Help! Female macrostoma not eating

[Sofi]

Hi everyone I recently bought a pair of juveniles macrostoma, thefemale was eating well, we were feedings her live crickets and live blackworms, she was eating well, on the 3rd day, the male behaviour turned aggressive during feedings, she stopped eating and on the 5th day she was looking injured, we thought she may try so jump out of the tank, I think it's flukes, I stated with flukes and tapeworm tables yesterday, she was looking very bloated, isn't eating, she did eat 3 blackworms 2 days ago but that was it, she is currently in a quarantine tank with a pH of 6.1, no amonia, today she is looking less bloated, her red patch isn't red any more (flukes I think) , her tummy is starting to sink.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I thought she was having fin rot in the beginning so I gave her salt baths, that improved, but since I started with the fluke medication I stopped with the salt baths, shoul I continue?
I'll appreciate any advice please.
The male is looking healthy and in good condition, as they were in the same tank we are doing the flukes and tapeworm in all my tanks at the same time, I have 4.
Today she finished the flukes and tapeworm 1st treatment, my partner suggested to start today with blue planet multycure treatment since her fin rot isn't improving. She still not eating and since yesterday she started pooping white/clear pooping, she isn't eating, have been 3 days of her not eating.
Please any suggestions, advice.
Thank you

 

[Colin_T]

Stop adding chemicals unless you know what the problem is. Adding stuff willy nilly doesn't help anything.

Gill fluke cause fish to breath rapidly and does not stop them eating.

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What does its poop look like?

If fish stop eating it's usually caused by poor water quality, stress, or an internal infection.If the fish is eating a bit and losing weight over a week or two, and the fish does a stringy white poop, it's an internal protozoan infection.

The following link has information on treating fish with stringy white poop.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

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Are you sure you have a male and female and not 2 males?
If you have 2 males the dominant one could be bullying the smaller one and stopping it eating.

Don't feed fish crickets unless they are small crickets that have just moulted and are soft. If you give fish crickets that are hard, they can damage the fish's stomach and intestine.

Brineshrimp, bloodworms, daphnia, mysis shrimp, prawn/ shrimp, mozzie larvae, flies, small moths, aphids and ants are suitable foods for Bettas. Just make sure the insects are free of chemicals. Dry foods should also be offered each day to increase the variety in the fish's diet.

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Salt baths are bad for fish because you stress the fish when you chase it to catch it. Then stress it again by dumping it in a container of salt water. Then stress it again catching it and putting it back in the main tank. You also don't kill anything in the display tank and putting a clean fish in a dirty tank just reinfects the fish.

If you want to use salt to treat fish, you add salt to the main display tank and leave it there for a week or two. That way the fish is in the salt water and not being stressed, and the salt kills anything harmful in the main display tank.

 

[Sofi]

I was unable to leave her in the main tank (80L) because the male was chasing her a nipping her, she was very stressed out, staying at the top in a corner of the tank, she is larger than the male, but both are still very young, I think she is a female, or that's what she supposed ti be I got them online, I live in Perth, they were mailed from Sydney, she had what looks like skin flukes, in one of the pictures you can see some scales missing, that was a red patch, with the fluke medication the redness is gone, the floor of the QT where she is in the video have remains of the flukes tapeworm tablet.
The male is doing good, eating and swimming.
She was fed 2 adult crickets, and after the 2 crickets she stopped eating... the crickets were from petbarn (pet store)... I got crickets because when she arrived, she wasn't eating the live food (blackworms), or frozen food bloodworms.
Will she recover?
Her poop was like a translucid white worm yesterday, today was a smaller poop more translucid. also her blotting is gone since yesterday.
Thank you for the salt baths info.

 

[Colin_T]

I was unable to leave her in the main tank (80L) because the male was chasing her a nipping her,

That would suggest you have 2 males or a really aggressive male, which is uncommon for this species.

she had what looks like skin flukes, in one of the pictures you can see some scales missing, that was a red patch, with the fluke medication the redness is gone, the floor of the QT where she is in the video have remains of the flukes tapeworm tablet.

