Congo Tetra Panting.. please any suggestions welcome.

[Lajos_Detari]

Yes - as I mentioned I had a bad batch of Harlequins as many of them died off some with white mouths. This settled and about 7 of the 15 survived. About 3 weeks later after it settling I bough another 15 Harlequins of which all survived. It seems to me the Congo got the same disease as the Harliquins though he may have been a little stronger. It seems his upper lip is a little retracted/worn away, though he has since settled into a lesser gasping action, good colours and shape, and eating more enthusiastically now.
I wonder if he got permanent damage, beat the disease, and will be permenantly impaired. Time will tell.

I think I'll continue with 40-50% weekly water changes as this seems the new norm ? And I can see why it may be beneficial..

Thanks for your input.

Oh - re canniser clean - I did give it a good flush out, though it was cleaned in the tank water and I didn't lose excessive bacteria(I don't believe that was a problem). Will continue to test Ammonia/nitrites/nitrates.. 0 at the moment).

Oh, then definitely you have parasites and/or bacteria infections in the tank.
Yes, since your tank is crowded, it's good to perform large water change per week.

For my tank, I changed about 90% +of the water, twice per week since I keep Discus with quite heavy feeding.

Gasping or fast breathing means the gills are infected(parasites or bacteria or both) if your water quality is good (no ammonia, nitrite, toxic or low oxygen due to warm temperature -86F and above and crowded tank).

So, hopefully the salt can help as suggested by Colin.
Salt can kill both parasites and bacteria though the effectiveness to kill parasites may vary sometimes.

 

[dirty_bishop]

Thanks for info so far.

Perhaps I have done the wrong thing.

The fish in question definitely seemed to slow with his gill movements after the initial large water change and large gravel vac.

A week passed and I performed another 50% water change though now his gill movements are quite rapid again. I noticed when he was eating he would spit the food out and obviously wasn't getting as much as the other fish.

Under agrreance/instruction for the lfs guy, I've isolated him with an air stone and heater and original tank water, and dissolved gill fluke tablet into the water.
Instructions suggest to perform a 25% water change 2 days later and repeat medication a week after that.

I'm not using a filter and the water volume is only 16litres.

I imagine it's quite stressful for him.

As he is the only fish showing any symptoms whatsoever I didn't want to medicate the entire tank.

Perhaps I should have used salt instead or as well? But my understanding is that salt treats external parasites more so.


As always, any comments suggestions are welcome. Don't want to see the little guy suffer. he's not just a small neon, or rasbora to me. Hes fully grown very colourful and fat, but I worry for not much longer.

Thanks to anyone for listening again.

 

[Lajos_Detari]

Thanks for info so far.

Perhaps I have done the wrong thing.

The fish in question definitely seemed to slow with his gill movements after the initial large water change and large gravel vac.

A week passed and I performed another 50% water change though now his gill movements are quite rapid again. I noticed when he was eating he would spit the food out and obviously wasn't getting as much as the other fish.

Under agrreance/instruction for the lfs guy, I've isolated him with an air stone and heater and original tank water, and dissolved gill fluke tablet into the water.
Instructions suggest to perform a 25% water change 2 days later and repeat medication a week after that.

I'm not using a filter and the water volume is only 16litres.

I imagine it's quite stressful for him.

As he is the only fish showing any symptoms whatsoever I didn't want to medicate the entire tank.

Perhaps I should have used salt instead or as well? But my understanding is that salt treats external parasites more so.


As always, any comments suggestions are welcome. Don't want to see the little guy suffer. he's not just a small neon, or rasbora to me. Hes fully grown very colourful and fat, but I worry for not much longer.

Thanks to anyone for listening again.

It's hard to judge whether your 16 liter is enough unless you test the water for ammonia and nitrite.
By the way, if you feed it lightly and change water frequently, then probably it's ok.

For the remaining fish, if you don't want to treat them, then probably you can observe them for the next two weeks to see any symptoms of gill flukes.
But usually if one fish is infected, it means the flukes are already in your main tank.

By the way, what medications did you use to treat the fish before it died?
At terminal stage when the fish is breathing very fast, it can be difficult to save unless probably you use Potassium Permanganate or Formalin which can kill both the flukes and bacteria.
The fish might be infected with a secondary bacteria infection and if too much gills are damaged, it might be difficult to save the fish.

Praziquantel might not be strong enough to kill the flukes.
Most of the flukes today are becoming resistant to Praziquantel.
If your fish is wild caught, then Praziquantel is still effective.
But for farm bred fish, it seems that Praziquantel is less effective.

I am not sure about salt effectiveness against gill fluke.
I know some people use salt to treat white spot disease(another type of parasites).

 

[Colin_T]

What is the name of the gill fluke treatment you are using and what are the ingredients?
If the medication contains Trichlorphon/ Trichlorfon, it probably won't do much to gill flukes because most parasites are resistant to Trichlorphon now, due to it being used for over 40 years and not being used appropriately.

