Unknown illness – loosing fish

[Allison Burke]

[sub][hello, I keep P. Filamentous, as of the past month and a half I’ve had an unknown illness that’s been claiming the lives of my fish. It starts with a slight bend of the spine and dulling of color, then weight loss. From there they become weak, the bend of the spine becomes more prominent and they begin to struggle to swim, further weight loss until they appear emaciated, still interested in food but begin to struggle to eat.

Using the API Master Test kit (have two of them and they both read the same

NO3- 10PPM
NH3/NH4+ 0PPM
NO2- 0 PPM
pH 6.6.
Temp 80F

They have been housed in the same tank for almost 2 years. The fish are about 2.5 years old (I do not know how long they live I’ve heard 3 years and I’ve also heard 10 years).

I’ve tried medicating with metronidazole.
I’ve tried Maracyn, Aquarium Salt and Seachem ParaGuard (not sure of the active ingredient). No I didn’t do these all at the same time. I’m now getting ready to move my P. Filamentous into a sterile tank and just do an aquarium salt treatment.

I really need help with saving these fish. They were healthy before my most recent move about a month and a half ago. I believe their sponge filter became contaminated with the sponge filter from the quarantine tank I had for another parosphromenus (do not know what kind) that was sick with possibly a bacterial infection, that fish died despite my efforts to save him.

As I type this I just saw my male P. Filamentous rub his gills on the sponge filter, then on a leaf.

What is going on with my fish?

PS. I do not use FB so please post this there for me if possible and or ask FB users to reply here on the website. I don’t want to loose my precious fish!

Allison /sub]

[helene schoubye]

Hi there
I will try to answer as best I can, – (unfortunately as you may know, this forum is not very active, )

It sounds a bit strange what you describe.
First of all, its not age for sure. Paros can get older than a couple of years for sure.

It can be different things, – water, the filter, contamination as I think you wrote, obviously something has become different since you moved ?

It seems to me to be something related to the water, – since the fish are itching – rubbing their gills, – some kind of poisioning. But from where it comes is difficult to say.

The best thing I think you can do, is what you are writing, create a completely new environment. However, I would really not think that you should treat with any kind of treatment. In fact – these can make thing a lot worse. Medication is often extremely unpredictable, in particular in soft and acidic water, – it may work much harder, – and paros and no fish that takes medication well.
So even salt, – personally I would not treat at all.
Create the best optimal water for paros, – soft, acidid, and let them be in that

[helene schoubye]

Did you use the medication in the same tank ? The different types of medication ?

It is very difficult to say what medications does to the water, and what different types of medication do, – they may mix into something really bad.
Thats why I think the best cure is get them out of that water, and into a new tank.

The reading seems fine, but they dont say anything about these kind of things, or amonium for example, which sometimes also can happen in a low ph, acidic tank, – that for some reason you have a peak in amonium, which will poison the fishes.

A number of things can happen like that – which you cant really measure, or which at least I think your measures are not saying anything about

[helene schoubye]

Maybe I didnt get you right – you say you recently did a move ?
But you also say they are in the same tank for 2 years ?

If its the same tank – for two years, I would like to ask, – how often do you ‘clean’ the tank ? Do you just do water changes ?
Reason I am asking, is that in the low ph, acidic tanks, – if theres a lot of waste – which builds up, at some point you can get an amonium peak situation. But of course, if you run a filter on it, – this is less likely, but it could be.
That could give the kind of symptoms you describe …

[Allison Burke]

So I want to start with thank you for responding so quickly.

Yes I moved from one apartment to another. So my P. Filamentous are in their same tank. When I got these fish I chose to buy their entire set up, tank, substrate, filter that they’d lived in for about a year. New home equals new water. No I’ve not used RO water, I use my tap water and usually treat with Seachem Prime or API Tap Water Conditioner.

As for water changes weekly is the norm, I do small changes due to how sensitive they are. I do gravel vacuum, this is a species only tank. They have drift wood, plants with fluval stratum (I think that’s the name of the substrate) I use a sponge filter. I don’t know the last time I squeezed it out, it may have been when I moved.

[helene schoubye]

So you moved the tank – and filled in new water, – and moved the filter ?

Did you rinse the substrate ?

