Feeding change

Currently I am medicating for worms with esha gdex and a second dose of ndx to come in a few days.

Quite a few fish dropped off since the first signs of works in the tank.

Before this issue, I had a healthy tank full of various fish, mainly guppies and glowlight tetras, 4 black mollies, a few female bettas (they were doing just fine in the tank)

Whether I dropped a pinch of flakes OR stuck the tip of the long tweezers in with a frozen cube... They would immediately RUSH to the food... They would even swim to the feeding ring when I approached the tank, knowing food is coming.

Since medicating... (Not since signs of worms, since MEDICATING).. none of them swim to the food... And as the food floats around the tank..... They look like they're rushing around to get it.. But keep swimming around/past...

To me it looks like they're disorientated, confused... Like a human who's super drunk and tries to pick up an apple but their hand lands next to the apple and they just cannot coordinate or function.

Is it possible the medications affect their brain like this? Why can't they find the food in front of them? Why do they seem to have slow reaction or to be a bit like headless chickens?

Odd thing to note is; the guppy FRY seem totally fine seeing and approaching the food.

Is it possible they function less well or don't approach for food because they're "emotionally" disorientated after so many of their friends died and the dynamic of the tank or overall happiness of the tank has dropped significantly due to lack of social needs met? I didn't want to add new fish to the tank during medication plus in traveling for a week in 1 week so no point to rush but I'm afraid they're dying off and u healthy because of their friends disappearing 1 by 1.

I have finally accepted that I need to invest in a 10 gallon tank to treat all new fish before adding them to the aquarium. I will do so and when I do, should I treat them with praziquantel and levimasole, is that sufficient to ensure my tank doesn't suffer this again?

Main question is about feeding tho. Why are they not coming to the food anymore? They're super spaced out!

Is the medication added to the food? Or is it just topical? Like added to the water? In my experience I was only able to treat worms successfully with it being added to the food.
So they may still have the parasite. Which would explain why they aren’t eating.

FishNturt808 said:

Is the medication added to the food? Or is it just topical? Like added to the water? In my experience I was only able to treat worms successfully with it being added to the food.
So they may still have the parasite. Which would explain why they aren’t eating.

Click to expand...

People said getting the fish to eat that food with the medicine on it is too difficult.

But what is the brand/medicine called which they eat with the food? I'll try it... But... The food is just tropical flakes or frozen bloodworms..

The teenage size guppy fry was eating fine as are other guppy fry in the small tank, (fry tank is placed inside the main tank so same medication)..

To be honest yesterday I noticed the fish poop is brown again, no longer white so the meds might be working.

I used the seachem brand meds. It’s a 3 part mix.
So with parasites, you’d use metroplex, focus (to bind the meds to the food), and garlic guard (to make the food/med mix taste better)

If the parasite was Camallanus nematodes (needing levamisole) they are possibly bleeding internally, as that parasite sinks its mouth in, and as it detaches, the wounds are real. If it was standard tapeworms, they could just be feeling lousy. They will have pooped out a lot of what you thought was their body weight.
If all you had to go on was whitish stringy wastes, then maybe it wasn't even worms, and they could have or have had a bacterial infection of the gut.
All in all, they have lots of possible reasons to feel lousy. Don't fall into the trap most of us end up in at least once - of overfeeding to compensate. They'll eat if they're ready to. Keep the water clean!

It's either overdosed medication or the fish have an upset stomach/ intestine from the worms being poisoned. Since the young fish are eating and acting normally, we will assume it's the latter with the adults not feeling well due to the worms damaging the intestine.

The intestinal worms bite onto the side of the intestine and drink the fish's blood. When you add medication like Praziquantel or Levamisole, the worms are meant to be paralyzed and let go. Sometimes they don't let go and bite down harder and this can hurt the fish. If there is sufficient deworming medication in the water, it should cause the worms to let go.

Young fish and small fish will become nervous and skittish if overdosed with deworming medication. A water change usually fixes that problem.

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To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

If you have big rocks or driftwood in the tank, remove these before measuring the height of the water level so you get a more accurate water volume.

You can use a permanent marker to draw a line on the tank at the water level and put down how many litres are in the tank at that level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "FishForum.net Calculator" under "Useful Links" at the bottom of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating with chemicals or it will adsorb the medication and stop it working. You do not need to remove the carbon if you use salt.