter is cycling and will be swapped on the weekend, one airstone, subrate is crushed coral mixed with sand, few river rocks, slate and fake plants.

9. When was the water last changed and how much was changed? 8 days ago (getting cleaned tonight) about 35%.

10. When was the filter last cleaned? 6 weeks ago, contents were washed in buckets of tank water

11. What brand and type of food has been used over the past month? NLS grow, hikari algae wafers, ocean nutrition spirulina flakes.

May havve inhaled some substrate?

Any help appreiated,

Tim

[DFishkeeper]

Hi Tim,

Sounds like your fish may be suffering from gill flukes. Have a look at the link below for symptoms and treatment :

http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/Gill_or_Skin_flukes

If you believe this is what is ailing your fish after doing some research, a good treatment is kusuri wormer plus which can be obtained online here from the importer :

http://livingreefaquariums.com.au/?subcats=Y&status=A&pshort=Y&pfull=Y&pname=Y&pkeywords=Y&search_performed=Y&cid=0&q=kusuri&dispatch=products.search&x=8&y=9

Cheers, Doug

[TimB]

Thanks doug.

If I were to medicate, do I just medicate the whole tank?

Thanks

[DFishkeeper]

Hi Tim,

I'm not an expert, but I believe gill flukes lay eggs which hatch into worms in your tank and then go looking for a host themselves in the fish in your tank.

You can remove the sick fish and treat it in a different quarantine tank, but then you will miss any eggs/worms they may have left in your original tank.

If you decide to treat the whole tank, you need to treat it again after 4 days to pick up any the first treatment may have missed. As the flukes are hidden away in the gills of the fish, you don't always get them all with the first treatment.

If you have any other questions, shoot an email to Gary and Tracey at Living Reef Aquarium. As well as importing the kusuri wormer plus, they are discus importers and use the product regularly themselves in their shop and holding tanks.

Cheers, Doug

[TimB]

Thanks again Doug.

[TimB]

Just saw a yellow cough and spit out multiple strange seethrough triangular shaped pointy ended things. Things Not moving or showing signs of life

Dont know what this is, but other fish tried to eat it after it was spat out.

[TimB]

I have fully dosed with praziquantel tablets and fish are still showing symptoms. Still only electric yellows affected. Previously healthy yellows are now not eating and are sitting on bottom, gasping, coughing and clamped fins. One affected fish looks to have a little node on the underside of the gills.

Any help appreciated

Tim

[TimB]

Now that I look more closely, other fish are still eating but are scratching and spitting/coughing

Water params as follows

pH 8.4

Nitrite 0

Ammonia 0.

Nitrate around 10ppm

[PlecoSam]

Ich?

[TimB]

No i dont think so, temperature is fine etc.

[Buccal]

You said its a newly set up tank.

Now others are looking to be effected.

It sounds like new tank syndrome to me.

Just because ammonia doesnt show when testing it doesn't mean it's not occurring at times.

A newly set up tank should be left to age,,, so tampering with and maintenance should not be carried out as often as a matured aquarium.

Make sure you maintain a temperature of 27'c and keep lights of for a few weeks.

No water changes for a few weeks.

Do not feed for ten days at all........

[TimB]

Thanks for your response.

The problem is now that other fish are becoming affected and just this afternoon I have seen stringy poo in fish I thought were unaffected.

What does turning the the light off + no water changes + no feeding achieve? I'm not sure I understand.

Not really a 'new' tank, been running for about 2 months now.

Thanks

[Buccal]

2 months is new enough,, a small problem maybe from a while back has lingered along up to now.

No feeding is a big one,, if over feeding or filter immaturity is a problem then not feeding will allow the filters to catch up rather than lagging and not converting in time. (eliminating period ammonia spikes).

Lights out helps the fish with less stress thus allowing immune systems to work better.

No water changes because again takes away the stress to already stressed fish.

When I set set up new displays, I never water change in the first 6 weeks as premature water changes before the water/filter matures keeps setting back the maturation process.

A new tank for the first two months does not have much pollutant build up anyway,, so water changes aren't needed in general at the beginning especially if your starting out with small fish.