# Sick Fish



## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

Sorry to post this here but nobody seems to visit the disease section









Fish looks like it's on brink of death, what do I do to maximize survival? I've added melafix, salt, and raised temperature. All thoughts appreciated. Regrettably, I haven't been around to make a water change in over a week. I made a 30% change as well when I found it like this.


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## Coldfire (Aug 20, 2003)

Looks like NH4 burn or NO2 burn.

The salt will help if it is not to late. You should be good though.

What are your water parameters?


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## PygoLover (Mar 22, 2007)

if u have allready used salt and melafix, the only thing you can do now, it's to keep clean the water...as much as you can. no no2 or nh4 and perfect parameters...:

no2 0
nh4 0
no3 less then 25mg/l
3<kh>5
6,5<ph>7,5
7<gh>10


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## Nick G (Jul 15, 2007)

i would clean that algea off the back of the tank, rinse the filter media with tank water and gravel vac the hell out of the tank.
then just dose with salt, and you should be ok.


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## notaverage (Sep 10, 2005)

What does algae do to the tank?
I dont think that would effect anything....or am i completely wrong?


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## Nick G (Jul 15, 2007)

notaverage said:


> What does algae do to the tank?
> I dont think that would effect anything....or am i completely wrong?


yeah i guess your right, it wont affect the health of the fish, its just an appearance thing i guess, to me algea looks like the tank isnt being maintained, which probably isnt the case.
i take that part back.


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

It's still alive. It looks like the white film on his eye got a little thicker. I just made another water change and gravel vacced. I'm going to re-apply salt and meds. I've had this P for four years, I'd be highly upset if it doesn't make it through. I'll keep all of you posted. Thanks for the help and if any other suggestions arise, please post.


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

It's in bad shape. It still has some bouyancy but it seems clear that it is swimming blind with barely any coordination. Water params are as follows:

PH - 6
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrates - 40-80 ppm
Nitrites - 0 ppm
Temp. - 85

I just lowered the temperature a bit to try to get it to 82. I think there is still hope since the fish seems blinded by the white film. Please help, thanks!!


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## rolly_169 (Jul 23, 2007)

after all those water changes and nitrates are still around 40-80? could the nitrates have been the problem?


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## AKSkirmish (Jun 24, 2005)

Narile said:


> It's in bad shape. It still has some bouyancy but it seems clear that it is swimming blind with barely any coordination. Water params are as follows:
> 
> PH - 6
> Ammonia - 0 ppm
> ...


Drop them Nitrates or you are not going to have a good outcome...


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

I dont see nitrates causing this problem...it really does look like ammonia burn. Have you introduced anything new to the tank recently? Feeders or anything that might have introduced something new? How much salt are you using? How big is the tank?


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## AKSkirmish (Jun 24, 2005)

Grosse Gurke said:


> I dont see nitrates causing this problem...it really does look like ammonia burn. Have you introduced anything new to the tank recently? Feeders or anything that might have introduced something new? How much salt are you using? How big is the tank?


Certainly agree-
But the Nitrates need to get in order--

Certainly looks to be related to water quality-One way or the other.....


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

AKSkirmish said:


> I dont see nitrates causing this problem...it really does look like ammonia burn. Have you introduced anything new to the tank recently? Feeders or anything that might have introduced something new? How much salt are you using? How big is the tank?


Certainly agree-
But the Nitrates need to get in order--

Certainly looks to be related to water quality-One way or the other.....
[/quote]
And I agree that eventually they should be lowered...I would just be careful doing anything drastic with a sick fish in the tank. Small daily water changes would be in order...and I dont think he his using enough salt to be effective....cant know that for sure though....but this certainly looks like something that salt should handle.


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

Grosse Gurke said:


> I dont see nitrates causing this problem...it really does look like ammonia burn. Have you introduced anything new to the tank recently? Feeders or anything that might have introduced something new? How much salt are you using? How big is the tank?


Certainly agree-
But the Nitrates need to get in order--

Certainly looks to be related to water quality-One way or the other.....
[/quote]
And I agree that eventually they should be lowered...I would just be careful doing anything drastic with a sick fish in the tank. Small daily water changes would be in order...and I dont think he his using enough salt to be effective....cant know that for sure though....but this certainly looks like something that salt should handle.
[/quote]

I put in 1 teaspoon for every 5 gallons. Should I dose it daily? Should I put in more? I didn't introduce anything new to the tank. The fish is doing a little better and the nitrates are stubbornly still at 40 ppm.


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

The white film on its eyes isn't going away. Are there more aggressive ways to treat this?


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## AKSkirmish (Jun 24, 2005)

Narile said:


> The white film on its eyes isn't going away. Are there more aggressive ways to treat this?


Give it some time Sir-Let the salt take affect....


