Sick SAE's?

brianl

AC Members
Dec 6, 2006
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Hello all

I have a small 10 gallon tank that we have been trying out live plants in. It seems to be going relatively well, so the contents of the tank will be moved relatively soon to a 90 gallon.

In this tank, we have about 7 plants, 6 tetras of some sort (red cherry? something like that...), and there were 6 SAE's. The Tetras are very small (about 1/2"), and will be moved to our 30 gallon once they get a little larger.

The SAE's are also small, about 1 1/4". I bought them to keep the algae at bay. Please keep in mind I have no intention of keeping these fish in this tank for any length of time. I'm building a new hood for my 90 (more on that later), and the fish and plants will be transferred to that tank within a month.

They've been in the tank just over a week. About 3 days ago, noticed one of them was looking a tad listless, and hanging at the back of the tank, not with the others. The next day, he's dead. The other night, the same with another, looking a tad listless, dead the next day. Now, another one is looking 'down', and hanging out on the leaf of a plant. He's been there all day.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.lasko/sae2.jpg

The others look fine, and are moving about the tank as they should be (this pic was taken yesterday, before the one above, as it shows, more or less, four of them).

http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.lasko/sae1.jpg

There are no external signs of a parasite. They are not breathing heavily, and they appear fine. I've been feeding them flakes, and about 1/2 an algar tablet. There is a Red Sea bio co2 bottle hooked up, but it's curently at the end of it's time, I need to refill it, I just haven't as I want to deal with this.

This morning, PH was 6, Ammonia showed 0, and Nitrite shows less than .3mg/l (lowest the test registers).

Not sure where to go from here, but I'm betting the SAE in the first pic will be dead by dawn... :-(
 
Weekly, about 30% of the water.

It seems that I still have four SAE's this morning, I guess we'll see what happens...
 
OK, another one died (I think) just a few minutes ago...

He was in the java moss, I had unplugged the filter to clean the sponges. When I plugged it back in, the output pushed him off the moss. He swam around a bit, rather erratically, couldn't keep his balance well. Then, he started to dart about in sort of a corkscrew motion.

I said I think he's dead because I can't find him now, but the prognosis isn't good.

As to his appearance before he died, he _may_ have had a slightly cloudy eye, but nothing on his skin or scales. It was difficult to get a good look at it. Again, I can't seem to find him, I'm going to have to look in the plants...

Any suggestions? Obviously I've got a problem of some sort. It doesn't seem to be Ich, as I have not witnessed any lesions on any of the other fish. I've got shrimp in the tank, so...
 
Hi,

I'm stumped. You should go through some books and look a the disease section, and see if anything sounds like what you have. Or you could surf google and see if anything pops up. I'm sorry I couldn't help more, maybe some of the other members that know more about this stuff will help you.

Happy fish keeping and I hope no more of your fish die.

Cory Lover
 
Well, going over the Mardel fish disease chart, it seems that since the only symptom that matches is 'sluggish, hiding and not eating', and to treat with Maracyn 2.

So, that's what I'll do. I bought some new test kits, so I'll double check my numbers...

I'll keep everyone posted,

Thanks,

Brian
 
Well, it's been 4 days since I lost the last one. The other three have resumed their regular patrol of the tank, and seem ok.

I treated with Maracyn and Maracyn 2, as directed.

Thanks,

Brian
 
brianl said:
Well, it's been 4 days since I lost the last one. The other three have resumed their regular patrol of the tank, and seem ok.

I treated with Maracyn and Maracyn 2, as directed.

Thanks,

Brian

Hi,

Thats great!

Happy fish keeping!

Cory Lover
 
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