Flashing/No Symtoms

Well I used water from where my husband works. Our city has well water and it is very hard. My husband works in Milwaukee and their water comes from Lake Michigan. It is soft water and after treating for chlorines, etc I used that water in a water change...
Lots of brown sludge later ... we bought a phosphate kit and tested the tank and Milwaukee water for phosphates, sure enough, they are off the chart high on phosphate...
So, yesterday I did another water change using RO with Kent's RO Right. This is what I used to do before trying the other water.

I studied my fish this morning for quite a while, she is breathing faster, clamping her fins a bit and flashing alot on the rocks in the tank. So I went ahead and am treating with Maracide for parasites and Maracyn (Erythromiacin sp) for potential secondary infections. Her skin/scales look 'filmy' like something is there. I chose these 2 meds because they are supposed to be ok for plants, will not hurt the bio filter and because they can be used together.

The whole tank is getting treated and I'll report any success or failures as we go along. I wanted to catch this early before their immune systems get too weak to fight anything off.

I also found a very strange stinky blob in the back of the tank. Not a fish, they are all present and accounted for. It was rather solid, a light color, the size of a marble and it was covered in algae. Weird, huh? Perhaps a huge snail grew in my tank and came in on my new anubias and I never saw it? Then it died? Don't know, there was no shell if it was a snail. (I did use Potassium P to sterilize my plants before adding them.)

Anyway, that is the scoop as of the momment. Thanks for any help you can offer!

Cathy
 
Filmy sounds like excess slime production. Do you see any red streaks. Sounds like a unicellular parasite. Trichondella (sp?) or maybe Costia. Trichondella is probably the most effective parasite when it comes to making a fish flash. You can continue the Maracide since you started it. Finished the full treatment regime explained in the instructions. If that does not work (after the full treatment is completed), do a 50% waterchange and add activated carbon. Then you can either do a MG + Formalin treatment or salt treatment. If its Costia then you will need a MG + Formalin since Costia is known to thrive in 9 teaspoons of salt per gallon and higher.
 
A couple of things for clarification. Ich as with most external parasites will attach to the gills more easily than the exterior of the fish. The gills are largely unprotected and an excellent source of nutrients (Via Blood) so it's usually the first and easiest point for a parasite to attack. This is not a dormant stage, and is really no differnet in any way than visible ich on the outside skin of a fish. It's just not easy to see the parasite attached to the gills. MAny fish build a good resistance to ich attacks, and depending on species many were pretty resistant to begin with. So essentially when the ich swimmers hatch and go looking for a host the fish wards them off at every point except the gills. It only takes one to continue the life cycle so ich survives at relatively low levels indefinately in a tank. Then if for some reason the fish are stressed or weakened ich can suddenly gain the uper hand and appear from "no where" into a full blown visible outbreak.

The natural flashing behavior of some cichlids can usually be sorted out. Flashing due to gill irritation is random. Flashing over territorial or breeding behavior is specific to proximity of other fish and is usually accompanied by other behavior patterns. For instance My firemouth will flare at my Oscar, if the Oscar BAcks away the firemouth will flash a couple of times to show his "percieved" dominance. If they actually fight, they will both Flash between wrestling matches. At no other time do these two fish ever exibit Flashing behavior.

Prazi will definately handle Flukes IME. I do not know if it will handle ich as claimed, Metradonizole will handle a wide array of internals, but IME will not handle ich or most external parasites. Both Prazi and Met are in my opinion excellent preventative measure because neither of them causes any stress that I can see on fish or other tank inhabitants. Since there is little to no risk to your fish, using them in the process of elimination is a good Practice In my mind.

Flashing is most often attributed to ich simply because ich is a highly common cause. Anything that irritates the gills will produce Flashing. I usually start with Water quality checks, and then move on to ICH (because it is so common) and then go on to the less common possibilities like Flukes and Velvet. Remember that velvet generally works quickly and is very fatal in heavy oputbreaks. Flukes are the opposite in that they are slow, and really are not often fatal themselves. Flukes will weaken a fish and let other things like fungus or bacteria overcome the fish. this makes flukes easier to work with but harder to identify as the problem.

The last thing I would say is that the Product Stress coat could be your entire problem. I used the stuff for years, and aside from being an effective dechlorinator it has no merit in my opinion. The slime it puts into the tank (Aloe) does nothing but irritate and pollute IMHO. Aloe will not help your fish. Aloe is a moisturizer, and most fish do not have issue with dry skin. any film on the gills will irritate a fish. Any time you use more than the basic dose needed to neutralize Chlorine, you will see some sort of negative side effect. Back off on the stress coat as much as you can, or maybe switch to something like Prime or Amquel plus and see if that eliminates your problem. Stress coat is fine in small quantities as a dechlorinator, but the rest of the claims it makes are Bunk as far as my experience goes.

HTH
Dave
 
Flashing is an action - looks like a dive bomb swoop in one direction or another and the fish does this to scratch himself/herself. They like launch themselves and change direction at the very last to rub along the edge of a rock or plant.
Cathy
 
Hey all,

The tanks has been on the combo of Maracide - which has malachite green, and maracyn - which has erythromycin. This is the 5th day, the last dose of the maracide was added today. My fishes stopped flashing and showing any stress on day 3. I NEVER saw any ich spots! My female ram still has a red patchy area, but I am fairly confident that that is an injury from flashing way hard on a rough rock. (I happened to see this)

The temp is a 82, this is a planted tank of sorts - everything is removable, anubias etc. My water parameters are still good, though cloudy from the maracyn. Geesh, I think my fishes are getting ready to spawn in all that mess. they are eating very well.

My question, the directions don't say how long to treat. If it was ich, and I saw no spots and was looking carefully, I suppose it is possible that the parasite dropped out of the gill area, reproduced in the gravel and hit the water with the meds in only to die. However, if this was ich, I had better do a water change and continue with the treatment to make sure all is killed for good.

If however, this was something else, chilodinella or trichodina, I have no idea when to stop the medicines. What do you all think? I'm of a mind to water change, and do another 5 days...

Any advice would be appreciated!
Cathy
 
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