Melafix and Bristlenose plecos? kuhlis?

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dani_starr

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Today under closer inspection, to my horror I saw that Emily, my long fin white tip bristlenose pleco, all her fins were rotted and lined with bloody red! :( All of her brown finnage is still there, but her beautiful white tips have all rotted away.

She also shows no interest in her food :(

She is now in my 55 gallon tank, (see my last post about "Fish are acting weird! Should I move them? For background info :) and I have 5 more kuhlis I got today as well (didn't see her fins til after I got the kuhlis) (and no I didn't QT, but I got them from my moms bf tank, he didn't want them anymore)

About 5 years ago, I had 5 cories in a 10 gallon tank (don't worry they were moved to a 29 gal :) and when I got back from my dads one of them had no fins at all, they were gone and replaced by a white fuzzy fungus. She couldn't even swim! :( I got both Melafix and Pimafix, and in less then a week the fungus was gone and her fins were coming back, couple months later she was as good as new.

Should I treat my entire 55 gallon with the melafix? Or just wait it out and see if it goes away on it's own with good water quality? (I;m buying a new test kit today) I don't have a hospital tank yet, I had one, but it cracked and water went everywhere. It's only inhabitants are

-the 6 kuhli loaches
-Emily
-MTS

I have a Penguin 400 Biofilter, anything I should do before treatment? I was only going to use half a dose, that way it's not as strong.

Anyone have their pleco die from Melafix? Miss Em is by far my favorite, and I'd be distraught if she died due to me not realizing the water was poor quality. (A froggy died and I couldn't find it's body when I took apart the whole tank, found it today when putting more anubias on driftwood, his dead body was lodged in the wood :(

Also will it affect my loaches/snails? :(


Thanks for any advice
 
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MisaHasTheEyes

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Melafix has been fine for my scaleless fish. That said, if you use it you really need to up the aeration: add a powerhead, or extra air stones because Melafix sucks up oxygen. Should not affect your snails or loaches or pleco. Perhaps try Pimafix as well.

However I have heard some pro breeders state that both Mela and Pimafix are pretty much weak drugs, but it is in my experience safer to use weaker drugs on scaleless fish. A full dose should be fine.
 

dani_starr

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Okay, I have 2 aqua tech (or something like that maybe it's aqua clear for 175 gph each ?) Power heads on full flow, you can see all the bubbles! :) So it's okay to treat the entire tank? Should I remove the carbon? Or can I just leave everything in it?
 

dbosman

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Melafix is 1% melaleuca, as cajeput oil
Primafix is 1% bay oil
They can be used together.

Fins don't rot over night unless there is a severe ammonia issue.
I'd suspect your loaches of nipping.
 

dani_starr

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Okay I'll probably do that, that's how I cured my cory before witht he duo treatment. And the froggy has been missing for about 2 weeks probably, so his body has been there rotting for awhile. I don't think Nim has been nipping her, he is really laid back and just does his own thing, I've never had aggression problems or anything. And the new kuhlis don't pay her much attention either. So I'm guessing it was George's rotting body :( cause my kulhis aren't the nippy type. Nor is my male betta who was with her in the 29 gallon, he's fine with everything (I had guppies, platies, in there, he was fine with em) except cories. Man did he have a hatrid for the cories. Has no cares to the loaches or froggies, though the loaches are no longer a problem since I moved them, the frogs can even put their leg on his fin to push him a little (not on purpose, they are just swimming and he happens to be there) and he doesn't care.
 

MisaHasTheEyes

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Check the bottle, I don't think carbon removes either though. I'd still add another air stone or powerhead, or adjust one to hit the surface more directly.
 

dani_starr

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Well I guess I don't have to worry about the meds, my little miss Emily passed away into fishy heaven a few min ago :'( She was doing a lot better too, swimming around normally, I thought she was recovering, but no.
 

pinkertd

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Sorry to hear that you lost her. Seems like you've got water quality issues...either an ammonia spike or you're not keeping your tank (water and substrate) clean enough. Do you have a test kit to test your parameters? If you're not taking proper care of the water, often enough, no ammount of melafix or pimafix is going to do a thing for the fish. You really need to get to the root of the problem or you may wind up losing more fish. What kind of tank maintenance do you regularly do?
 

dani_starr

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pinkertd, thanks, it was an ammonia spike. I believe it mentions above, one of my frogs died a couple weeks ago (or at least I think, that's about how long I haven't been able to find him, he hid a lot though, so it wasn't until it had been a couple days I hadn't seen him I searched). I took everything out about a week and a half ago, and couldn't find his body anywhere. I was using the ammonia strips before, so I didn't notice that there was a a problem in water quality until I found Em with her snout out of the water.

I thought it was lack of o2, since I have the filter flow low for my betta and frog. So I moved her and Nim to my 55 gallon with the 2 powerheads, thinking it would help. She perked up significantly. Swam around like normal for a few hours.

Since I took a large piece of driftwood from my 29 gallon to put in the 55 gallon for her, I re scaped the 29 gallon and tied some more plants to the driftwood. It was when I was trying to thread the string through the wood that I found my frogs body.

That's when I realized that it was an ammonia spike that was most of the problem for Em. But my frog and betta were acting just normal, same with Nim, my kuhli, so she was the only one that was severely affected by it. (I figured he'd just be happier with some more air flow and more space :)

(I did a 40% water change of the 29 gallon just to be on the safe side, and did a 30% wc in the 55 gallon as well, I know that I needed to solve the problem first before even worrying about meds)

Then it was about 1pm last night I noticed that her fins were all rotted and bloody edged. And put two and two together. Then around 6 she started acted funny, lieing tilted on her side, then she went upside down for awhile, then back to normal, and then around 8pm I went to go see how she was doing and she wasn't moving anymore.

Now I have trashed the strips, got a Master Kit, and the ammonia levels are back down to 0ppm :)

And I regulary change about 30% of the water weekly, and was using the test strips with every water change, and then sometime once or twice through out the week, just to make sure everything stayed consistent. But now I have my Master Kit.
 
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