GRK-351 Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 Hey guys, I am having abit of a problem in my 6 foot tank. It is home to 20 small maingano, 7 cobalt blues, 7 crimson tides, 4 clown loaches, and 8 large red empress. There is also batches of red empress, crimson tide, hongi, electric blue in fry savers. Over the past day or two I have noticed the red empress in particular twitching and darting around in a weird way, kind of like they are having mini epileptic fits. It is a different movement to the mating shimmer. Last night I discovered a female red empress dead. She had a mouthful that I was going to strip this weekend, so I put it down to possibly not eating etc. But this morning I found my largest red empress male dead and also another female swimming around upside down before she also died. The other fish seem ever so slightly affected, and twitch abit but no where near as much as the red empress. I tested all my water parameters and all is in check, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, ph 7.8, kh 8-9 degrees, i had a nitrate hit of about 100ppm, where it usually sits at around 40ppm but this shouldnt be the cause??? I did a 45% water change last night and ramped the heater up to 27-28 degrees just in case there is any ich, I think I can see some small spots on the clown loaches but nothing else yet. What do you guys think I should do? I have abit of tank space where I can move other fish around, but not sure what to do? I'll put some pics up in a second of the 2 fish I pulled out this morning if there are any clues on them. Thanks in advance, Mat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRK-351 Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Link2Hell Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 the down side of the hobby is never fun the first thing I notice is they are not open mouth like when there is lack of O2 are any of the fish gasping and if so is top or bottom of the tank flashing is usually a sign of irritation pathogen or otherwise has their poo become white and stringy ? the female is well conditioned so it's not starvation what meds have you intoduced to counter the the possible Ich and has the spots on the clown loaches got worse Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRK-351 Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 Some of the fish were gasping but not sure why as I haven't changed anything in the tank and it is well established. Nevertheless, I cranked the air pump on full strength and they seem slightly more comfortable but not 100%, a couple of red empress are still swimming around really eradically. Poo seems all normal. They are fed aquamunch in the morning and nls at night. I'm hesitant to medicate for ich with the clown loaches in there as they are quite sensitive and I lost 2 smaller ones in my brothers tank a while ago with ich medication. I'm thinking I'll just leave the heater up high and see how I go over the next few days. Got no idea what could be causing them to act like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayT Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 i had a similar problem recently (there is a recent thread about it on here), did the following and everything seems ok now and didn't lose any fish; 40% water change and major gravel clean treated with aquamaster multicure which contains .400mg/ml malachite green, 4.0mg/ml methylene blue and 2.0mg/ml acriflavin which is an antibiotic. Leave for three days, did another gravel clean and 40% water change and treat again, leave for three days did a 25% water change (no gravel clean) and everything has been fine. not suggesting this is what you do, however the symptoms sound similar including the twitching/fitting/flashing but no signs of ich. you might want to remove your clown loaches and fry and treat them separately with half the dosage although the couple of fry in the tank i treated were not affected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRK-351 Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 Thanks jay, I checked out your thread and I just picked up some protozin. Just wondering of I should use a half dosage with the clown loaches in there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRK-351 Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 Just did some quick research and the general consensus is protozin should be ok for scaleless fish but there is a risk of 1 in 25 fish not making it. So I am going with a 75% dose for the next three days then again on the 6th day. Should I do any water changes over the time I am medicating? Maybe after 3-4 days? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayT Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 not sure mate, i haven't used Protozin before good luck, let us know how things go or if any other visual or behavioual signs appear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosco Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 Like Chris said it could be a pathogen or it could have been an ammonia spike given the sudden rise of nitrate which could have brought on white spot. These spikes are short lived but can irritate gills and it can look like flukes or something else. Add extra prime to see how that goes as well it is hard to overdose on that stuff. Maybe double the dosage. If you start to treat for white spot then also add epsom salts (I think) just google it. best of luck. cheers Rosco Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctaylor Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 A bit of rock salt won't hurt either if you don't have Epson salts... How long has the tank been set up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRK-351 Posted June 19, 2011 Author Share Posted June 19, 2011 Well, abit more bad news. I woke up this morning to find 2 dead clown loaches, soon to be 3, and my last male red empress swimming around upside down. Out of the approx. 100 fry in fry savers there is also 4 dead red empress. The clown loaches have skin flaking off them and the red empress has blood leaching through its scales. There is another female red empress that is developing some red on its tail, all other fish in the tank seem fine. Seems strange that this is only affecting the red empress and they all have the same twitching and bleeding symptoms. The clown loaches I'm assuming are stress and medication related, there is still 1 that seems relatively ok. I added some extra prime last night and I will continue treating with protozin and get some rock salt. The tank has been running without a problem for the last 5 months. Here are some images of the blood on the male red empress, it is worse in real life than the photos show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noddy65 Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 , i had a nitrate hit of about 100ppm, where it usually sits at around 40ppm but this shouldnt be the cause??? This could be the cause.....a nitrate spike is nearly always preceded by an ammonia spike...if its high enough the damage has already been done and theres not a whole lot you can do about it. Those fish that are damaged will either die quickly or die off over the next days to weeks...thats probably what your going through now. Different species (and different individuals)have different tolerances to ammonia...possibly why just the Red Empress and Clown Loaches are dieing Mike Oh and by the way...using half doses of anything really is pointless...the bugs your trying to kill are killed at a particular dose for a particular duration...half doses will not kill anything...it would be a bit like us taking a half dose of an antibiotic and expecting it to work...it just wont...in fact you might be making a more resistant strain of bug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firthy13 Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 yeh the bleeding through the scales is more then likely a result of ammonia poisoning. i agree with mike, the damage has been done. what sort of filtration are you running on that tank? may need an increase in biological filtration media to help combat this spikes. you can never have enough filtration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRK-351 Posted June 19, 2011 Author Share Posted June 19, 2011 It has two aquaone cf1200 on it and neve had a problem till now. I have a stack or marine pure balls to go in so they should help out alot. What do you guys think will happen with the other fish in there? Is there anything else I can do? Thanks for the help so far Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KIMO Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 If you have filter wool in those cannisters, throw out a third and replace with new stuff, and rinse/clean out the remaining third of the filter wool in a bucket of tank water. Filter wool clogged with fish poo and food waste is a nitrate factory. Make sure you keep up with your water changes too. Probably even a third of the water, twice a week for the next few weeks, until you are confident things have settled down in your tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firthy13 Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 only time will tell in my opinion, by all means keep trying to treat the tank but i dont think you will see wonderful results. definitely cant hurt but. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baz01 Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 Sorry to hear. I would check water parameters for ammonia & nitrite. If the Nitrite level gets to high it will revert to ammonia which as others have mentioned is deadly to fish. Good Luck with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayT Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 hey mate, how's things going ? anymore casulties or have things settled ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRK-351 Posted June 22, 2011 Author Share Posted June 22, 2011 things have settled down, almost finished the full course of protozin. So far I lost about 4-5 fry, 2M and 2F red empress and my 4 clown loaches which was the most dissapointing. 1 female red empress has abit of discolouration on her tail and abit of her side but apart from that the rest of the fish are going absolutely fine as if nothing even happened, the maingano have been trying to breed the whole time this has been going on!! i picked up some filter bags today so i can finally put my marine pure in which should really help with extra filtration, and ill do the final dose of protozin on friday, followed by a massive gravel vac and 30-40% water change on sunday, im also going to replace the filter wool as it is totally brown. hopefully this doesnt happen again. thanks again to everyone for the help and suggestions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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