I need help!!! Dying ghost knife and elephant nose

[Leahnoel28]

I need help. I noticed white specks on my elephant nose today. I should have done my research first but I didn’t so I tried to treat the tank like I did with my betta tank. Within an hour they both became really sick. Neither of them will move. They’re just laying on the bottom of the tank with extremely labored breathing. I panicked and moved them from the tank I was trying to treat over to my Bettas tank which has the best water conditions out of all of my tanks (the betta is now in the other tank) it’s been about an hour or so and they’re still laying on the bottom of the tank. I can’t tell what the elephant nose is doing because he wedges himself underneath the ghost knife. Is there anything I can do to save them?

 

[Byron]

Major water changes whenever you see this or similar behaviour.

Having said that, moving them out of the tank should have achieved much the same benefit, so here we come to what you added/how you "treated" the tank. Explaining that may allow other members to suggest something. I tend to stay out of "disease" threads because that is not my area except for general things like water changes.

Provide water data--ammonia, nitrite, nitrate test results, GH, pH, temperature. All additives (conditioner, treatments, etc).

 

[NickAu]

Hi

Can you tell us Tank size

 

[Leahnoel28]

Tank size is 10 gallons. Unfortunately my poor elephant nose didn’t make it through the night. My ghost knife is back to normal today. I’m new to fish and I don’t test my own water (probably should) but I took a sample into the fish store today and they said my water was perfect. I used the API brand super ick cure. The fish store told me today that I should have tried using Furan because of my scaleless fish (they also said that elephant noses are super hard to keep alive) so I bought some furan and I’m going to try to rid the tank of the ich before I go try again with another elephant nose.

 

[NickAu]

Tank size is 10 gallons

Lets stop right there, You had an Elephant nose a fish that grows to about 25 centimeters long and a Black Ghost knife a fish that grows about 30 centimeters in a 10 gallon tank?

Have you got a tank thats at least 6 feet long 2 foot tall and 2 foot wide? Thats what a BGK needs.

 

[Leahnoel28]

Whelp. We’re going to have a 75 gallon tank probably next month. They’re still small right now. Just a temporary housing situation.

 

[Colin_T]

Furan 2 is an anti-biotic and does nothing to whitespot (assuming that is the problem).

Posting a picture of the fish might aid in identifying the problem or confirm whitespot.

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Black ghost and elephant nose are easy to keep but sensitive to all chemicals because they are classed as scaleless fish. If you ever have to treat scaleless fishes, you should use a medication that is suitable for scaleless fish like eels, loaches and catfish. If there are no instructions for use on scaleless fish, use at half strength.

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To 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 "How To Tips" at the top 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 absorb the medication and stop it working.

Wipe the inside of the glass down, do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean. And clean the filter before treating. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

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

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If fish ever react badly to medication, do a 75% water change immediately to dilute whatever was added to the tank.

There is more information about what to do if your fish gets sick, at the following link. It is long and boring but worth reading. I recommend printing it out and reading it in bed to help fall asleep.
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-gets-sick.450268/