My Red Zebra Cichlid is convulsing

I just fear that the problem is not so much an illness or anything, but a heavily nipped tail. I definitely know that this cichlid is bullied. Could you please look at the photo and say if the tail is just eaten or something
I suspect it has convulsions from pain or it got infected because of tail injury
 
Hi,
Without water parameters, bare minimum NH3 NO2 NO3, or better adding GH KH pH, no one would be able to help your fish.
Please provide overviews of your tank.
 
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Please don't take your fish out of the tank again. That'll just be adding more stress, to an already stressed fish.

You haven't been testing your water, so it is likely that your water is toxic to the fish and this particular fish is suffering the most.

The only safe recommendation would be to change at least 30% of the water.
Make sure the water is of a similar temperature to the tank and that you use an appropriate water conditioner.

It is possible that your fish has fin rot, but who knows until you give us more detailed info about your tank set-up.
 
In his location section of his profile it says he is from central Asia... I dont think API tests are sold there... kinda strange... but I wonder if he's even able to get strip tests at least to give an approximate.
 
can you put up a few photos and give us the chemical parameters in your tank please if possible?

then we can all help you further

Can you buy test kits such as API online?

This issue is without being able to rule out a problem with the wate and no external signs there is no way to tell.

99% of the time it's a problem with the water quality.

I would suggest doing a large water change as a precaution anyway.

Edit, what size tank, what other fish and how long has it been running? These might help nail down the issue.

Hi,
Without water parameters, bare minimum NH3 NO2 NO3, or better adding GH KH pH, no one would be able to help your fish.
Please provide overviews of your tank.

Please don't take your fish out of the tank again. That'll just be adding more stress, to an already stressed fish.

You haven't been testing your water, so it is likely that your water is toxic to the fish and this particular fish is suffering the most.

The only safe recommendation would be to change at least 30% of the water.
Make sure the water is of a similar temperature to the tank and that you use an appropriate water conditioner.

It is possible that your fish has fin rot, but who knows until you give us more detailed info about your tank set-up.

any chance of a video of the fish?
upload videos to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.

In his location section of his profile it says he is from central Asia... I dont think API tests are sold there... kinda strange... but I wonder if he's even able to get strip tests at least to give an approximate.
Does anyone per chance know what this illness could be?
 

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Again, we could try our best but at this moment our guess is as good as yours... Water parameters are an essential when diagnosing aquatic creatures... Although there are some diseases like dropsy and ich that are fairly easy to spot without params others, like this, are harder
Does anyone per chance know what this illness could be?
 
Again, we could try our best but at this moment our guess is as good as yours... Water parameters are an essential when diagnosing aquatic creatures... Although there are some diseases like dropsy and ich that are fairly easy to spot without params others, like this, are harder
Should I just wait for the tests to arrive or should I quarantine this fish somewhere? This thing looks very infectious
 
The white patches on the yellow fish is excess mucous caused by something in the water irritating the fish (possibly ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, wrong pH, or an external protozoan infection). Fish also produce extra mucous over damaged parts of their body, if they have been injured.

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Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, GH & KH.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for one week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

If the water is good and there's no improvement after a few days of water changes, you can add some salt, (see directions below).

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.
 

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