Help my BN seems to have a fungal infection

[GoldLenny]

Also my tap water comes out at about pH 7.5 with zero ammonia, and nitrates, and nitrites.

The reason I did the article and suggest the article on "Find Your Tap/Source Water Baseline" is because how it comes out the tap is not always how it ends up.

For example, some taps will come out with a higher pH that goes down, others with a lower pH that goes up... and every thing in between for most other parameters as well. http://goldlenny.blogspot.com/2007/05/find-your-tap-source-water-baseline.html

Knowing your baseline will give you a better idea of what kind of fish to keep and to know what your tank should be close to being like unless you are doing things to alter the tank's water parameters. If your tap baseline pH is 7.5 and your tank is down to 6.0 and you didn't do anything to cause this, it means there is a problem. Not knowing the baseline and you'll never know if that 6.0 is normal or not.

 

[captaincaveman9]

Could you please stop posting links to your blog, as most of the links go to competing forums and that is against the TOS for this site

 

[Ashes2ashes]

Could you please stop posting links to your blog, as most of the links go to competing forums and that is against the TOS for this site

I was about to ask the same thing. Also, to the OP, You might want to get some other opinions on what might be wrong with your fish before you go treating it with salt as a general thing since you are treating a BN pleco that is salt sensitive due to the kind of skin they have. I am in no way a fish disease expert, but it may be in your best interest to talk to some of the people on this site who are.

 

[GoldLenny]

I was about to ask the same thing. Also, to the OP, You might want to get some other opinions on what might be wrong with your fish before you go treating it with salt as a general thing since you are treating a BN pleco that is salt sensitive due to the kind of skin they have. I am in no way a fish disease expert, but it may be in your best interest to talk to some of the people on this site who are.

I don't generally post links to other forums, although I have seen others do it.

Yes, some of my blogs might have links to information on the internet that is readily available to anyone doing a Google search but the article link I posted above doesn't. It's all of my own original material, although I might have references posted at the bottom. I'd have to look and see.

As far as the salt dosage I recommended, it's the dose that should be tolerated by most fish, including catfish. Salt is usually much less harm than many of the other medications that some folks throw in their tanks far too quickly. I'm not saying one of those won't be needed but until a proper diagnosis is made, it's best to start off with salt while trying to figure the rest out.

Kind of like if you get a headache, you take an aspirin, you don't jump to a diagnosis of a brain tumor.

 

[captaincaveman9]

I don't generally post links to other forums, although I have seen others do it.

Yes, some of my blogs might have links to information on the internet that is readily available to anyone doing a Google search but the article link I posted above doesn't. It's all of my own original material, although I might have references posted at the bottom. I'd have to look and see.

As far as the salt dosage I recommended, it's the dose that should be tolerated by most fish, including catfish. Salt is usually much less harm than many of the other medications that some folks throw in their tanks far too quickly. I'm not saying one of those won't be needed but until a proper diagnosis is made, it's best to start off with salt while trying to figure the rest out.

Kind of like if you get a headache, you take an aspirin, you don't jump to a diagnosis of a brain tumor.

Not to offend, but just blanket using salt to start a treatment is the petsmart answer without a proper diagnosis. Scaleless fish have a very low tolerance for salt.

On a side note goldlenny, your link is in every post of yours as it is in your signature. Most of the posts I've seen from you tonight have your link plastered in them

And treating a headache, i treat per the kind if headache i have, not just treating all with aspirin

 

[GoldLenny]

Not to offend, but just blanket using salt to start a treatment is the petsmart answer without a proper diagnosis. Scaleless fish have a very low tolerance for salt.

On a side note goldlenny, your link is in every post of yours as it is in your signature. Most of the posts I've seen from you tonight have your link plastered in them

And treating a headache, i treat per the kind if headache i have, not just treating all with aspirin

If anyone bothered to read my directions and this link, http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/salt.shtml, my directions clealy say to start off with 1 teaspoon per gallon, then move up to 2 tesapoons per gallon and then top off at no more than 3 teaspoons per gallon.. and at all stages, if any of the fish show any signs of intolerance of the salt, then a PWC should be done to lower the salinity level.

