Sickly Fish

[Trinket]

I believe the large, somewhat blurry white spot you are seeing is a piece of food floating in the water in front of her.

Actually if you look in the reflection underneath you can see several small cysts deep inside on the gill filaments. The gills look purplish and hypertrophied too.

I think this may be the viral condition called epitheliocystis or lymphocystis. All stressors have to be removed, so you are doing good there with the clean tank and its now cycled right?

Salt should help her

[Sakura]

Oh my! I didn't realize! Okay, the photo in question was actually taken before the dropsy and before the maracyn 2 treatment. Is it possible the Maracyn 2 took care of them, or probably not since she is still hanging at the surface?

Yes, the tank is now cycled, which I am so pleased about! Fuu is very happy with the nice clean water, and I am happier as well not having to do water changes every day.

Thank you Imo!

[Sakura]

Now we're at .2% salt and she seems a little bit stressed. Nothing too serious though.

When I get to .3% salt, how long should I maintain that for?

[Sakura]

Alright, now at .3% salt. Any thoughts on how long I should maintain this concentration?

She's eating and swimming around really well, but I don't think she cares for the salt too much. hehe

[Trinket]

0.2% is plenty for skin and gill issues. I should take it down again

[Sakura]

Oh oops! I'll do a water change this afternoon and take the salt down to .2% How long should I keep it there? A week? A few days?

She seems really unhappy today hanging at the top and clamping her pectoral fins.

[kukana d]

Did she seem much better before/without the salt?

[Sakura]

Yeah she actually did seem better before the salt. Maybe she will feel better when I lower the salt to .2% I'm using API aquarium salt.

[kukana d]

Hopefully she will,fingers crossed

[Sakura]

Thanks Kukana. I'm really worried about her

[Captain Findus Goldfish]

my fish started to gulp air when i added salt - maybe the salt just stresses them if they have gill issues? (mine have Flukes) in the sense that it may bother - yet it is helping her? if she is already weak maybe she just has more of a bother than usual...

I do hope that's the only problem! she is a sweetie!

[Trinket]

She does have small gill cysts I think and clogged gills so she will have a tendency to tophang. Salt should actually help with this but you may find 0.1% is enough now and keep it at 0.1% for a bout a week. 0.1% is so easy to manage as its just one teaspoon every gallon. I would still be doing daily water changes and adding back salt and checking params as new cycles can be so slippery. Im glad you have lots of aeration in the tank as any fish with impaired gills needs maximum 14ppm dissolved oxygen

[Sakura]

Oh hi Imo

Today I got home from visiting my parents and she is sitting on the bottom! Argh! With dorsal down and pelvic fins clamped. I'm trying not to freak out here. Is there anything I should do? I can only do a 30% water change each day, so I hope that may be enough. I'm trying to keep an eye on it in case there was a bump or something from the salt.

Also I'm super confused about the salt. Right now I have a .2% concentration of salt in there. If I do a 30% water change, will that bring the salt down to .1%? So confused! Also, when it is at .1% how much salt do I need to add back when I do a 30% water change? The tank is 25 gallons.

[caitie]

Oh hi Imo

Today I got home from visiting my parents and she is sitting on the bottom! Argh! With dorsal down and pelvic fins clamped. I'm trying not to freak out here. Is there anything I should do? I can only do a 30% water change each day, so I hope that may be enough. I'm trying to keep an eye on it in case there was a bump or something from the salt.

Also I'm super confused about the salt. Right now I have a .2% concentration of salt in there. If I do a 30% water change, will that bring the salt down to .1%? So confused! Also, when it is at .1% how much salt do I need to add back when I do a 30% water change? The tank is 25 gallons.

Hi Sakura sorry Fuu is still having issues. I hope she'll soon be healthy again. Here's the answer to your question about salt:

If you have 0.2% in your 25 gallons = 50 teaspoons of salt

30% WC means you change 7.5 gallons of water so you're removing 15 teaspoons of salt

So basically you will have 35 teaspoons left so you'll be higher than 0.1%.

You will need to remove another 5 gallons of water which will be 10 teaspoons of salt removed to end up at 0.1%.

After that for every 30%wc (7.5 gallons) you'll need to add 7.5 teaspoons of salt back in.

Hope this helps.