Scales missing on new fish can be from transport and skin flukes are very uncommon. Fish with skin flukes usually rub on objects. External protozoan parasites like white spot will also cause fish to rub on objects.

Her poop was like a translucid white worm yesterday, today was a smaller poop more translucid. also her blotting is gone since yesterday.

I would try to find some Metronidazole to treat her with. Stringy white poop and not eating normally is usually an internal protozoan infection. Antibiotics are not readily available here without a vet prescription. If you can find a product called "API General Cure", it contains Praziquantel and Metronidazole and should work.

 

[Sofi]

That would suggest you have 2 males or a really aggressive male, which is uncommon for this species.



Scales missing on new fish can be from transport and skin flukes are very uncommon. Fish with skin flukes usually rub on objects. External protozoan parasites like white spot will also cause fish to rub on objects.



I would try to find some Metronidazole to treat her with. Stringy white poop and not eating normally is usually an internal protozoan infection. Antibiotics are not readily available here without a vet prescription. If you can find a product called "API General Cure", it contains Praziquantel and Metronidazole and should work.

Ohh, thank you, she was rubbing against the almond leaves, and was twitching, her red patch with scales missing appeared from one day to another, in the beginning we thought she got a uv light burn, she went between the UV light and the glass for around 5 seconds, we removed the UV light when that happened, we are preparing a black water tank for her, the tank its 40L, I'm sure she is a female, he was dancing for her the first time they were together in the male tank, but he got supper agresive during feedings and territorial in the tank heavy planted, at the beginning there was 3 yoyo loaches, 3 kuhli loaches, 30 shrimps and 2 plecos, whe moved out the 3 yoyo loaches and lost 1 pleco in the uv light, the night we removed the uv light we found one of the plecos sucking at the light, he died the next day, we do not know how long the pleco was exposed directly to the uv light.
I'll look for your medication suggestions.
Thank you very much !

 

[Colin_T]

What sort of UV light do you have?
UV lights used for aquariums are kept in plastic cases and the water passes through the case where it is exposed to the UV light. There should be no UV light getting into the water outside the case and certainly not where the fish are.

 

[Sofi]

My partner got this light for the tank: Pond Aquarium Fish Tank UV Light sterilizer with Cover, pictures added. (I was against it because I knew it was a bad idea for the type of coverage)...
There's more to the story....
My partner didn't listen at me, (again) and did something wrong, he decided that he didn't like the filter system in the tank any more, so he threw away the Ceramic Noodles Aquarium Filter Media, the 80L tank, a well stablish 1 1/2 year old tank, lost the ceramic noodles with the good bacteria, he decided taht he wanted a new hanging filter, and I think that broke the equilibrium in the tank, because after the filter change with no slow transition, the next day the water was very cloudy, TDS was crazy high, we did a 95 % water change, the male got agresive, she got injured, we don't know if was the uv light, the male, or if she tried to jump out of the tank and injured her self, she was looking good at night and the next day she was looking bad: her top fin ripped in half, one side close to her tail red with scales missing, bottom long fin ripped too and one of the 2 frontal bottom fins injured as well.
We can't tell what happened.
We ended up putting bacteria starter in the tank and using a large sponge filter and getting rid of the new hanging filter, I mean not using it any more.
Here a picture of the uv light.
Now we got a canister filter with uv light, but isn't installed. The 80L tank is currently stable again.
He ended up printing a case for the light after the plecos death, but we are not using it currently, we are unsure if it will harm the fishes, some light goes out of the case he printed.

 

[Colin_T]

What is the actual brand name of the UV light and where did you get it from?

I would not have a UV light in an aquarium at all, especially if the light isn't completely covered by something to stop the UV light getting out. UV light is bad for fish and you if you look at it. It can harm your eyes and cause skin cancer. Remove it and don't use it.

