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Author Topic: Sick Fish?  (Read 3920 times)

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Offline UDflyer00

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Sick Fish?
« on: March 01, 2009, 21:52:58 »
Okay guys,

   I need some help from the folks...  We went away for the weekend and when we came home we've got some issues...  When we got home today from a weekend over in Columbus my return was pumping beautiful air bubbles into the tank...  I quickly added a couple pitchers of top off water to ease that issue but then I noticed my sailfin was bloated and appears to have pop eye?  I can't get a good picture of him, but his eyes are definitely buggy... :(  And then my mimic tang has had some white on one side of his face that appears to just be some scratches, but I thought I'd post up a picture to see if anyone thinks it could be a tad worse?  Just in case I'm setting up a HT to get both tangs out of the tank so I can address their issues more directly.  Or do you think the sailfin could recover on his own??  Never dealt with pop eye or bloating before?  they all ate Friday night and then will eat again tonight...

Thanks,
Mark

*Note sure if this could also be a culprit, but mid-last week did a 25ish gallon wc of Seachem, a change from the basic IO I had been using...
« Last Edit: March 01, 2009, 22:06:27 by UDflyer00 »
65 g AGA - Kettering

Offline larrynews

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2009, 22:14:26 »
those do indeed look like scratches mine get them from time to time sometimes from just hiding when something spooks them, or fighting . but i would think it would heal on its own, the pop eye i have never dealt with but it should go to a ht so you can medicate

Offline Amstar

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2009, 22:26:33 »
how many fish are in your 65 gallon?  You mentioned (2) tangs.

Offline UDflyer00

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2009, 22:27:12 »
Okay here is an updated picture of the mimic from about 5 minutes ago... sorry it's not in focus my camera is not very sophisticated...


Also here is as good of a picture I can get of the sailfin as he is hiding behind the rocks... Oh joy I can't wait to try and get him out..
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Offline UDflyer00

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2009, 22:28:18 »
A goby, flame hawk, 3 wrasses, 2 clowns, and then the 2 tangs
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Offline Logzor

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2009, 23:17:10 »
The first pic you posted the scratches look like the ones tangs commonly get. My Tomini will run into a rock ever so often and the spot heals in 24 hours.

The last pic, which is a bit too blury, looks as if the problem has spread. Can you get a clear picture?

Locking the autofocus may help if you can get it at the right spot - fish are hard to capture anyways though!

Is the fish eating? If so what food(s) and is he getting any nori or seaweed in his diet?

Tang problems are usually stress problems or diet issues. There are just so many different things that could cause something like this.

Offline micki

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2009, 07:14:43 »
My 150 tank had some fish with some of the same issues.  It turned out they had flukes.  I bought a fish from Pet Land that I "thought" looked healthy...  I hope that isn't your problem.    :(

Offline UDflyer00

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2009, 22:43:26 »
Okay, success!  Under the cover of darkness I was able to coral the sailfin into my large shark net without him knowing...   I've placed him in a HT with salinity of 1.015.  Please have a look at the attached pics and let me know what you think...  I don't want to leave him in the HT too long as I'm borrowing it from Cyberwolff and he said he had a horrible time keeping the ammonia down!  I've got 7 or 8 gallons left from filling the tank to do water changes with, but the shorter the better as i don't want the ammonia to get to him...

But as you can see his eyes are a bit buggy and his belly appears to be "fat"...  He mostly hides during the day so his normal activity has not changed, but I don't really know how this happened as he was fine on friday when we left and looked like this on Sunday when we got back...

As for the other tang, doing some internet research I believe he has HLLE (head & lateral line erosion) so I need to get out to joels to get some garlic and some zoe to help boast him back up... And whatever else he thinks could help...

Please let me know what you think about Mr. Sailfin...

Thanks,
Mark
65 g AGA - Kettering

Offline UDflyer00

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2009, 09:32:39 »
bump... anyone have any thoughts or ideas?? would like to start treatment tonight... :'(
65 g AGA - Kettering

Offline ohioreef

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #9 on: March 03, 2009, 11:30:02 »
If your tang will eat it, go to WalMart and in the Asian food aisle is something called Sushi Party. It is sheets of dried seaweed. My tangs loved the stuff. That will help their diet.

Offline UDflyer00

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #10 on: March 03, 2009, 12:12:38 »
will that help the sailfin with his bloating and buggy eyes?
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Offline ohioreef

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #11 on: March 03, 2009, 12:23:04 »
Not sure about that, but it should help with the tangs HLLE.

