Worried about parasites

thesydmonster said:
You have been given some good advice... with heavily stocked tanks, more water changes seem to be better!! Do you plan on getting a larger tank for your big fish??? Good luck!
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yea, hopefully. I really want a bigger tank soon. I am working on the water changes. I did one last night, i will do another one or two today.

Does anyone know how to describe what velvet looks like. I notice some fish, the clown loaches, guppy and rams have a gold patch on their gills. Maybe im just worrying to much and thats what they look like. Is this something I should be worried about? Is velvet patchy looking or more spotty like ich?
 
Velvet is a tough one to describe, simply because few people have seen it. I ran a thread on it a while back and got no responses on two different boards.

It is also very common for guppies especially to have gold speckles around their gills.

Shine a flishlight on your fish at night for a couple of nights in a row, and see if the gold patches increase or move. Velvet as a rule acts extremely fast at taking over fish. Therefore if you have suspected it for any length of time, it may well be that you do not have it.
The skeptical aquarist used to have a pretty good article, but their site is down (or I'm too dense to find it)

I would also search gill flukes, they produce similar symptoms (flashing, scratching etc.) they do not manifest themselves strongly on healthy fish, and eventually they will weaken fish until something else destroys them such as fungal or bacterial infections. Although Ich is a possibility still, Clown loaches generally indicate ich quickly and severly. so if you have no spots on your loaches, the odds are definately in your favor of not having ICH.
dave
 
Got back from the fish store alittle while ago. I took a water sample to be tested again. He said the water looks fine, my pH may be alittle high, he said it was about 7.4 or 7.6. My pH has always pretty much been the same though. He read the nitrates at 40, and told me that the mardel kits test high, however I don't know if there is any truth to that.

We were talking for a bit, and we figured out something that I hadn't thought of before. Perhaps the culprit for the dying fish is an aggressive fish. I have noticed a bit of increased aggression from the tri color shark lately. I know that when the angelfish was not looking so good, the shark would peck at him. I don't remember noticing this before the angel looked bad, so I am not sure if its the cause of his problems. I know that the shark was also pecking at a platy which I believe was the one that died. Other than that I haven't really seen him peck at anyone else since. Is it possible that this could be part of the reason my fish have died? The guy at the fish store said that as they get bigger, they do get more aggressive. Hes about 3-4 inches, I bought him whne he was bigger. I have been trying to watch him closely to see if hes being aggressive, but I haven't seen any thing recently.

Is there something that causes increased aggression in a tank? For example, my Blue rams seem to be fighting alot more lately. The brighter (male I believe) has been attacking the lighter (female I think) one alot more lately. I also even once today saw my remaining guppy come close to the light rams tail and kind of nip at it which I thought was very odd.

My clown loaches have been coming out a lot more today, and I noticed something strange with one of them. He will go up near the tri color shark and bring his mouth near the shark (not sure if he is nipping). This doesn't seem to bother the shark or cause any harm, but it looks rather odd.
 
Primary causes of aggression are:

Fish's nrmal behavior characteristics. The species profiles and info from experienced folks will reveal this.

Poor water quality. You've done some checking into this and at a glance things seem to be O.K. Your Ph is not high. with a Kh of 2-3 you will generally have a PH of 7.4- 7.6 and your fish will ot mind.

Crowding. This is the one that comes to mind for me. In addition to needing adequate tank size for fish size, you need adequate decor to allow your fish proper hiding spaces and territories. different fish have different needs, but if you provide them peace is much easier to achieve.


Just some ideas I am sure there are other possibilities, and thoughts.
Dave
 
I noticed this morning that my pleco (i think) appears to be releasing long stringy poops. They are a mix of clear light brown and dark brown. Some areas of it has bubbles on it. I researched this online and it seemed to be that this could be an internal parasite or bacterial infection. What would be the best way to treat this. I am still doing water changes to get the nitrates down, they are a little below 40 now, I am going to do another water change today. Any suggestions?
 
Are you sure there is anything wrong with your fish, It's easy to spend too much time looking for problems when none really exist. I have done it, as have many others. With Pleco's it's simple. Is his belly concave or convex. and how long have you had him. If his belly is convex and he has been in your care for a while he probably doesn't have internal parasites. Pleco's usually don't handle the stress of acclimation well and if there are any other health issues at hand they will manifest within a day or two of moving them home. If pleco's eat good and seem comfortable, they are usually fine in a decent clean environment. IME IF you get a pleco home and he eats well, and he lives for 30+ days he will live until you do something stupid and kill him. The first 30 days seems to be the kicker for me anyhow.

metronidazole soaked into his food is the best bet if he is still eating. If he is past the point of eating then Met in the water column may help, but isn't always very effective. Praziquantel is also a good med for many parasites but without a diagnosis it's hard to say which med is better. I would start with Met personally soaked into the food and go from there.