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

AKSkirmish said:


> The white film on its eyes isn't going away. Are there more aggressive ways to treat this?


Give it some time Sir-Let the salt take affect....
[/quote]

It's now getting worse, white film growing on other areas. What could be causing this? All I'm trying to do is improve the parameters. Are there factors that I can't measure? If it gets any worse, I think it'll die. Let me know, thanks.


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## AKSkirmish (Jun 24, 2005)

At this point in time and with all the responses-and confusion....

What have you done to try to treat this?


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

AKSkirmish said:


> At this point in time and with all the responses-and confusion....
> 
> What have you done to try to treat this?


I have dosed 1 teaspoon of salt per 5 gallons. I have done 30% water changes once per day for the past 4 days because the readings still show nitrates. At this point in time, they are down to 20 ppm. With all those changes and still a presence of nitrates, it leads me to believe that may have been the problem to begin with. After every water change, I re-dose with melafix. I will only add salt again if I gravel vacced. I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do with the salt though. Do I dose regularly? If so, how often? I have an emperor 400, for a 30-40 gallon tank (a bit small but I was planning on moving it to the 75 that I have soon). I haven't changed the media in a while, I'm going to go to the store now to replace everything but the bio-wheels. PH = 6, Ammonia = 0, Nitrites = 0, temp = 83. If you have any other questions, let me know.


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## AKSkirmish (Jun 24, 2005)

I'm gonna see if I can direct Jerry(dr.Giggles) to this thread-I would wait for his responses also..

Salt should be dosed and then left alonf unless you have gravel vacced it out-----Water changes does not remove the salinity


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## NegativeSpin (Aug 1, 2007)

It seems to me with a pH of 6 you are not doing enough water changes for your fishes better health. You should change the water often enough that you don't have a 0.2 pH change during a change and you want less than 40ppm nitrates. Less than 20 PPM is even better but twice as much work.


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

shanker said:


> It seems to me with a pH of 6 you are not doing enough water changes for your fishes better health. You should change the water often enough that you don't have a 0.2 pH change during a change and you want less than 40ppm nitrates. Less than 20 PPM is even better but twice as much work.


What do you mean regarding the PH of 6? Should it be higher? What is the typical tap water PH, 7? From here on, ideally I'd do 2 water changes per week of 30% so it never gets to this again. I'm going to go test my tap water's PH. Thanks.

Edit - My tap water PH = 6. It's probably due to the recent frequent water changes that my PH that low.


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

The ph is fine as long as it is stable. Are you using water conditioner? Does your water contain either chlorine or chloramine? If you have chloramine...and you are doing a lot of water changes...you could get a mini ammonia spike because chloramine is a bond of chlorine and ammonia...water conditioner will break that bond and take care of the chlorine...but it is up to your bio-filtration to handle the increase in ammonia.

Here is what I would do if this fish is solo. Stop with the water changes...they will reduce the salinity of the water....and do what DonH suggests in his tutorial...

*My recommended dosage, even for ich, is 0.3% (which is a TOTAL of 2.5 lbs/100 gallons or 3 tsp/US gallon). The amount of salt added should be done in 3 equal increments over 3 days and left in the system for 2 weeks (that's 1 tsp per gallon per day for 3 days), in which time, the salt should be taken out through water changes. ALWAYS pre-dissolve the salt before introducing it to your tank! Measure out the desired amount of salt, add aquarium water to a bucket or cup (I use a 44 oz plastic "Big Gulp" cup) and stir like crazy until the salt dissolves. Slowly pour the salt solution into the tank and make sure you are not pouring it on top of your fish. I prefer to pour the solution in the path of a powerhead to help distribute it throughout the tank. A "blast" of concentrated salt solution may cause severe burns to your fish. Therefore, NEVER add salt directly to your tank. *


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

Here is an update on how it looks. Thanks for the help, I will follow the salt instructions. Is this definitely NH4/NH2 burn?

Edit - I know that aquarium salt has been mentioned in the forums, however, I used kitchen salt. I hope it doesn't make a big difference.


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

kitchen salt is fine.


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

It's getting worse as if the white cottony film is some sort of cancer taking over its body. I don't think there is much else to do but wait. I feel hopeless. Nevertheless, thanks for all the help.


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## DonH (Jan 25, 2003)

When you say your pH is 6.0, how low does your pH test kit go? If the bottom end of the color chart is 6, your pH might be WAY lower than that. Your fish is displaying classic symptoms of a pH crash - cloudy eyes and shedding excess excess mucus. I would do a 30% percent water change everyday for the next few days and add salt according to the Salt FAQ and replace the amount of salt lost in proportion to the water volume being changed out. It will heal if caught in time but those eyes look pretty bad and there's a good chance that if the infection gets into the eye, the fish will be blind even after it has healed. Good luck...


