Swollen/red gills

[Cathy G]

Hi, I have a batch of young blue rams almost ready for sale and quite a few of them have developed swollen and red gills. I have less than 10 nitrates, and have never had ammonia/nitrites. Also, I do 50% water changes every 2-3 days, there are about 55 of them in a 50g tank...

They are eating and swimming just fine, they exhibit no other symptoms, water is 86 and heavily filtered. I also added a bubble wand to really get the o2 in there.

Any ideas? I am stumped. I pulled out one dead body today, the first in many months. Don't know if I should just wait and watch, or treat with an antibiotic. (If so, which one?!) If you have any advice I'd sure appreciate it!

Cathy

 

[jm1212]

it could be the beginnings of ich

 

[Cathy G]

I should have added this when I posted...

There has been no flashing, itching, scratching, etc. This is in a fry grow out tank and the only fish added were a few ottos. (Yep, I did QT these guys 1 month before I added them, and the rams' gills were swollen before I added the ottos.) I didn't add plants, gravel, etc. and I keep the temps at 86... I don't think it is ich... the gills have been swollen for a couple of weeks now and there haven't been any white spots... The tank was also treated in the past for gill flukes, I don't think it is flukes either as they are not itchy,scratchy and not showing any evidence of oxygen deprivation.

Thanks for the idea though.

Cathy

 

[Cathy G]

bump

 

[liv2padl]

it certainly doesn't sound like 'Ich' but it does sound like possible gill flukes. the the absence of scratching doesn't preclude the possibility and the red/swollen gills points towards it.

that's alot of 'young' fish for 50 gallons .. particularly blue rams which are extremely sensitive to dissolved organic compound in the first place. if it were my tank, i'd reduce the population by half and treat half of them for flukes and see what happens. if successful, i'd then treat the other half.