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Sick Electric Yellow


v81tun

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Hello,

This is my first post here!!! sorry to jump stright into the OMG I have a problem... but I do...

May I just say, Please don't get into me about my community tank, I know they don't belong together and I am gradually selling off my fish to hopefully some day start a discus planted tank, with a discus and some cardinal tetras, so I am aware I am overstocked and the fish are not appropriately matched.

I have an Electric Yellow that has become lethargic, breathing heavily, and looks like it is coughing occasionally.

Let me give you a run down of the tank.

The Sick fish is in a (empty)livebearer breeding tank to keep it safe from the other fish

Tank has been set up for over twelve months

Gh 71.6 ppm (4 dkH)

Kh 143.2 ppm (8 dkH)

Nitrate 5.0 ppm

Nitrite 0 ppm

Ammonia 0

Ph 7.8

Temperature 27c

Tank, 4ft (36 gal)

Live plants (no idea what plants they are, some elodea)

plenty of caves for the fish to all hide in

Tank mates: Inappropriate and quite overstocked.

3x pictus catfish (pretty much sold to someone)

2x Angelfish (round part of body is approx 5cm)

2x electric yellows (incl sick one - 4cm)

1x blue ram (4cm)

2x peppermint bristlenose (4-5cm)

2x plain bristlenose (4-5cm)

1x Jack Dempsey (he is in a floating net, as I had to use his tank for a hospital tank for some guppies)

1x Gold spot pleco

and about 20 small baby guppies that are waiting to leave their breeding net (into another tank)

I do water changes once a week, I generally on this tank do 25-50% water change depending how the water coming out is looking. with this amout of fish it comes out pretty dirty :(

So the problem arose the day after I did a water change. that was Friday night.

Saturday i called my LFS and the girl there was pretty useless... told me it would be a water problem so I carried out all of my tests... and I couldn't see anything that stood out to me.

My thoughts are that perhaps I was a bit careless when doing my water change and the fish became shocked?

anyway it looks a tiny bit bloated and has clamped fins (This sounds dumb, but I don't know how clamped they can get, so they look half clamped? but definately not normal)

apart from being slightly pale in colour compared to the other (could be a dominance thing?) there are no external signs of anything, no thickened slime coat or lumps, bumps, blood or anything.

I am unsure if this is a female or the non dominant male.

about a week ago I saw they two yellows swimming in tight circles together, which made me think perhaps there is a girl and a boy.

Please advise what steps I can take?

I thoguht perhaps this could be something to do with the gills and I tried to have a look last night, but I have never done this before and it is quite a small fish and I was unsuccessfull :( (any advise on how to best do this??)

Thank you very much for your time in reading this!!

Nikki

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Nikki

Firstly welcome to the forum. It is clear that you recognise that your current fish are not ideal tank mates and your are in the process of rectifying the situation. You are to be commended in do so.

The test readings that you have done don't indicate anything out of the ordinary but when did you do the tests. If it was after the water change it will have an immediate impact on the results.

Can you provide a bit more information i.e the type of filtration including turn over, feeding regime, gravel cleaning regime.

I suspect that it has more to do with the water chemistry rather than a bullying issue.

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Hello, thank you for your response!

sorry about my delayy, I had to duck down the street.

The water test was the night after the water change when i realised the fish was lethargic.

I used to have Ammonia problems, only three months ago due to over feeding.

Since then I started to feed once a day, for the whole tank generally I feed two cubes of blood worm.

altering occasionally for two cubes of brine shrimp or "tetra colour, tropical granules" and probably one night a week I break up an algae disc for the algae eaters.

The filter is a hopar kf-2218

1200 l/h, I have ceramic noodles in one section, and I put some filter wool in one of the layers to pick up fine filth. the other layers have general filter media/sponge.

I clean this probably around once a month, maybe twice.

is there anything I have missed that you may need to know?

(edit) sorry I forgot to add, my gravel cleaning is my water changes, so once a week

filter is external cannister)

Edited by v81tun
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Hello again, just checking in this morning to update.

said electric yellow passed away during the night :(

however I would still like to get to the root of the problem, as it seems my blue ram is doing clear stringy poo, I am not 100% it is unwell, but I have noticed it being slow to move and such.

I have to go to work now so I will check back in after 5pm

(edit) I took a couple of photos, and tried to have a look at its gills, which were white (obviously because it died, silly me) and I noticed some discolouration on one side of the body, could you please let me know how to post photos?

Edited by v81tun
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Hi Nikki

Sorry to hear about the death of the yellow.

The white stringy stuff indicates digestive problems/bloat. Feeding the blood worms would be what has caused it - african cichlids can't eat blood worms, meaty foods and some cheaper pellets.

In the wild, the yellows would mainly graze on a diet high in algae and relatively low in protein. They can't handle the high protein content.

Best way around it is to feed them new life spectrum cichlid food.

Your parameters looks OK but the temp is at the higher range, maybe aim for around 25-26.

For africans, the PH could be slightly higher around 8. I understand you may have kept it a bit lower to not stress out the bristlenose and Jack demsey. When these are gone, you could add some more buffer, holey rock, coral/coral sand to keep it high.

Good luck with the africans.

The way you post photos is to upload them to picasa/photobucket etc and then add a link to it in the post.

Regards, Rob

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Hello Rob,

Well that's certainly something I did not know!!

Could this have been what killed my electric yellow? Since it did seem a bit bloated?

I have been told to feed frozen peas when the fish become bloated,

I have tried this once and they are not interested,

What would you suggest?