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## AKSkirmish (Jun 24, 2005)

DonH said:


> When you say your pH is 6.0, how low does your pH test kit go? If the bottom end of the color chart is 6, your pH might be WAY lower than that. Your fish is displaying classic symptoms of a pH crash - cloudy eyes and shedding excess excess mucus. I would do a 30% percent water change everyday for the next few days and add salt according to the Salt FAQ and replace the amount of salt lost in proportion to the water volume being changed out. It will heal if caught in time but those eyes look pretty bad and there's a good chance that if the infection gets into the eye, the fish will be blind even after it has healed. Good luck...


Listen to these words------

Dont get no better advice then this guy----

Thanks again Don H for your Knowledge Sir---Greatly appreciated


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

I really appreciate the help Donny!

When I see threads like this......Im like commissioner Gordon...tossing up the bat signal!


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

After seeing the water params posted I have to agree it appears to be from acid burn. Do as DonH says. Nothing to add to that. You need to get your pH up slowly and your nitrates lower. Doing as DonH suggests would do that. Also in 7 days I would check for any ammonia readings in case the drop in pH caused any dieoff in your nitrifying bacteria.


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## AKSkirmish (Jun 24, 2005)

Really appreciate it Jerry------

You and Don are always so descriptive in your remarks----It really halps to better understand things...


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

DonH said:


> When you say your pH is 6.0, how low does your pH test kit go? If the bottom end of the color chart is 6, your pH might be WAY lower than that. Your fish is displaying classic symptoms of a pH crash - cloudy eyes and shedding excess excess mucus. I would do a 30% percent water change everyday for the next few days and add salt according to the Salt FAQ and replace the amount of salt lost in proportion to the water volume being changed out. It will heal if caught in time but those eyes look pretty bad and there's a good chance that if the infection gets into the eye, the fish will be blind even after it has healed. Good luck...


The bottom end is indeed 6. I've been doing water changes, however, the PH of my tap water is 6 so I'm not sure if that helps. I have dosed 1 tsp/gallon yesterday at 5:30 PM. I'm going to leave work early today to do the second dose. It looked slightly better this morning 10 hours ago. Every time I leave the house for long periods of time, I worry that I'm going to come back to it dead. It would suck to have it blind but up to this morning, I thought it would die. Thank you very much for all the help everyone, I will be a better fish owner after this. I was very busy at work and didn't change the water for longer than usual which I'm afraid caused something that lead to its illness. It was my fault, nothing new was introduced to the tank except bad conditions.


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

I wouldnt say that at all....a ph crash (if that is what it is)...is not something the average hobbyist will ever need to worry about. Crushed coral is a great way to buffer the ph...and something you should consider so this wont happen in the future.


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## Piranha Dan (Nov 11, 2007)

If you want to use crushed coral as a buffer between water changes, is there any rule of thumb as to how much to use? Will it just even your PH out to 7.0 or if you put too much in your filter will it go too high?


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

I'm going to try my best to describe what I just witnessed. I am in awe.

I arrive home to check on the fish and I turn on the tank light. The fish looks the same since I left it this morning at 7. A few moments later, it starts flailing or spazing or whatever you want to call the most extreme senseless movements by a fish. It does it as intensely as I've ever seen a fish do anything. It flips in the water uncontrollably, flies out of the water and goes off the hood and back in the water thrusting and bumping into every part of the tank. It was very violent looking and after it subsided a bit, it looked like it was losing its buoyancy and was going to die. It regained itself a bit but now it's swimming around awkwardly and without much coordination. I wish there was a way to sedate the fish. The best way for me to describe it that the sudden blindness is causing it to go mad. It was if I startled it by making sudden movements near the tank, only it was about 15x more intense than that. If there is a way to calm it down, please let me know. For now, I will prepare the second salt dose per DonH's tutorial. Whatever happens, I want to thank everyone for trying to help me save this fish.


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

Narile said:


> I'm going to try my best to describe what I just witnessed. I am in awe.
> 
> I arrive home to check on the fish and I turn on the tank light. The fish looks the same since I left it this morning at 7. A few moments later, it starts flailing or spazing or whatever you want to call the most extreme senseless movements by a fish. It does it as intensely as I've ever seen a fish do anything. It flips in the water uncontrollably, flies out of the water and goes off the hood and back in the water thrusting and bumping into every part of the tank. It was very violent looking and after it subsided a bit, it looked like it was losing its buoyancy and was going to die. It regained itself a bit but now it's swimming around awkwardly and without much coordination. I wish there was a way to sedate the fish. The best way for me to describe it that the sudden blindness is causing it to go mad. It was if I startled it by making sudden movements near the tank, only it was about 15x more intense than that. If there is a way to calm it down, please let me know. For now, I will prepare the second salt dose per DonH's tutorial. Whatever happens, I want to thank everyone for trying to help me save this fish.


