Sudden unexplained lethargy??

[Ichthius]

What is your pH?

What do you use to dechlorinate? Do you have chlorine or chloramines in your water?

You'll love your scope. I just about to do a significant upgrade, I'm tired of squinting through a monocular and aiming the flashlight at the mirror to light the slide.

I think I'm going to get a used professional grade scope instead of a new knock off.

Ebay's where I'm looking too.

This is the one I have my eye on:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=120342887848 but I'm trying to talk them down a bit, you know with the economy and all

Best fishes
David
www.goldfishgarage.com

 

[Inka4040]

My ph out of the tap is around 6.8. I have crushed calcium in the tank though, so in between water changes it comes up to around 7.2 - 7.4. I treat the water with prime, so any chlorine and chloramine should be taken care of. I did a vent and skin scrape on two fish yesterday, and found nothing. Don't trust my hands enough to take a gill sample. Today, after a water change, they seem a lot more active so I am leaning towards a chemical in the water (maybe a plug in air freshener?) . I will buy a small HOB so carbon can easily be run at any time. Thanks for all the help everyone, hopefully we'll be able to get to the bottom of this.

 

[Flaringshutter]

Inka - I did some minor surgery for a bit of infected finrot on my big female the other day, and I used clove oil to sedate. You may want to invest in a bottle - a little bit goes a long way, and it's invaluable for things like gill snips. I just made mixed up some clove oil at 5 drops/gallon into a plastic tub and used that for the surgery. It's simple and quick, plus it is incredibly hard to overdose using clove oil.
Next time you do a filter cleaning, save some of the sludge that collects at the bottom and scope a drop of it. I had a clean scrape from the fish but found some nematodes and flukes in the sludge the first time I scoped. You may also want to scope some feces.

 

[Inka4040]

Just did a poo scrape. Found 2 distinct "thingies" in there, one were small, dark sesame seed shaped, and swam erratically, and the other seem to be thin clear hairs or worms that didn't seem to move much/at all. They don't appear to match anything in those links. Any idea what they might be and whether they could be the cause of the lethargy?

 

[Flaringshutter]

Hm. The sesame shaped things I'll have to have a look around for, but I think those thin clear worms are probably nematodes. They're quite common, and some types are parasitic, some are not. When I found some in my scrape, I treated with praziquantel and was able to clear them out. My fish did seem to be more active after the treatment.
I'll have a look around online and in my books and see if I can get you more detail on either type.

 

[Inka4040]

For now, after reading up a bit and going over some pics on the web, I'm settling with a tentative diagnosis of hexamita. This explains the first fish that dropsied up before dying (I think that's where the infection came from as that particular fish was never quite "right"), the lethargy, and the recurring nature of the symptoms. I'll start the fish on metronidazole food for now, and as a precaution, when the qt period ends for my new fish, I'll go ahead and prazi the whole system just in case for flukes/nematodes. Considering that I've treated with metronidazole in the past, how exactly can I increase my chances of eradicating the hexamita for good this time around?