Red Edge on Guppy!!!

[Feline]

From yesterday I noticed my male guppy staying on top of the water (not gasping tho). So I did a 30% water change and after he's back to normal. Only thing wrong is with his tail fin coz I saw an area of reddened edge so it's not the whole tail's edge reddened.

Today it got worse. The red edge widended so its fin starts to have rugged edge.

Is this fin rot? I'm previously treating my tank with salt (from suspected internal bacteria), and from the fin rot medicine I've got, it said not to use with salt.

There's salt content in my quarantine tank as well. Are there any other ways to treat it?

 

[Mogo]

Hate to tell you this Feline, but salt won't work on internal infections, it only works well for external ailments.

There are plenty of meds available to treat tail/fin rot that can be used in conjunction with salt (as most meds are intended for use in brackish water systems aswell). Could you post which one you have that says not to use with salt? Take a really good look at the fish and make sure there are not other signs of disease, look for small ulcers or wounds and check to make sure the abdomen is not swollen. Sometimes fin rot can be a secondary infection as a result from a systemic bacterial infection. Is this the same fish we were talking about in the other post? If it is, it looks like you have some kind of internal bacterial infection. Let me know if this is the case and I'll try to recommend some meds that will clear it up.

 

[Feline]

Thanks for the reply Mogo!

No this time it's the male guppy. The one in the another post is a platy.

The guppy's been fine since he came home a week n so ago. I dont find anything wrong with him except the tail. Now there's some "white strings" coming out from the edge of his tail apart from the red edges. What is it?

It's a medicine for fin rot & fungus control by King British. Active ingredient: Phenoxyethanol. One of the caution it said: not to be used in the presence of salt.

Should I take him out and do a bath treatment for him in the mean time as I dont to wait until 2moro to get another medicine. I worry his condition will deteriorate fast.

 

[Mogo]

I figured out it was a different fish right after because I went and read the other thread ) Is the guppy and platy in the same tank? If they are, this could be a sign that something is wrong with your water, as fin rot is not exactly contagious it's caused by oppurtunistic bacteria that reside in our tanks at all times and tend to attack weak, stressed or injured fish. Phenoxyethanol is actually one of the best things to use for fin rot. I don't know about complications with salt, but I would follow the package. Perform several small water changes over the next few days to reduce the salt. It would probably be a good idea to pick up a hydrometer so you can test your salt content. Get one that reads in ppt as specific gravity is more useful for marine. Most of them have both scales. I find it handy to have one around for doing salt baths, takes out the guess work. You could try other meds if you wish.

Let me know if the two are in the same tank, and check for ulcers and the such, swollen abdomen..a good idea would also to be to put the guppy in a bare hospital tank (no gravel) and this way you will be able to check his poop and see if his poop is also stringy and white. We'll get a better idea of what exactly is going on here.

 

[Feline]

I just posted some pictures of this Guppy, follow this LINK.

Yes the platy and guppy r in the same tank. I'll take the guppy out to a 2L bowl (wil it b alright with him?) and may be start a bath treatment.

One question tho: As a bath treatment (with short duration like 20minutes), will the dosage be doubled or more? Or should the dosage be the same as what the medicine said?

 

[Mogo]

Took a look at the pictures. Perhaps someone could move both threads into the same topic? Since we are dealing with one tank here?

Okay, since the fish are in the same tank, sounds to me like the bacterial infections are stemming from poor water conditions. I would probably advice against moving the guppy into the bowl. Do you have an empty 10 gallon lying around, what size is the quarantine, maybe you could use that if it's empty? Also, I would probable hold off on the salt baths at the moment.

So basically, step one. Set up a bare hospital tank (you can put a couple of large rocks to make the fish more comforatable, but no gravel and no plants). Fill it with water from the main tank, put on a small filter and fill it with it with filter media from the main tank (no carbon). Don't forget to put a heater on it as well. Put the sick fish in here. What temp is your main tank? You may want to start bringing the temp in the hospital tank up to 80F over the next couple of days, after putting the sick fish in it.

