# RBPs that just wont get better



## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

So for the last two weeks my rbps have had some sort of bacterial and/or fungal infection. I have posted in the disease section but it wasnt much help. I have taken them to my LFS (Pruess Pets for those MI people, I know Wes has heard of it)... they are an extremely good fish store. I have brough my fish and water samples in... first time I went, $25 for some medication. A week later, they are all still sick, so I got back... another $40 on medication... has been another week and they are still not looking any better. At this point, they almost arent worth any more money. The most I can sell them for in this area is maybe $10 each. Besides the money I have had to leave class early to get them there before 2pm when most of the good fish people leave. Also, lost close to $100 worth of plants due to the medication and them forgetting to tell me it would kill them. Is it worth going back and trying more medication, or should I just let them go and see what happens. Right now I have been doing 30% water changes every day as they instructed me. They are still eating and swim actively and dont do anything out of the ordinary... if anything they have become a little more aggressive since all their plants died.


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## TheTyeMan (Aug 9, 2004)

have you tried adding salt to the tank?


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## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

I have tried salt, Mela-Fix, Pima-Fix, Ich gone stuff, Funazone Green, Neomycion, and Oxytetracycline... nothing has worked. I should add that I have 9 and I only really want to keep four of them... as they will be in a 75 gallon tank for quite a while if not for life.


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## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

Anyone have any opinions on what to do here... just let mother nature take its course... keep spendin more tryin to get them better... just get rid of them and sterilize the tank and start over?


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## Fry (Oct 9, 2005)

what temp is the water??
get it up to 85 degrees 1degree every 12 hrs til you get it to 85 if you havent already.


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## CaptinJack (Mar 15, 2006)

got any pics of what they look like and are you sure they are sick?


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## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

Their tank is already at 84.

I will try to get some pics... basically two things that I can see going on, one is a very dark lookin some kind of growth on their skin, just looks like a dark shadow and it just keeps getting bigger. The other is a white kind of almost looking fungus that a few have on their gill plates and by their mouths and a couple have it on their anal fin. Without a doubt there is something wrong, the guy at my LFS even agreed something is wrong, but he has never seen this... so that isnt very promising either...

Here are a couple shots:

On this one, if you look on the top of his body you can see where it is darker than the rest of him, that is one of the problems with them. I know it isnt super clear, but it isnt easy to get pics of something that is so close to their color. It is definitely something that is on them though.









If you look on the bottom anal fin here, you can see the white spots. It IS NOT Ich. It is not only on the fins, it is also on the gill plates, by a couple mouths and near some of their eyes. 









Any suggestions?? I am about ready to give up, I have done everything I can, I have given them all sorts of meds, nothing is helping these little troopers.

They are still eating very aggressively as mentioned before and still swimming fine.


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## RedBelly Dom (Mar 22, 2005)

I had some sort of fungus on my p's too. I just did water changes every day added salt and then did melafix for a week and now they are lookin pretty good.

Nvm idk wat u should do, maybe just see wat happens.


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## Fry (Oct 9, 2005)

At least they are still eating good.I would just continue with the salt treatment and increased temperature.Do frequent waterchanges like 5% eveyday and 10%on weekends.I had the white patch problem on my reds but melafix and salt cured it.Are you dosing correctly??(melafix and salt?melafix=no waterchanges till done /salt=replace what you take out with waterchanges?


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## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

I dosed Melafix as instructed and it didnt help at all, nothing got worse, but it didnt get better at the same time and when I was dosing that I wasnt doing water changes.

When I do water changes I run some of the water in a 5 gallon bucket and dissolve the necessary amount of salt in that.


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## bears100th4l (Sep 29, 2005)

I had that problem and all I did was add rock salt 1tsp per gallon of water and raise your water temp also.I keep mine at 82 degrees.This would work for your p's.It won't dissapear over night but It will work.You have to be patient.Good luck


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## Hemi (Nov 13, 2005)

i saved 2 Ps i got for free
they didnt have the dark stuff 
but were covered in the white

i used stress coat ,salt,pimafix, aquari sol
i had the temp up to 86 
2 reds 6 and 8 inch 
in a 10 gallon for 2 weeks
changed the water every 3 days 
after the second week 
they still had cloudy eyes
but all the other white sh*t was gone 
so i tossed them into my 180
3 days later they were beautiful looking perfect fish
there even keeping my carbies from killing the little guys

ive caught this white crap a few times b4 on my Ps
and only needed salt stress coat to cure

i notice if i forget the stress coat 
and they bump into something 
and get a scratch 
it turns into white stuff

i use stress coat , salt and declorinator 
every water change
i double the stress coat for infections 
worst that happens is you get some foam on top the water 
good luck man 
dont give up 
i got 2 awsome fish 
cuz i didnt give up


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## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

Thanks Hemi, I will keep trying... maybe Ill put them in a smaller tank so its easier to treat them and much cheaper instead of treating in a 75gallon.. I just dont like to move them around much.