First of all, – maybe these conditioners are okay, I dont know them, but normally any kind of chemical is not good for paros. But doing a search on it, it does not seem to be that bad.
But the water then is not soft ? If you use tap water, its not soft, – and paros can live in that, but they will not thrive in it, and they will become more vulnarable to diseases. Its not ideal.

[helene schoubye]

How many fish do you have – in how many liters ?

[helene schoubye]

Are you familiar with using medication – I mean, those kind of medications which aims at fighting bactial infections etc also has a tendency to kill off all the good bacterias you may have had in your filter, – meaning that the tank will have to recycle again, – and creating amonium spikes and all that …
Your medication could have killed your filter ?

[Allison Burke]

to answer your questions, please if I miss any remind me.

When I moved from one apartment to my current one, yes I rinsed the substrate, but not the filter. when I do rinse the filter I only rinse it in old tank water that I have taken from the tank, never in tap water.

I am familiar with dosing medications (I’ve kept fish for about 10 years but never such a sensitive fish). I have watched closely for a breakdown in my nitrogen cycle, ammonia has not spiked above .5ppmm, water changes quickly fixed that.

I have a 20 gallon tank or 75.7 liters. I started with 8 fish and am down to 5. there are ramshorn snails in the tank, but no other live animals.

The person I got the fish from is convinced its fish TB. I hope this isn’t true and its something curable. I’m hoping someone in my local fish club can dissect one or all that died to give a definite answer however until I’m able to make contact with him I’m hoping to be able to get answers here as well as local.

I do keep other labyrinth fish, I’ve kept betta in the past and currently have cory cats and honey gourami, as well as an unidentified Parosphromenus that I found at one of my local fish shops. I am aware that most labyrinth fishes are much more sensitive to medications. I’m very worried.

The P. Filamentosus however are housed in a tank by themselves (my P. Unknowns are now living in my community tank and doing very well).

I think what happened is my fault. When I was moving from one apartment to my current one I put a contaminated sponge filter in the same bucket as the sponge filter for my P. Filamentosus. This was not done intentionally and was a fatal mistake. I’m now hoping I can reverse the disease process in the rest of my fish.

[helene schoubye]

Hi again.
Okay, it really does sound to me as if you do know a lot about things, – you are not unexperienced at all.
So you did many of the right things, and you have been aware of the right things.

I have not heard of a paro having fish-tb, but of course if you have had the disease it could spread, – best way to know to get someone examine the fish. Paros are not very susceptible to diseases, – not that they cannot get it, – but they are remarkably strong in that sense.
If it is tb, there not really a way to reverse that, I am afraid. And in my experience, if a fish is sick, – most of the time its irreversible, we do wish we could cure it, – but most times we cant.

I dont think I can help you more than than saying :

I do not know what disease this is, I really honestly question whether they are sick indeed by a sickness which you can cure, or if they are sick due to water related issues, and reactions to medications.
I do not honestly believe that you can help the remaining paros by adding more medicine of any sorts, –
I really believe that they do not thrive in hard water, and this will not help them fight off if theres something wrong. So the best you could do in my opinion is to – as I said in the first post, I think, – create an optimal tank, – and that would include extremely soft water (osmosis, rain), low ph – lower than 6,6, rather 5. Add leaves, humic substances are also important for paros.

I wish you best of luck with it.
Maybe someone else can help you, I posted it on facebook too.

[helene schoubye]

🙂 I will copy one answer from facebook to you .— but if you have questions to this and theres a dialogue I would ask either you to go on facebook or the other person to go to forum 🙂
But lets see, I think maybe theres a language problem

Kamil Suchocki wrote :
I had P.filamentosus a long time ago, such rubbing in the gill area may result in gill worms, and a colleague wrote that he was flushing another filter from an infected paros I would give the drug “Sera mycoforte” according to the instructions written there. Sorry for my english, I write via translator

[kamil]

There is also a medicine called MORENICOL LERNEX PRO. I use it for my quarantine as I have sick fish imported from apistogramma. and this drug fights gill worms and all worms and nematodes and internal flagella, and even tapeworm only for its use is needed soft water below 7 ph, and temperature 28 C. The treatment lasts 11 days and after a week break I always repeat, but it is not necessary

[Author]

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