Thank you alot, Nikki.

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Hi Nikki

from your description it is a Protozoan problem

and the stringy white poo only confirms this

Metronidazole is the best treatment for flagellated

protozoan infestation

been so long I'm not sure of dosage rate but think its

5 mg/L but you buy it as Flagyl in tablet form and it

is a prescription medication ..... on good terms with

your doctor or Vet

please note it is illegal to trade in prescription meds

or give them to people other than listed on the prescription

this includes some LFS that may have them for their own

use :wink2: :wink2:

maybe one of the others can confirm doseage

pretty sure a search will answer as it is a commonm question

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Flagyl (metro) works well i usually use 5 tablets (200mg) and disolve in a small amount of water defrost 100g frozen food something that is more green based IE Marine Green, Goldfish etc mix it all and refreeze and feed.

However metro can be hard to come by sometimes..

Another method, if the fish are still eating (mainly used for goldfish with bloat but works for most other fish)

Defrost 100g goldfish dinner (green) add small hand full mashed Frozen or Fresh de-shelled peas (not tin) and 1/2 teaspoon epsom salt mix in well refreeze feed for 5 - 7 days.

There is also a epsom salt treatment if they are not eating but some fish may be sensitive to that..

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Hello again!

I happen to have metronidazole in powder form. my LFS gave it to me when I told them of the troubles I have been having with my guppies-

I have one that has stopped eating! it has not eaten in over a month so it is quite skinny.

I have it in the treatment tank in hope that i can pinpoint what is wrong with it, as it came out of the community tank mentioned, and i fear that it may be contagious.

In order to treat with metro, would I be best to do the whole tank or remove the blue ram and put it into the hospital tank with the guppies?

as I have pictus catfish in the community tank I THINK i can only use half doses of any medication I use.

Thank you again.

Nikki

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I don't know if this topic will come up to the top of the forums or how it works, but more of my fish are starting to have clear poo. I am greatly concerned, my other electric yellow is starting to act the same way that my original one did before it died :(

I have just treated with flukes/tapeworm tabs

do I now

a) treat the whole tank with metronidazole

b) treat the tank with an all-round wormer?

c) something else????

i don't want to lose all of my fish! especially with NO IDEA what is wrong :(

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I treated a qt tank with two guppies in it that went very skinny with metro, no improvement after a week, treated both problem tanks with fluke/tapeworm tablets two days ago, I have since changed 25% of water in both tanks and cleaned filter media

Fish with clear poo

2 angels

Blue ram

Bristlenose

Jack Dempsey

Electric yellow is lethargic and hiding,

The pictus and other three bristlenose spend their time hiding so I can't tell

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Hi mate and welcome to the forum,

As suggested by my fellow posters, it is a bloat issue arising mainly in mbumas

Due to their diet.

What I recommend you doing is moving.all fish showing the symtons to a smaller tank, treated with epson. Salt and if fish are still eating disolve some flakes or pellets in the epson mix and feed.

Do this for approximately 3 days, you can also add epson salt to the tank can recall the exact disagreeable, furthermore try treating withflagyl following the method if fish are feeding and I will be giving this on on the 1st and 4th days.

Followed on the last day with a 50% water change, repeating th treatment if issue persist.

Note that other cichlid enthusiasts have tried different methods with different dosages and it worked with them.

Wish you all the best with your fish.

Aymen

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Metro in the water doesnt really help much, the best way is always mixed in with the food if they are still eating.

Epsom salt when mixed in the tank is 1 teaspoon per 80l

If the fish are not eating then use a 10 litre bucket with the water from the tank 1/2 teaspoon of epsom salt dissolved and use as a 20 min bath, or until they look a bit stressed different fish handle it differently, how ever never go longer than 30 mins as that can do more harm..

Hope this helps more

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This mornin my second electric yellow died, this was the first time I could look closely at it as it is always hiding, and it looks like it had velvet :(

I will try to upload a picture shortly.

My blue ram also appears to have two indentations on its head.

I have just re-dosed with tetra parasite guard.

Pics to come

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Metro doesn't stay in the water column very long so it next to useless if they are not eating. You can ramp up the Epsom salts slowly as they have a good tolerance to it. if you do it slowly I add a tablespoons per 20 litres a day for 3 to 5 days and candoes help. What you should be careful of is bring them down slowly (i.e. don't do massive water all at once). It will only raise the general hardness not the carbonate hardness. If you can get hold of clout or tetra parasite clear (it used to be Jungle labs parasite clear) it is good stuff as well. Best of luck it is a bugger of thing to stop.

cheers

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Ram may have HTH but it may also have been nipped by something else. Which is possible going by your fish list, not sure what is still in the tank.?

But if you are keeping them at PH 7.8 then i lean more to HTH as that PH is way too high for the Rams to live a long healthy life. Rams and even angels prefer much lower PH.

The pic is inconclusive as to what it actually is though

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It definately looks like there are two small indentations on it's head. Right I'll do a water change and adjust the PH to suit it more. I raised it a little because I had two electric yellows.

So now I have, 4 small bristlenoses, 1 gold spot pleco, 2 angelfish (one is in a holding net because they were fighting)

One jack Dempsey (in a holding net)

The blue ram and 3 pictus catfish.

I know there are too many but I want to get them healthy and sell them and start fresh with a few cardinal tetras, and one day a discus.

My Lfs just keeps saying to use "tetra parasite guard" but I have just done two 48hr treatments with no improvement.

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