Offline micki

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #12 on: March 03, 2009, 15:39:16 »
Soak his food and or nori sheets in garlic

Offline micki

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #13 on: March 03, 2009, 15:42:41 »
If your tang will eat it, go to WalMart and in the Asian food aisle is something called Sushi Party. It is sheets of dried seaweed. My tangs loved the stuff. That will help their diet.
 

FYI...The last time I checked Wal-Mart in Sidney didn't have that brand.  I bought the other kind and now have a HA problem!  The Wal-Mart in Piqua did still had the sushi party brand.

Offline UDflyer00

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #14 on: March 03, 2009, 15:44:26 »
I'm using the sushi party, and I hope to get some garlic tonight... But will that help with the buggy eyes and bloating??
65 g AGA - Kettering

Offline micki

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #15 on: March 03, 2009, 15:50:00 »
I don't know about that.  I know i's good for sick fish (or healthy for that matter).  Maybe post this to one of the sponsors Joel etc? 

Offline UDflyer00

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #16 on: March 03, 2009, 20:47:44 »
I've sent him a couple pm's.. I was hoping he might check in and offer some wisdom...  Maybe he still will?

I did buy some Garlic and Vita Chem at Aquarium's Etc. tonight.  I added it to their cubed food and let it defrost with it.  Then added it to the main tank and a bit to the Sailfin in the HT....  The Sailfin isn't eating his nori though??  maybe tonight he may?  I hope...

As for soaking the sheets in garlic, what's the best way to do that?  It would take a lot of garlic to soak the nori sheet and I can't pour it back into the bottle can I??  Also, once it would get wet from the garlic how would I get it into the tank? It would just fall a part??  Sorry if this are silly question, but unsure how to soak 1/3 of a sheet in the garlic without wasting all the garlic juice it would take?
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Offline cyberwollf

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #17 on: March 04, 2009, 00:17:45 »
Selcon has an eyedropper built in.  I just place drops all over the sheet and let it soak in, yea it is much more flimsy afterwards. Are you still feeding the sailfin cubed food too?  If it is still eating that is a one upside. is the hob handeling the ammonia? It had run several more weeks in my sump since i broke QT down.
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Offline Joel

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Re: Sick Fish?
« Reply #18 on: March 04, 2009, 06:34:18 »
There isn't an easy answer to this question. The pictures are not clear enough to diagnose plus with out seeing the fishes behavior it is tough as well. I will assume that your water is in correct condition (you have tested it - right?). The aforementioned water change with a different brand of salt should not have caused a problem if done as instructed. Raises a good question though, if all was ok with instant ocean, why change brands of salt?

Anyway...

My first though is because you let the sump get low and a significant amount of tiny air bubbles were pumped into the aquarium, this may have caused air embolisms in your fish. This can cause the eyes to protrude from a fishes head and may give the eyes a hazy appearance. it can give the fish a puffy or bloated appearance, and It also can put tiny little bubbles in the skin that may appear to be little dots often mistaken for parasites. If that's all it is, there is no need to medicate or treat the fish, give it time.

Pop eye is not a legitimate disease, it is a symptom of another problem. Medications claimed to treat pop eye are bogus, there are multiple situations that can cause the eyes to protrude, no 1 medication can address them all and it is not uncommon that nothing needs to be done to correct this condition other than let the fish heal itself.

First thing to do is identify if your fish have parasites or not. If they have little white -ish spots on them (not bubbles) then they probably have a parasite. (what is often incorrectly identify as ich) The irratation from parasites attached to the eyes can, and often does cause the eye to protrude and look hazy. If this is the case, vitamin and garlic supplemented food may help solve the problem. I caution putting to much faith in this method though, it may or may not fix the issue. If it were that easy we would not need medications and quarantine aquariums.

The next parasite concern would be flukes / trematodes. Since I am assuming that you didn't quarantine your fish before putting them into your aquarium, this is a very real possibility. This is not an easy to identify parasite and is not an easy one to deal with. This is a very selective parasite that doesn't prey on all fish. Tangs of the acanthus genus are notorious for carrying this parasite and easily could have it. The cloudy, protruding eyes is a symptom on this parasite as well as the edges of the fins having a "chewed up" appearance. Where the fishes pectoral fin meets the body (the fishes arm pit for lack of better description) is a place where trematodes often will congregate in large numbers so watch that area as well. If this were my fish, I would fresh water dip the pyroferis and see if any trematodes come off it. They will look like tiny white scales coming off the fishes body. Garlic, vitimins and even copper treatment will not fix this problem if it is what they have. Your salifin is not a common carrier of this parasite but is susceptible to it and your hawk fish is very vulnerable to this problem.  It'll need to be addressed in a quarentine system and you'll need to not have fish in the display aquarium for at least a month (longer would be better).

Hope this give you some ideas to try and solve what's going on.

Joel


 

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