Yes, the main link to my blog is in my signature but when I'm giving someone a specific link so they don't have to search through the dozens of articles on my blog, I post that link for simplicity.

 

[rockhoe14er]

Just to add to before i mis-spoke my nitrites are 0 and my nitrates are 5 ppm. I switch these a lot on accident.

 

[BettaFishMommy]

if the problem with the bn pleco is bacterial you do NOT want to raise the temperature, as bacteria are 'happy' and flourish in warmer environments. bring your temp down to between 75 and 78.

if i was in your shoes i would take all the cichlids back to the store and wait until you have the big tank for the big fish, then get the big fish that you want. quite often that tank upgrade that people say will happen gets put off or doesn't happen at all due to other financial obligations.

for the pleco, since the infected area doesn't look too terribly bad (but then again, the photo is not really clear), i would do large volume daily water changes without adding anything other than dechlorinator. do daily changes for a week to see if the clean water and environment will help to clear up the infection. if after a week there is no improvement then you will want to move on to a medication. i personally would not use salt if it is a bacterial or fungal infection. you want a good antibiotic to clear it up. Maracyn, Maracyn 2, Kanaplex and Kanamycin are common fish antibiotics. i don't know enough about all of them to give you a recommendation on exactly which one to use but there are many members here that would have that knowledge and i hope they chime in soon.

 

[GoldLenny]

Not to offend, but just blanket using salt to start a treatment is the petsmart answer without a proper diagnosis. Scaleless fish have a very low tolerance for salt.

On a side note goldlenny, your link is in every post of yours as it is in your signature. Most of the posts I've seen from you tonight have your link plastered in them

And treating a headache, i treat per the kind if headache i have, not just treating all with aspirin

What if a Veterinarian advised it?

By Myron Kebus, MS, DVM

If I had to choose just one chemical to treat freshwater pond fish, it would be salt. Salt is probably the safest and the most forgiving of all the drug or chemical treatments available for our fish. It is highly effective in curing many types of diseases, infections, and conditions. And even if it won't cure everything that's ailing them, it will probably help ease them through the most difficult periods of their illness.

Article continued here... http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/ponds/Kebus_Salt_Treatments.html

Salt is one of the best general purpose treatments we should use, ESPECIALLY when we do not have a proper diagnosis. It will treat a multitude of problems while causing minimal side effects for most fish.

BTW, my link is not in most of my posts, it's in all of my posts... it's in my signature. It's also in the Blog link on the left side of every post. Everyone out here has a blog available to them... most don't use them.

 

[GoldLenny]

if the problem with the bn pleco is bacterial you do NOT want to raise the temperature, as bacteria are 'happy' and flourish in warmer environments. bring your temp down to between 75 and 78.

if i was in your shoes i would take all the cichlids back to the store and wait until you have the big tank for the big fish, then get the big fish that you want. quite often that tank upgrade that people say will happen gets put off or doesn't happen at all due to other financial obligations.

for the pleco, since the infected area doesn't look too terribly bad (but then again, the photo is not really clear), i would do large volume daily water changes without adding anything other than dechlorinator. do daily changes for a week to see if the clean water and environment will help to clear up the infection. if after a week there is no improvement then you will want to move on to a medication. i personally would not use salt if it is a bacterial or fungal infection. you want a good antibiotic to clear it up. Maracyn, Maracyn 2, Kanaplex and Kanamycin are common fish antibiotics. i don't know enough about all of them to give you a recommendation on exactly which one to use but there are many members here that would have that knowledge and i hope they chime in soon.

The bold part is true IF it's bacteria and IF salt was not being administered at the same time. Since we have no clue what this issue(s) may be, whether bacterial, fungal or parasitic (in the case of the cichlid), I recommended a treatment that would hopefully take care of all three or at least slow down their progression until a better diagnosis can be done.

Advising antibiotics for every thing is one of the WORST things we are doing to our tanks nowadays... especially when we have no clue wheter this is a bacterial infection. All it's doing is creating antibiotic resistant bacteria strains.