Fish has taken grim turn. I have posted in the general discussion forum for dire need of reply. I will post the pictures here as well. I think it's passing... it's flailing and looks like it's in suffocating disoriented pain. Am I at a point where I let it die?


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## AKSkirmish (Jun 24, 2005)

Honestly I would just uthanize it...

Put it out of it's misery...


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

AKSkirmish said:


> Honestly I would just uthanize it...
> 
> Put it out of it's misery...


I can't help but think that there might be another way. Would all the experts agree with you?


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## DonH (Jan 25, 2003)

Is it still alive? If it is and you want to give it one last attempt, you need to cover the tank and turn off the lights. Constantly checking on it will stress it out even further. Use construction papers or something like it to cover the sides and keep the tank dark. Also, get some crushed coral, put it in a nylon filter bag and hang it in the tank where it can get current. With a pH possibly lower than 6, you need to find a way to buffer the water.

So basically, keep the tank dark, get the water buffered, add salt and leave the fish alone. Check on him periodically only to see if he's still alive and just take a peek so he doesn't go into panic mode. Good luck...


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

As a temporary fix you can add a tablespoon of Arm & Hammer baking soda for every 50 gallons of water once a day and with any water change. Be careful to raise the pH slowly. No more than 0.2 per day.


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

Dr. Giggles said:


> As a temporary fix you can add a tablespoon of Arm & Hammer baking soda for every 50 gallons of water once a day and with any water change. Be careful to raise the pH slowly. No more than 0.2 per day.


Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, I may have used too much. I put in about 1 tsp per 15 gallons and my PH has risen to 7 in one day and now the water is cloudy. I am assuming that I threw off my cycle.


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

Narile said:


> As a temporary fix you can add a tablespoon of Arm & Hammer baking soda for every 50 gallons of water once a day and with any water change. Be careful to raise the pH slowly. No more than 0.2 per day.


Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, I may have used too much. I put in about 1 tsp per 15 gallons and my PH has risen to 7 in one day and now the water is cloudy. I am assuming that I threw off my cycle.
[/quote]

Is there anything that can cure buoyancy problems in a fish? Can someone explain me to be biologically what's going on when a fish has buoyancy problems?


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

Narile said:


> As a temporary fix you can add a tablespoon of Arm & Hammer baking soda for every 50 gallons of water once a day and with any water change. Be careful to raise the pH slowly. No more than 0.2 per day.


Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, I may have used too much. I put in about 1 tsp per 15 gallons and my PH has risen to 7 in one day and now the water is cloudy. I am assuming that I threw off my cycle.
[/quote]

Is there anything that can cure buoyancy problems in a fish? Can someone explain me to be biologically what's going on when a fish has buoyancy problems?
[/quote]
Can be a couple things.. 1) swim bladder disease or another organ pressing against the swim bladder from complications.


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## Narile (Mar 22, 2007)

Dr. Giggles said:


> As a temporary fix you can add a tablespoon of Arm & Hammer baking soda for every 50 gallons of water once a day and with any water change. Be careful to raise the pH slowly. No more than 0.2 per day.


Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, I may have used too much. I put in about 1 tsp per 15 gallons and my PH has risen to 7 in one day and now the water is cloudy. I am assuming that I threw off my cycle.
[/quote]

Is there anything that can cure buoyancy problems in a fish? Can someone explain me to be biologically what's going on when a fish has buoyancy problems?
[/quote]
Can be a couple things.. 1) swim bladder disease or another organ pressing against the swim bladder from complications.
[/quote]

How do you cure swim bladder disease? Because if I can do that, I think it'll be ok.


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## Ihavebigpiranha (Aug 19, 2004)

To me it sounds mostly like you need to find out your real pH and regulate more closely. Baking soda will raise pH, you should take your tap water to a place and have it tested to find out exactly what parameters are coming out of your faucet and adjust the water accordingly prior to adding it to the aquarium with each water change.

usually a place like culligan or a pool store will have a low pH test they can do for you, plus they can test for total dissolved solids and heavy metals to see if there's bad stuff for fish or not.

I think you should try to keep the pH high enough that your tests don't show it at the very bottom, keep it at least 6.4-6.6 so you can see if it goes down.

my local tapwater sucks most of the time, opposite problem from yours, my pH is off the charts high on a normal pH scale 8.6+ and hardness is like liquified chalk with anywhere from 10-40ppm nitrate from the tap depending I guess on the rainfall in the area and times of fertilizer applications on the surrounding farmgrounds.

Personally I'd take out the sharp rocks or cover them all in gravel/sand substrate that won't tear up the fish when it's freaking out.

Good luck with your fish, I hope it pulls through, what temperature do you have the tank at? a lower temp may make the fish more relaxed.


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