Gill flukes are easily treated with salt because the salt water passes over the gills whenever the fish open their mouth, which is every couple of seconds.

 

[dirty_bishop]

"Blue planet Gill fluke and taperworm". Praziquantel.
- I wonder if I should salt as well. or salt only.. if salting what would you recommend just the hospital tank or the entire tank. The main tank is heavily planted as you could see from the video. Thanks Colin.

 

[dirty_bishop]

Yes it was Praziquantel. I would guess these are farmed in Australia but I don't know. I don't think he's quite near terminal, hes just too good a shape, and still colourful. The water will match the main tank so I'm sure it won't have too much ammonia etc. Thank you

 

[Lajos_Detari]

What is the name of the gill fluke treatment you are using and what are the ingredients?
If the medication contains Trichlorphon/ Trichlorfon, it probably won't do much to gill flukes because most parasites are resistant to Trichlorphon now, due to it being used for over 40 years and not being used appropriately.

Gill flukes are easily treated with salt because the salt water passes over the gills whenever the fish open their mouth, which is every couple of seconds.

Thanks for the sharing.
Then I think I should use salt if Flubendazole still can't kill all the flukes in my tank.

 

[Colin_T]

If it contains Praziquantel it should be fine. Praziquantel treats tapeworm in all birds, fish and animals, and gill flukes in fish. It is a safe medication to use.

I would treat all the tanks you have, at the same time. If one fish has gill flukes or worms, they all have gill flukes and worms.

If you have enough of the medication, put the fish back in the main tank and treat the main tank and any other tanks you have. You treat them once a week for 3 or 4 doses so you kill off any eggs that hatch.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate 24-48 hours after treatment.

Clean the filter 24-48 hours after treatment too.

Remove any carbon from the filter before treating the tank.

You can use Praziquantel in fresh or salt water aquariums and I would add salt to the main tank while using the Praziquantel. The salt will kill any minor bacterial or fungal infections and help take out any gill flukes if the Praziquantel doesn't work properly.

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Use 2 heaped tablespoons of rock salt, sea salt, or swimming pool salt for every 20 litres of tank water. Keep the salt in there for 2 weeks, then stop using it.
When you do water changes, add salt to the new water before adding it to the tank so the salinity (salt level) remains constant.

--------------------
Before you treat the tank, do the following things.
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.

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 or it will adsorb the medication and stop it working.

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

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. 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 filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

 

[Colin_T]

Yes it was Praziquantel. I would guess these are farmed in Australia but I don't know. I don't think he's quite near terminal, hes just too good a shape, and still colourful. The water will match the main tank so I'm sure it won't have too much ammonia etc. Thank you

Congo tetras are bred in Asia, usually Indonesia. The only aquarium fish we farm in Australia are goldfish and some rainbowfish. A few people breed cichlids too but any tetras, barbs, gouramis, Bettas, livebearers, catfish and most cichlids come from Asia. Some of the cichlids and more unusual tetras, barbs and catfish come from Germany but they have a sign on the tank saying German stock, and you pay a lot more for fish from Germany.

 

[dirty_bishop]

Fantastic information thank you.

I don't currently have enough medication as I bought what I needed for a hospital tank today. The lfs is 40min drive away.
Is it worth doing salt only on the main tank, or maybe I should get more medication and do both as you suggest.
I certainly see your point, I just don't see any other symptoms in my two tanks apart from this one bloke. I have a 200 litre and then just a planted 60 with betta and neons, but even this would cost a bit to treat twice.

Anyway, I dont like where the sick congo is, in a smaller tank and stressed. Decisions, decisions... ? Thanks.

 

[Colin_T]

I would salt the main tank while you treat the fish in the smaller tank. Or you could move the congo back into the main tank and use salt.

I would use salt in the other tank with the neons too just to make sure they don't have anything. The fish will be fine with salt for 2 weeks.

 

[dirty_bishop]

Ok thank you. I'm thinking maybe it would be beneficial to begin salt in all tanks, and let the sick guy stay in his hoapital with meds for a few days. I could add the same amount of salt to the hospital tank also - and finalise salt as you suggest 2 weeks later.
Would that be a reasonable approach?

 

[Colin_T]

Praziquantel works within minutes of being added to the tank so if the fish has been exposed to Praziquantel for 24 hours or more, any adult gill flukes or tapeworms should be dead. It's just a matter of killing any baby flukes or worms that hatch over the next few weeks.

If the fish has had one dose of medication, just put it in the main tank and salt them all.

 

[dirty_bishop]

Hey Colin thanks heaps for your info and time last night.
Before I salt I should mention I have bristlenose and a couple of Cory catfish in the tank also. I don't plan on keeping cories after these two pass, but i also dont want to kill them. Ive heard they dont like salt.
Would you still recomment the same ?
Lots of questions sorry to be annoying.

 

[Colin_T]

yes 2 heaped tablespons of salt per 20 litres of water is fine for all fish including corydoras.