kellya
01-11-2007, 3:10 PM
After talking to a few people we ended up deciding on a fishy cycle. We have two female platies. Our tank is currently not finished cycling. We suspect that one or both of the fish have some sort of internal parasite. Our one platy (the healthier of the two) is more lethargic and while eating well has stringy white poop. Our other platy is not eating. She is quite small and a few times a day she does this weird thing I call a death dance. She bounces around the aquarium like she is having some sort of seizure and then falls onto a plant. She stays there motionless for a minute and at that point you would swear she was dead. Then she swims off again. Quite frequently her swimming though seems odd - like she is having a hard time of it (we also thought it may be a swim bladder issue because her swimming can be so weird) . After searching through this forum it sounded like parasites so I headed off to our LFS for some medication. The "help" I received there was pretty much useless. He told me there was no treatment and I should "throw the fish in the garbage" to save the other fish. When I told him we were currently cycling and that there were no other fish he said "well if they are cycle fish then it doesn't matter - just throw them out and start new, make sure to add Aquaplus to your water prior to getting more fish" I called my husband quite upset because I'm not about to simply throw these fish out. We have been diligent about testing and water changes to avoid any issues for these fish - I don't consider them disposable.
My husband just went to a store near his work and spoke to a girl who was much more helpful. They don't sell Jungle products (what we were looking for) but she did give him some Clout at no charge. She also gave him instructions for using it.
I guess now what I am looking for is reassurance that we should use this Clout. It sounds like it is pretty powerful stuff? I was looking for anti-parasite food but it doesn't appear to be available where we are looking (and our smaller fish isn't eating anyways so it wouldn't do her much good) I'm not thinking that there is much hope for the smaller fish but the larger one still looks ok (aside from the stringy white poop) so I'd like to do whatever I can. Any suggestions? Should we use the Clout? Look for something else?
Our water is testing at Ammonia 0, Nitrites currently at .10 (the highest they ever got was .3 at which point we immediately did a 50% water change) Our PH is our only real issue I think - it's around a 7.8-8. Right now all that we are adding to the water is Prime - we are doing a 25-30% water change daily which is seeming to keep our ammonia and nitrites in check. We have a 15G tank that has just the two Platies in it.
Any advice you can give would be awesome.
Kelly
My husband just went to a store near his work and spoke to a girl who was much more helpful. They don't sell Jungle products (what we were looking for) but she did give him some Clout at no charge. She also gave him instructions for using it.
I guess now what I am looking for is reassurance that we should use this Clout. It sounds like it is pretty powerful stuff? I was looking for anti-parasite food but it doesn't appear to be available where we are looking (and our smaller fish isn't eating anyways so it wouldn't do her much good) I'm not thinking that there is much hope for the smaller fish but the larger one still looks ok (aside from the stringy white poop) so I'd like to do whatever I can. Any suggestions? Should we use the Clout? Look for something else?
Our water is testing at Ammonia 0, Nitrites currently at .10 (the highest they ever got was .3 at which point we immediately did a 50% water change) Our PH is our only real issue I think - it's around a 7.8-8. Right now all that we are adding to the water is Prime - we are doing a 25-30% water change daily which is seeming to keep our ammonia and nitrites in check. We have a 15G tank that has just the two Platies in it.
Any advice you can give would be awesome.
Kelly