I am going to keep adding salt and will go get some more stress coat and keep doing my water changes every day or two and hopefully they get better soon!


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## stevepedersen (Mar 13, 2006)

salt is the only thing i could say but good luk man hope they make it


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

I personally believe it is related to poor water conditions. Was the tank cycled when you introduced these fish to the 75G ? What are your core water parameter results ? I would do a 25% water change every other day even if they were healthy. 9 fish in a 75G commands that. Let us know your water test numbers. Topic moved.


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## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

This tank cycled for well over a month before I put them in and I know it was cycled as I was having the water tested every few days and I saw all the spikes and then waited another week just to make sure. I have had these fish in this tank for close to 2 months before anyhting even appeared on them. They were getting water changes twice a week, they are now getting them every day or every other day. Parameters are as close to perfect as I can get... ph 7.0, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5ppm nitrate, GH is 5 and KH is 3. Also to add, I do not plan on keeping them all in my 75g, I plan on selling 4-5 of them to my LFS as soon as they are healthy again. Until then though, I have no choice but to keep them in there. Like I said they feed very aggressively and are always hungry, swim fine, everyhting is fine, just some sort of irritation/infection going on.


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## mashunter18 (Jan 2, 2004)

jerry_plakyda said:


> I personally believe it is related to poor water conditions. Was the tank cycled when you introduced these fish to the 75G ? What are your core water parameter results ? I would do a 25% water change every other day even if they were healthy. 9 fish in a 75G commands that. Let us know your water test numbers. Topic moved.


what do you think Jerry, everything he has done should have helped with water quality.

Marcyn??? good for lots of gram+ and gram- bacterial infections

I had some denticulata once that got mouth fungus, and primafix for 3 weeks barely touched the problem, and it spread between fish, eventually it just cleared up...


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

If it were me...I would stop with all the meds and do salt..building up to the medication dose DonH recommends. It is something like 3tblspoons per 10 gallons...but I would read his artcle first.


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## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

I have actually started doing what DonH says in that article and today was their last day of the other meds my LFS gave me... figured I might as well finish them up on it, not like I can save it and use it again.


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## bushin82 (Mar 9, 2006)

my four 2-3" rbps just got over a fungus of some sort. It does not sound the same as yours. I tried everything i could find in the posts here and nothing worked my lfs keeper gave me some pills to put in the tank. one was a brown gel tab that i just dropped in then a week later he gave me some cocktail he made with white pills that looked like ibuprofren in some chemicals told me to dissolve the pills in the chemicals and oxygenated water and dump it in. about three days later they were fine. He wont tell me what they were he says it is his own secret cocktails he has used for years on the worst of fungus. I will try to bug him untill he tells me what they were.


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## Juggalo (Mar 1, 2006)

And make sure whenever you med, to take out the carbon out of your filters......


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## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

I dont run carbon in my fish tanks as is, no need for it... only tank with carbon is my turtles.


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## Juggalo (Mar 1, 2006)

therizman1 said:


> I dont run carbon in my fish tanks as is, no need for it... only tank with carbon is my turtles.


Cool, just making sure--some people treat and forget about the whole carbon thing......


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## Round Head (Sep 26, 2005)

This disease is a mystery for me too.
I also tried everything and doesn't seem to help captive bred reds.
The wierd thing is that some fish in the shoal seem to be immune to the disease while the infect fish get worst everyday. 
Another thing is that they all eat very well but the sick ones look so gross.
I ended up culling all of the sick fish so now I only have 4 left.
I currently have some pirayas and super reds in a separate tank that I want to introduce to these fish but I am a little reluctant to do so. The worst scenario for me would be to cull them all and sanitize the entire tank with high concentration of Potasium Permanganate because them nasty fish aren't worth the gamble with the pirayas.

If you ever find a cure, let us know because I am very curious to know more about this disease.

Thanks


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