Injured swordtail, please help asap.

[ChicoRaton]

well I HAD 3 swordtails and woke up this morning to find 2 of them pretty torn up looking and very dead. the 3rd is still alive, but quite beat up. torn fins, etc. I've determined the kribs are the bullies to blame. I am setting up a hospital tank in my 10g, and I moved two very big algae covered rocks and a filter to make sure there would be no ammonia and nitrite spikes. I'm moving the swordtail in about 10 minutes after the water has a chance to get oxygenated. I don't have any melafix, is there anything else I can do besides isolating her and hoping for the best?

Thank you.

 

[Leopardess]

Aww

Adding the rocks won't help much in the way of adding sufficient amounts of beneficial bacteria..so keep testing the water. Do you have an extra filter/cartridge you can use?

Keep the salt up in the water.

Try to get her to eat her favorite foods.

Does that mean that you also don't have any Maracyn or antibiotics? If so, try to stock up so that you'll have them onhand the next time a nasty emergency pops up.

Not much you can do besides giving a quiet place to hopefully heal, keeping the water clean, and trying to coax her into eating nutritious foods.

Good luck and let us know what happens.

 

[ROLLIN]

Do you have any aquarium salt? If so, add 2 tablespoons tonight, 2 the next night, and 2 more the night after that. Swordtails can tolerate alot of salt. The salt will help fight off any infections and various other nasties that will try to attack the fish in its weakened state.


Looks like leopardess got here before me.

 

[ChicoRaton]

ok well I'll add 2 tablespoons of the aquarium salt I have... well it's just rock salt but it's not iodized, same thing as the "aquarium salt" AP sells in the little boxes AFAIK. No I don't have any medications, in fact I was going to place an order with big al's tonight and get so maracyn and melafix to keep on had for just such an occasion. thanks for the help.

[edit] I did move the filter cartridges from my filter in the 55 to the filter in the 10. Also, I dissolved the 2 tbsp of salt into a gallon of water and will add it slowly over the next few hours.

 

[ChicoRaton]

well she's not looking too hot... I got all 2 tbsps of salt added, but she's laying on her side at the bottom of the tank. breathing looks normal though, and she'll sit upright and swim around every now and then. I'll just cross my fingers and hope for the best.

 

[ChicoRaton]

well unfortunately she didn't make it. It's somewhat dissapointing, my kribs killed all 3 of my swordtails. but they do leave my other fish alone... kinda weird.