flicking on rocks

[laboul]

I think my fish may be starting to get a disease. I have 3 mollies and 2 platies in a ten gallon. My water params are:

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 10
pH 8.0
Temp 80

My tank has 1 T salt per 5 gallons and I put in several real plants a few days ago. All fish appear active and healthy but they started flicking yesterday after I added the coral platy two days ago (she's been flicking ever since I got her). I don't see any signs of disease on any of the fish or any other different behavior, but am worried that disease might start to happen.

The pH seems too high. Is this a problem?

 

[newfishies]

i think the flicking is a sign of ich or other external parasites...

 

[laboul]

OK - I thought so, too. I'll keep a look-out.

 

[Elisabeth83]

Flicking can also be a sign of poor water quality such as overfeeding. A week ago my swordtails were flicking and I was so worried thinking please dont be a disease!!! Then I thought about it and realized because I was worried about my cories not getting enough food I was overfeeding. So I stopped feeding for 2 days and did a water change and wah-la no more flicking

Can you see any little white spots on their bodies or fins? Long white/clear stringy poo? It could be the beginings of white spot or it could be internal/external parasites. There are so many diseases out there that cause flicking sometimes it's really hard to pin point exactly what is causing them to flick/flash It could just be that your new platy is irritated by the salt. Do you know if the tank they were kept in at your lfs had salt in it or not?

Before you medicate I'd observe them a little more. It's so tempting to grab medication and just throw it in but somtimes if you watch over a day or two it can turn out to be something as simple as overfeeding and dumping medication in can make things worse.

Let us know how things turn out! Good Luck

 

[WILDER]

Add some salt to the tank if you have no scaless fish, parasites hate salt, flicking and rubbing against objects can be, whitespot, velvet,gill parasites and body flukes. are there gills red and heavy breathing, do they look like they have been sprinkled in salt, also post test results in ammonia,nitrite,nitrate,and ph.

 

[laboul]

Now that I look closer I do see that there are just a few white spots on two of the fish, but none on the one that is flicking most. Guess it's ich. Crap!!

I'm confused. My water params are all good except my pH (see initial post at top for parameters). I thought diseases were a sign of bad water quality...

Definitely need a hospital tank. I think the two new platies to my tank brought in the ich. And the platies have had white stringy poop every since I got them, which means they were overfed when I got them. I doubt they were kept in salty water at the store, but I read that they could tolerate it at a low concentration. ANyway, I don't think it would be a good idea to add more salt than this, right?

Do I definitely need to treat with meds or might it go away on its own? I should only treat when it's in the tomite stage right, after all the spots fall off?? How long will this take? There aren't that many white spots.

 

[Nyte]

In my experience you must treat ich. Otherwise it just gets worse and worse and eventually kills. Ich is highly contagious so I would treat the entire tank. Since you have real plants make sure the meds you use are safe for them, it should say on the back of the packaging.

The meds I've used before to treat ich said to treat on day 1, 3, 5. But I've heard that treating for 14 days is nessessary. Maybe someone with more knowledge can help you out on length of treatment.

Also, with parasites their life cycle is shortened with higher temps. When I was treating, I raised my temp a bit everyday and stopped at around 84.

Hope that helps.

 

[paulthegreat]

Go to the Cyprinid forum there is a pinned post on ich. It may help.

 

[WILDER]

If the fish also have long stingy white poo that can be a sign of internal parasites.
http/www.badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article2.html

 

[laboul]

Internal parasites.... Great.... Well, thanks for the help, everyone. I'm treating them for ich and will let you all know how it goes. I'm sure they'll be fine now.