Turquoise Gourami with popeye!

S

silberseele

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Dec 1, 2008
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So, I got him home, set him up with some gravel from the LFS to get the cycle going and he was fine for a week in his little 5 gallon...now the poor thing has popeye. I feel like a terrible, terrible failure of a fishmom. :[

Anyway, I picked up some maracyn from the lfs yesterday, did a 15% or so WC, dosed and then wc'd and dosed again today. He looks worse.

No readings on parameters since I haven't got a kit, but the water has that funky, earthy cycling-smell, so things don't look good. Am taking water to the LFS for testing tomorrow...in the meantime, he's taking flakes and has no other external symptoms aside from general lethargic behavior...but he has a distended eyeball, so I can't blame him.

Am I doing this right? Any input? Should I up the temp (76-78)? Keep the lights on? Lights off?

Thanks guys!
 
I don't think you are supposed to do water changes with maracyn until after you dose for 5 days.
Keep the temp the same,and leaving the lights on or off does not matter.
 
Yeah, I just rechecked the instructions and you're right...but the smell of the water kind of made me leery, so I thought I'd be on the safe side until I got tests run?

The info included with the meds indicates that maracyn isn't supposed to screw up the bacterial colonies - is this true? Anyone had some experience with what the parameters do while using maracyn?
 
you should still be able to test. maracyn in my experience has not cause a change in an established tank.
it is erythromycin and may inhibit bacteria growth.

the problem is you may not have cycled , there is no way to tell if you haven't been testing water.

the fact you had gravel from the LFS may have help jump start your cycle.

you may want to consider a larger tank..1 better for the fish. 2 larger tanks are easier to keep stable.
 
I did have the parameters tested daily throughout the first week, and the readings indicated that there was a mini-spike within the first two days and then everything leveled out again. Since then I've been too occupied with school to make a routine of getting it done, and so I'm suspecting something might have gotten away from me.

A liquid test kit is going to be my christmas present to myself, I think.
 
Well.

He's laying on the gravel on his side, bad eye up. This looks like the end for poor kevin :[

I'll do one last wc before bed on the off chance it'll help, memorial service in the morning...
 
Params checked out fine. The eye popped, and he's been lying on the bottom of the tank, gasping for the past two days. He doesn't respond to stimulus of any kind.
 
You need to end this as soon as possible. If you don't have clove oil then just put a bowl in the freezer and wait until a skin of ice forms... then break a hole in it and drop him in. The shock will kill him instantly.

I'm so sorry for your loss and for the trauma of this experience.
 
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