[Sakura]

Okay so let me repeat it back to you and have you confirm I'm understanding it right, k? Thank you so much for helping me too, I'm bad with this salt business I tell ya.

So as it is now I have to remove about 12.5 gallons to get down to .1% salt. Then at every 30% water change I have to add back 7.5 teaspoons of salt. Is all that right?

Secondly, can you help me make sure how much salt I truly have in there right now? I'm pretty sure it's at .2% but not positive. It was at .3% and then I removed 30% of the water. When I added water back I did not add any more salt. This would mean it's now at .2% right?

[Sakura]

She has white/clear stringy poos What do I do? I'm wondering if I should try either another round of prazi or another round of Maracyn 2. (Not using salt while dosing these)

Also I'm afraid there has been a cycle bump from the salt or something else. I think I'm going to try taking some more media from the 55 gallon for her. I'll try to up the water changes if I can, but I can only do 30% at a time unfortunately.

[caitie]

Okay so let me repeat it back to you and have you confirm I'm understanding it right, k? Thank you so much for helping me too, I'm bad with this salt business I tell ya.

So as it is now I have to remove about 12.5 gallons to get down to .1% salt. Then at every 30% water change I have to add back 7.5 teaspoons of salt. Is all that right?

Secondly, can you help me make sure how much salt I truly have in there right now? I'm pretty sure it's at .2% but not positive. It was at .3% and then I removed 30% of the water. When I added water back I did not add any more salt. This would mean it's now at .2% right?

No problem it took me a long time to understand this salt business too.

First off you got it all right.

As for how much salt you currently have in the tank right now you actually have about 3 extra teaspoons of salt in there, so you're a tiny bit above 0.2%. Personally I wouldn't worry about it. Eventually it will even itself out.

[Sakura]

Awesome thank you so much!

[amynmitchell]

Are your water tests showing a bump? I sometimes get one with salt and a new cycle. You could lower that salt down to .01% if you have a bump and it should recover pretty quickly. I wouldn't panick about the long white poo yet. That may just be a bit of stress from the recovery.

[Sakura]

I haven't tested yet but I'm going to tonight. I suspect a bump because there is a tiny patch of red on one side of her fin that wasn't there before. Could that just be stress too? I will test water anyway

Thanks for the input Amy. She is eating like a pig as always at least, so it can't be too urgent I guess. It's just really strange for her to bottom sit since she tends to be a little on the floaty side.

[Trinket]

I would be really surprised if the Maracyn hadn't caused a cycle bump. Salt is less likely to, especially if you take it up slowly. Beneficial bacteria live fine and hold cycles in saltwater tanks too.

[Sakura]

I was using the Maracyn 2 before I had the cycle actually, so it couldn't have been that. I got a cycle by taking a seeded filter from my newly cycled tank. That is interesting about the salt. I thought it was strange that it could have caused a bump because I added it slowly too. Huh. Must just be because it's a very unstable and new cycle still then right?

[Captain Findus Goldfish]

I lost my very new cycle to salt!!!

[Sakura]

Okay so Fuu has been in salt now for a little over a week. Right now all the "fuzz dots" are gone, but I think I see a little red spot developing under her eye. I'll have to watch it and see. She seems to be feeling pretty bad. She sits on the bottom or on top of her sponge filter almost all the time, not moving at all except for her eyes. There's been a few times I thought she was dead, because she is so still. Right now she is hovering around a little bit, but she is really struggling. Her dorsal and pelvic fins are very clamped. She is doing something strange with her mouth too, I'll include a video that shows it. The good news is that she's still eating, so I think there's still hope. But I feel like I need to try something else fast before it's too late. I was wondering if it would be a good idea to use Kanamycin? It says it treats severe bacteria and fungus. Worth a try? Is it warranted? I would try Maracyn 2 again because that really helped her, but every Pets*mart nearby has been out of it for weeks! An employee thought there was some problem with the distributor. I don't know if I would have time to order it... Help please!

Fuu Video

[caitie]

Sakura I'm so sorry Fuu is still not well. You really don't need this right now. I wish I could offer some useful advice but I have no idea what would be useful here. You probably already did this but did you send a pm to Trinket? She always knows what meds are best to use.

Keeping everything crossed so that Fuu feels better soon.