Maybe contact the federal government and tell them people are selling UV lights that aren't shielded and they need to be banned for safety reasons. They are probably made in China, which makes things worse because they don't always follow the rules that protect us from bad people doing stupid things.

 

[Sofi]

Ohh woww, we are not using it at all, since the pleco died, my partner got it from Amazon, I'll do the complain. We were so unaware of how dangerous it is, my partner thought that was save because was sold in amazon, this is the actua link.
SunSun 6W-14W Pond Aquarium Fish Tank UV Light sterilizer with Cover (AUV-06B)
https://amzn.asia/d/a76HKQJ

We got a fluval canister filter with uv light integrated Few days ago.
Thank you so much.

 

[Sofi]

Thank you very much, I did report it as an unsafe product to: Productsafety.gov.au.
I hope that works for this product to stop being available.

 

[Colin_T]

If you want a UV unit for an aquarium (you don't need one but hypothetically if you did) you get one that is sealed in a plastic case and aquarium water passes through the case at a slow speed. The water is exposed to UV light inside the case and any microscopic organisms are killed by the UV light. You normally filter the water before it goes through the UV unit so there are less particles for the microscopic organisms to hide on. The slower the water passes through the UV unit, the more time it's exposed to the light and the more chance of the organisms being killed by the light.

With UV lights for aquariums, you need a big unit and you need to put all the aquarium water through it before it's returned to the tank otherwise you will only be killing a small number of microscopic organisms. Most UV units are too small for the aquariums they get sold for. In real life terms, UV lights are pretty much useless for aquariums except to reduce the chance of algal blooms causing green water and they reduce the number of harmful pathogens by about 10%. The reason for the low % is due to the water being diluted after it has passed through the UV unit and mixes back with the dirty aquarium water. The sterilised water gets mixed with dirty tank water and a small amount of that gets passed through the UV unit.

UV sterilisers for aquariums and ponds are not necessary and are more of a gimmick to get people to spend more money. If you haven't used the canister filter with built in UV light, I would return it and just get a normal plain old boring canister filter, assuming you even need a different filter.

What sort of filter is on the tank currently?

 

[Sofi]

Ohhh, woww, thank you!, currently a sponge filter and skimmer, I was wrong about the built in UV light, the uv light connects to the cannister filter, we got it before yesterday, we want to change the 80L tank for a 120L long tank, my partner was currently looking for another cannister filter and uv light for the 40 L tank, we want dark water tanks for the bettas, our 40L is currently being cycle with a hanging filter that only have a filter floss.
My partner thought the uv ligh was going to be useful for a dark water tank.
Thank you so much

 

[Colin_T]

Fluval is a good brand and has been around for decades. I had a Fluval 303 filter back in the 80s and it was great, lasted 20 years. I'm not sure of the new models last as long but they have a good warranty and are generally reliable.

The UV filter for that will be sealed in a plastic case and water goes through the filter and then through the UV unit. So if you do want to use a UV steriliser, that type should be fine. However, it's not going to kill everything in the water.

Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms that include things like bacteria, viruses, fungus, protozoa, worms, etc. Most of these things live in the water and on the fish so even running a UV steriliser doesn't get rid of them all because they are constantly being produced. The best way to control these microscopic organisms is with big regular water changes. For most aquariums a 75% water change and gravel cleaning the substrate once a week will help dilute the organisms in the water and keep the tank clean.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the aquarium.

Tannins cause the water to turn brown and are known to hinder the growth of many types of bacteria, viruses and protozoa. If you have a lot of tannins in the water, you usually have a lower number of micro-organisms. You still need to do water changes but if you have blackwater tanks (blackwater is dark tannin stained water) and do regular water changes, you shouldn't have many issues with diseases.

Personally, I would keep the filter depending on what size it is and return the UV steriliser, but the choice is yours.