As far as the other fish dying, I would still suggest researching gill flukes. Flukes usually open the door for other problems rather than killing the fish themselves. The description of your angel that died sounds like Fungus or bacteria to me. In a crowded tank flukes will become more of a threat if they exist. Praziquantel is IMO the way to go for flukes, very effective, and little to no side effects that I can find.


BTW, Metronidazole has little or no side effects either.

Dave
 
daveedka said:
Are you sure there is anything wrong with your fish, It's easy to spend too much time looking for problems when none really exist. I have done it, as have many others. With Pleco's it's simple. Is his belly concave or convex. and how long have you had him. If his belly is convex and he has been in your care for a while he probably doesn't have internal parasites. Pleco's usually don't handle the stress of acclimation well and if there are any other health issues at hand they will manifest within a day or two of moving them home. If pleco's eat good and seem comfortable, they are usually fine in a decent clean environment. IME IF you get a pleco home and he eats well, and he lives for 30+ days he will live until you do something stupid and kill him. The first 30 days seems to be the kicker for me anyhow.

metronidazole soaked into his food is the best bet if he is still eating. If he is past the point of eating then Met in the water column may help, but isn't always very effective. Praziquantel is also a good med for many parasites but without a diagnosis it's hard to say which med is better. I would start with Met personally soaked into the food and go from there.

As far as the other fish dying, I would still suggest researching gill flukes. Flukes usually open the door for other problems rather than killing the fish themselves. The description of your angel that died sounds like Fungus or bacteria to me. In a crowded tank flukes will become more of a threat if they exist. Praziquantel is IMO the way to go for flukes, very effective, and little to no side effects that I can find.


BTW, Metronidazole has little or no side effects either.

Dave
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It might be that nothing is wrong, Its just that I have lost about 5 fish in the past 2 weeks, so I am concerned. My angel lasted since I setup the tank and he died recently. That was the biggest upset. I am worried about my clown loaches and rams the most.

As for the pleco, his belly appears to be convex. He hides alot, but from what I noticed this morning, thats how it looks. I have had him since February, so for about 6 months. He seems to eat well. I did feed the fish some tubiflex worms the other day and he grabbed the ball and ate a big chunk, I don't know if that has anything to do with the coloring of his poop. He was eating as of yesterday though, so I think thats not a problem. I normally see him come out of the cave every once in awhile and suck around on the glass.

I looked up gill flukes as you suggested. Is this something I would see on the fish or moreso the effects of it. Overall everyone else looks ok, except one of the rams seems to be breathing more rapidly than the other. This is the ram that is I have seen being attacked by the other ram , so I am not sure if hes breathing heavy because he is being chased around or because something is wrong with him. He does seem to be doing it often. Is it safe to treat for gill flukes if I am not 100% sure thats what it is?
 
As afar As I know Gill flukes aren't easy to see if visible at all, it is more the effect they create. I had flukes in a fairly crowded guppy tank for close to 9 months before I figured out what was up and killed them. I used Praziquantel which is expensive, but did not hurt my plants or snails, and really seemed to have no side effect on anything at all. It did stop all of the symptoms I was observing in my fish. As well as the occasinal death by fungus I was experienceing.

essentially every once in a while I would have one of my larger fish succumb to fungus or bacterial infection. This is not something I have ever had an issue with, so I felt something had to be wrong. I also observed occasional flashing against rocks and decor with this tank of guppies, but was confident the tank was ich free, and velvet free (Ich treatment and quarantine was the reason for my confidence) I decided to treat for flukes as that seemed to be the next most likely issue, and all symptoms and all mysterious deaths ceased within 3 days of the start of treatment. That tank has been trouble free now for close to 4 months since I treated it.

You description sounds similar enough to my situation that if the tank were mine I would probably treat for flukes.
Praziquantel is available in the form of Prazi-pro at some LFS's, it can be found on-line at Koivet.com, but it is hard to get in small quantities, and is expensive. Additionally it is used as a dewormer for cats Dogs and children, the common name is droncit, and you can probably find it under this name at most pet stores or through your Vet.

The only other effective treatment I was able to find in my research is Fluke Tabs. The general consensus on Fluke tabs is that they are effective, but they are harsh and difficult to use. Given the ease of Prazi, I couldn't see trying fluke tabs really.


The description of your pleco and the fact that you have had him 6 months tends to make me believe there is nothing wrong there. Mine excretes some really wierd stuff when his diet changes, so I wouldn't be concerned if he is eating and manufacturing waste.
dave
 
I think it might be the gill flukes as you had mentioned. I noticed today that my pleco appears to be breathing rapidly. He is still eating i think so hopefully he can last until I can start the medication and hopefully it can make him better.
 
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