Hello everyone – I am new to this forum and looking for some advice please.
We are new tropical fish owners, having established our freshwater tank in December 2015 with plecos, swordtails, an Angel, gouramis and a friendly red-tailed shark.
Over the last 6-8 weeks, we have started losing fish to what we think is an internal parasite in our freshwater community tank (currently 8 fish - 5 swordtails, 1 Chinese Golden sucker, 1 angel, 1 gourami).
We first lost our red-tailed shark (he was white at the bottom of the tank one day) and then lost 2 bristlenose plecos, one orange swordtail and a dwarf blue gourami last week (which had completely bloated and was gasping for air in his final days).
The other dwarf gourami has today lost almost all his scales, barely moving and vertical. I must say he went downhill extremely quickly after the other one died last week, he really looked fine until then and was eating even this morning. We are considering euthanasing him tonight using iced water, we read that it is a humane way for them to go to sleep.
Our beautiful big Angel hasn’t eaten in 2 weeks and is pooping a white, bead-like secretion which looks like eggs if you look up close. He is constantly gulping, has been for 2 weeks and has lost a lot of weight, although every day he seems to be about the same, even though we know he's not eating.
Water levels all normal, 90L tank.
We have treated the tank twice. First treatment about 3 weeks ago was with a white powder which went into the tank twice a couple of weeks ago and also mixed with their food (I realise this not so helpful, but my husband did it and it was given to him in a bag from the aquarium, no idea what it was caused). In the last week, have treated twice with prazi (Blue Planet fluke and tapeworm tablets). The rest of the swordtails (1 male, 4 females) all seem happy, eating well although some of them also have white or clear stringy poo at times, but their behaviour seems normal. One has even given birth (despite the stringy poo) and is pregnant again.
Would love to keep our Angel alive and trying to help him recover. Looking for anyone who might have experienced this before, we are new fish owners and this is becoming really awful for us. We have been told by the local aquarium just to cull them, but as we bred one of our swordtails we are attached to them and would rather try and fix the problem if we can. If this is not realistic we would also appreciate that advice.
Appreciate everyone's time in reading/responding to this and would love some help or advice from someone who has experienced this kind of unfortunate situation.
We are new tropical fish owners, having established our freshwater tank in December 2015 with plecos, swordtails, an Angel, gouramis and a friendly red-tailed shark.
Over the last 6-8 weeks, we have started losing fish to what we think is an internal parasite in our freshwater community tank (currently 8 fish - 5 swordtails, 1 Chinese Golden sucker, 1 angel, 1 gourami).
We first lost our red-tailed shark (he was white at the bottom of the tank one day) and then lost 2 bristlenose plecos, one orange swordtail and a dwarf blue gourami last week (which had completely bloated and was gasping for air in his final days).
The other dwarf gourami has today lost almost all his scales, barely moving and vertical. I must say he went downhill extremely quickly after the other one died last week, he really looked fine until then and was eating even this morning. We are considering euthanasing him tonight using iced water, we read that it is a humane way for them to go to sleep.
Our beautiful big Angel hasn’t eaten in 2 weeks and is pooping a white, bead-like secretion which looks like eggs if you look up close. He is constantly gulping, has been for 2 weeks and has lost a lot of weight, although every day he seems to be about the same, even though we know he's not eating.
Water levels all normal, 90L tank.
We have treated the tank twice. First treatment about 3 weeks ago was with a white powder which went into the tank twice a couple of weeks ago and also mixed with their food (I realise this not so helpful, but my husband did it and it was given to him in a bag from the aquarium, no idea what it was caused). In the last week, have treated twice with prazi (Blue Planet fluke and tapeworm tablets). The rest of the swordtails (1 male, 4 females) all seem happy, eating well although some of them also have white or clear stringy poo at times, but their behaviour seems normal. One has even given birth (despite the stringy poo) and is pregnant again.
Would love to keep our Angel alive and trying to help him recover. Looking for anyone who might have experienced this before, we are new fish owners and this is becoming really awful for us. We have been told by the local aquarium just to cull them, but as we bred one of our swordtails we are attached to them and would rather try and fix the problem if we can. If this is not realistic we would also appreciate that advice.
Appreciate everyone's time in reading/responding to this and would love some help or advice from someone who has experienced this kind of unfortunate situation.
