New Celestial Pearl Danios in trouble. Clamped rear fins and some splotches

Three of my CPD's have clamped back and dorsal fins. I have a handful of cherry shrimp and 11 CPD's in a somewhat heavily planted 10 gallon tank. Tank is fully cycled and been around for a long time.



Parameters are

Ammonia 0

Nitrites 0

Nitrates about 20

PH approx 7.4

Temp 73

KH 5

GH 8

Most of my CPD's look fantastic with beautiful flaring fins, colorful spots, and are growing nicely. I bought them all as juveniles (one batch about 2 months ago and one a month ago).There are 3 that remain very small and have clamped fins (from the most recent batch). One of them appears to have a very dim light colored line that goes around the tail, another one has a slight light discoloration on top of his head, and the third nothing but the common feature of clamped rear and dorsal fins.. Does anyone have any ideas? They seem to just kind of hang out in the top third of the aquarium, a bit lethargic, but still eating (albeit less than the other ones). They are definitely the smallest of the group. I haven't lost any yet, but starting to worry a bit.



I have attached a couple photos of the ones that don't look well.

Any help would be appreciated.

Additional info. Water changes about 10% once a week. I have begun to treat with ICH-X in case it is fungal in nature on advise from a fellow fishkeeper friend. I don't think it is Ich, but my understanding is that it can help with some other fungal issues. Obviously if this is bacterial, probably won't help much.

ruahusker said:

Additional info. Water changes about 10% once a week. I have begun to treat with ICH-X in case it is fungal in nature on advise from a fellow fishkeeper friend. I don't think it is Ich, but my understanding is that it can help with some other fungal issues. Obviously if this is bacterial, probably won't help much.

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one of them looks like it has columnaris, which is bacterial.
I like to treat with seachem paraguard and do heavy water changes each day, but you have shrimp so I am not sure about this option
People say that it is safe to most inverts but i'm not sure about neos
I also think the nitrate is a bit high, you should look around for dead creatures and rotting plants etc, and then do water change

The 20ppm nitrate is probably partly due to my Easy Green fertilizer. I use it on all of my tanks and my nitrates kind of bounce around from 0-20 depending on plant uptake. It could be though that these CPD's are more sensitive than the rest of my fish.

Could it be that they are just being bullied. They look like young males (a bit hard to tell with the fin damage). CPD can be quite feisty and should have plenty of line of sight hiding places. I would treat with salt and daily 50% water changes for a couple of weeks. I have a tank with CPD and RCS and both are fine with this treatment. Use 1 level tablespoon for each 5 gallons of water. When you change the water replace the salt for the volume of water you changed.
FWIW I change 75% weekly in my tank with these 2 species. This has never caused an issue for my shrimps (despite what you may read on the internet ). Both are sensitive to water quality. You should definitely try to get the nitrates down, perhaps switch to a fert that does not contain nitrates - none of the plants in your photos need nitrates added.

Good suggestions. I have ordered some aquarium salt from Fritz aquatics, and I am going to pick up a little 5.5 gallon tank as a hospital tank from petco's aquarium sale today. Although I might just treat the entire tank and do the aggressive water changes just in case there is something sort of bacteria or fungus around. Do you think that amount of salt will hurt my plants? It is mostly water sprite, java fern, horwort, etc.

ruahusker said:

Good suggestions. I have ordered some aquarium salt from Fritz aquatics, and I am going to pick up a little 5.5 gallon tank as a hospital tank from petco's aquarium sale today. Although I might just treat the entire tank and do the aggressive water changes just in case there is something sort of bacteria or fungus around. Do you think that amount of salt will hurt my plants? It is mostly water sprite, java fern, horwort, etc.

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No they will be fine

It looks to me like either columnaris, or quite possibly very developed velvet (Oodinium spp). Everything I know that can stop velvet will damage shrimp as well. To diagnose, use a sharp light and check along the spine, head to dorsal. Velvet will show as velvety in texture. It us a parasite that feeds on light in older tanks, and on fish, is fatal if unchecked. It's out of fashion as a disease, in that no one talks about it, and is often misdiagnosed as columnaris. But it is still relatively common.

I stopped velvet not long ago with a week of lights out, and dosing a med with malachite green and formal over that period. I raised temps to accelerate the creature being exposed to the meds. Heat will not kill it as it does some strains of Ich.

That treatment, the only one I know (salt can be a preventative, but doesn't help a lot once it's on the loose) would possibly kill shrimp.

GaryE said:

It looks to me like either columnaris, or quite possibly very developed velvet (Oodinium spp). Everything I know that can stop velvet will damage shrimp as well. To diagnose, use a sharp light and check along the spine, head to dorsal. Velvet will show as velvety in texture. It us a parasite that feeds on light in older tanks, and on fish, is fatal if unchecked. It's out of fashion as a disease, in that no one talks about it, and is often misdiagnosed as columnaris. But it is still relatively common.

I stopped velvet not long ago with a week of lights out, and dosing a med with malachite green and formal over that period. I raised temps to accelerate the creature being exposed to the meds. Heat will not kill it as it does some strains of Ich.

That treatment, the only one I know (salt can be a preventative, but doesn't help a lot once it's on the loose) would possibly kill shrimp.

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Good to know. Thanks for the info. My Ich-x treatment that I am currently using has Malachite Green and formaldehyde in it. so hopefully if it is velvet then that will help take care of it. I am on day two of treatment with that. I went ahead and ordered some Kanaplex and Sulfaplex to treat them in a hospital tank if this doesn't work. By the time the meds get here I should know whether it is working. I plan on doing a light salt treatment for the external issues, and the Kanaplex to start with as the antibiotic.

External protozoan infection (Costia, Chilodonella or Trichodina) brought in on the new fish.

DON'T USE ANTIBIOTICS UNLESS FISH HAVE A KNOWN BACTERIAL IFNECTION THAT HASN'T RESPONDED TO NORMAL TREATMENTS.

External protozoan infections can be treated with salt or Malachite Green based medications. Salt is safer.

Do a big water change, gravel clean the substrate, clean the filter, and wipe the inside of the glass down before adding salt or any medication.

Increase aeration when using salt or medications because they reduce the oxygen level in the water.

Remove carbon from filters is using chemical based medications.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) 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.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.