Can anyone tell me what this might be?

[Fishiemang]

My severum has had this going on for maybe 3 weeks now. It has gotten slightly better about a.week or so ago, then it started like.it is now. The severum is getting to where it is hiding, eating sporatically, and just looks at me like 'help me out here man'.

Tank is a 75 gallon that is established, been for well over a year, water params are good, but don't have exact specs just now. Has a FX4 and they are fed twice a day. I have been using Pimafix and Melafix, thinkin it can't hurt. There is some fin issues that popped up about 8 months ago, but nothing serious.

The tank mates are 1 bala shark about 6 inches, a rainbow shark about 4 inches (used these fellas to cycle the tank and they survived...haha), a 9 inch common pleco, a 4 inch jewel cichlid, a 4 inch convict cichlid that never comes out of his ship (ironic really), another small cichlid that for some reason I cannot.remember what it is called (maybe age catching up with me) and a peacock cihlid.

Everyone been gettin along just fine. Most recent.addition was the peacock, which was a few months back. I did notice that somehow my heater got turned up to 81 degrees (think the hungry hungry hippo common pleco maybe was able to somehow turn the knob as it was cleaning as it is submerged behind the ship in the bubble stream). I turned that back down to, hopefully, somewhere around 78 (will see tomorrow when everything cools). There is some malaysian driftwood in there, a decorations. I have not found a plant that is able to survive both the severum and the common pleco. These guys demolish anything I have tried. So any advice for plants that may be able to survive these guys would be good. At least something I can.anchor and will.grow fast enough to keep up with gettin ate.

Thanks for any help ya'll can provide. I just want to help my guy out. I don't have time until next week to get to my lfs to ask them guys what it might be. Just came on with 1 spot spewing and now it is spreading to the gill area. Lil guy is askin for help, so here I am forwarding his request.

 

[Colin_T]

Hole in the head disease or Head and lateral line disease (same thing).
It's caused by a parasite called hexamita and occurs in dirty tanks.

Tanks with big cichlids and plecos need to get big (75%) regular water changes and gravel cleans to stop harmful organisms growing.

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Wipe the inside of the tank down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for 2 weeks.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter. Wash filter media/ materials in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the lawn/ garden.

Add salt, (see directions below). If there's no improvement after a week of salt and daily water changes, you will probably need medication. Metronidazole is the recommended chemical treatment, but try salt and cleaning the tank first.

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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 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

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, 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, 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.

 

[Fishiemang]

Thanks for the reply/confirmation. I had figured that's what was.going on, but never had to deal.with it before.

I usually do big water changes on this tank. I have, however, been slack on the gravel vac's. I usually try not to stir the substrate up too much as I have actually lost fish doing this. But with that big ole common pleco in there, it'a a swimming.poop factory. So I typically use a battery operated substrate vac and.skim the surface. These african cichlids have been.moving the gravel a lot lately. Maybe you're right, and they have stirred up what didn't get vac'd.

I am gonna give some.of your suggestions a.try, as I try and avoid most chemical.solutions if possible. Not sure if the common pleco will like the salt or not, but, he may not have a choice. This severum is kinda the star of the show in there, so he can't be sick!

 

[itiwhetu]

Do you know what the ph is?

 

[Fishiemang]

Around neutral.

 

[itiwhetu]

Just be careful with big water changes if you have been a bit slack you may find the ph has slipped, you don't want to give these guys a big fright.

 

[Fishiemang]

I have my method of.doing water changes and keeping it not a drastic rapid change. The FX4 canister has that nifty drain hose thing, and I put that on a.partial close off of the return side to the tank, and I add water as it is being pumped out. Keeps the majority of the water in the tank, to avoid a massive shift, and it's always the same temp. My tap water is actually not bad. Add dechlorinator and pour in. Seems to work out alright. Biggest obstacle is avoiding micro bubbles when adding.water back. Them fishies don't like that. The pH is roughly the same on tap as in tank. The wood in there buffers it slightly, but, nothin serious. I have not been slack on water changes and filter cleanings, so no.worries there.

I think that my common pleco was.prolly suckin away on the heater, and possibly was able to click it up in temp. Somehow, in the same time frame, my tank went from the typical 77/78 degrees to 81 degrees. Figured that sparked a bloom of bad stuff in the tank, and the severum got the brunt of it. Hopefully, with the suggestions above, and cooling the tank downa little, will.clear out the bad guys and give my guy a break. He is the only cichlid that seems to be affected in there. The others show no signs of illness, and are active normal. I did notice everyone started acting a little funny about a month ago, but I never thought to check the temp in the tank until my water change the other day. I was temp matching the water and noticed it was higher than normal. The last time I checked the temp it was.right where I set it almost 2 years back when I set this tank up. We'll see.

 

[Colin_T]

You need to use a gravel cleaner not the suction with a sock.

You can make a decent gravel cleaner from a 1, 1.5 or 2 litre plastic drink bottle and garden hose. This will let you remove the gunk from the substrate without it being released into the water.

Get your plastic drink bottle and cut the bottom off it. Throw the bottom bit away.
Remove the cap and plastic ring from the top and throw those bits away.
Stick a garden hose in the top of the bottle and run the hose out the door onto the lawn.
Start syphoning water out the hose and use the bottle to suck the crap out of the gravel.

Gravel clean as much as you can in the process of draining 75% of the water out, then gravel clean the rest the next time you do a water change.

 

[Fishiemang]

I seen it in the pic I posted last night, but looked at the severum, and he has pop eye starting on his right eye. I have never seen a good outcome once that starts. Something got to him, that didn't happen to anyone else in there. I've not seen any reliable solution to curing this condition in any fish I have had over the years. Best case, I had a tetra that lost one eye, lived about a year longer, then became snail food, never to be seen again. Makes me sad. I raised this fella from about 1 inch.

Gonna do what I can to save him and the rest anyways. I really need to find plants that will survive the onslaught that the pleco and cichlids have. If the pleco ain't uprooting them, the cichlids eat them. Trial and error I suppose.

 

[itiwhetu]

Vallisneria is always good, they have a good root structure. How old is this Severum?

 

[Colin_T]

use floating plants like duckweed and water sprite.

pop-eye is normally caused by poor water quality, dirty tanks or physical injury.
the best treatment is clean water and salt. in some cases anti-biotics may be required but salt and clean water normally do the job.

 

[Fishiemang]

The severum is about 2 years old.now.

Yea, I'm going to find my aquarium salt, and change out some water. I hope my pleco doesn't get mad at me for using a.little salt for a while. He survived it last time I used it when he was about 3 inches...haha. He didn't like it much, but, none the less, he still kickin.

 

[Fishiemang]

I added a second filter on the back of the aquarium for extra filtration. An Emperor 400. That's what was on there before I got the FX4. I think the FX4 just bypasses most of the time, as I am cleaning that thing constantly, yet I don't usually put that much food in there. If anything, some would say I underfeed. I know the fish would say that. They murder what I put in and beg for more...haha.

 

[Retired Viking]

I had African Cichlids and a large pleco in my 55 gallon tank and all they did was move around the plastic plants I had in there. They seemed to rearrange the tank almost daily so like @Colin_T said go for floating plants or something that you can tie down to a rock. Most floating plants do a decent job of removing ammonia from tanks. Anacharis, hornwort, moneywort and frogbite are more good choices. Salvania also does a good job.

 

[itiwhetu]

I agree, I would give them some plastic plants to play with then live plants behind some big rocks at the back of the tank. As long as they have something to play with they are happy