Over the next few days you'll be doing small water changes on the main tank everyday if you can, or at the least every other day. What size is the tank? I would suggest you do about 10% of your water volume. Maybe you have a high organic load that is affecting your water quality, so make sure while you are doing the water changes, you are doing as much of a gravel clean clean as you can not exceeding 10% of the water. You'll get a little section done everyday. Keep a close eye on the rest of the fish and make sure they are not getting sick as well.

Now, you'll have to go out and get the meds. Minocycline or Tetracycline (as per the other thread) I wouldn't be worried about the possibility of ectoparasites right now (flukes etc) as the fish could just be scratching from the poor water conditions. Besides these can be dealt with after, I am more concerned about damage to the internal organs right now. You'll have to let me know which med you get, and we'll go from there. Either way, you'll want to be doing a small water change everyday on the hospital, a couple hours before you would put the meds in. Now, this water change is going to be very small, only about 5% or less. Just enough to suck out the poop and uneaten food, as the important part here is to keep the fish in a realatively sterile environment, without drastically altering the water conditions. And no lights what so ever. Keep the blinds closed, as mino and tetra degrade in UV light and are not as effective.

Let me know when you have all this sorted, and hopefully it will all be smooth sailing from there.

 

[juanveldez]

I would defenatly say that it is defantly fin/tail rot. I know from my experince ( and luckly for me both fish had it at the same time) that it can spread quickly, I would definatly get him out of there into another tank and treat him till he is all better, and at the same time clean out the tank.

 

[Feline]

Thanks for the information!! The guppy is now in the bowl and I've just spend the last two hours cleaing out the hospital tank (a 8 litre one).

But I think the hospital tank'll b too small to put in the filter media from my main tank (a 70L). Currently I use a Penn-plax filtration unit for the hospidal tank, with carbon/zeolite/foam. Problem occurs! Coz I can't take out the carbon n leave the foam in!

Ok so I'll do as u said like for the water change n will start to look for the medicine now. Will keep u posted. Thanks a bunch Mogo!!

 

[Mogo]

No problem Feline, glad to help. Would like to see your fish get healthy again. Could you maybe pick up a 10 gallon cheap somewhere? Probably would be a good investment, I have a few extra tanks, filters, heaters for emergencies.

Well, the carbon shouldn't pose a problem as long as it's been running in the filter for more than five days. I'd prefer if it is older than two weeks, but after 5 days it wont pull so much of the med out of the water. I'm not familiar with the Penn-plax, don't think we have them here in Canada. I'll do a search on it tomarrow morning and might be able to come up with something.

Oh, I did another post in the other thread, just had a question about the size of the guppy. How about we just keep the posting in this thread from here on in to keep it simple?

 

[Feline]

Hi Mogo! Yeah it's a good idea to just stay on this thread. I just checked on the another thread and was saying that when compared to the female guppy, this male guppy seems like an average size coz I'm not sure if the female guppy's pregnant b4 she came home.

Thanks for the search, much appreciated~ I'll go to the lfs and see if I can get some bigger tanks cheap. But then I'll hav to think of a place to put it (coz I'm living in an apartment and space is kinda limited ) Anyway we'll see...

 

[Mogo]

I just checked some images on the net and it does look like he (the guppy) has some swelling just above his pelvic fins.

You just need to pick up a run of the mill 10 gallon tank you don't need to get a hood or anything. You can use an old plastic tupperware lid that you don't mind cutting a spot for the filter to cover it with. You could even get a 5 gallon if you want to cut the cost down even more, but meds are usually made in 10 gallon doses, and although thats fine for tabs cause you can cut them with a razor blade, but it can be a pain in the butt when using the powder filled capsules.

Could you tell me which style of Penn-plax you have, I did a search last night and they have quite a few styles. As I said, if the carbon is old it should be okay, but I would prefer to not have it all together.

The Maracyn II is readily available over here, and I have used it many times. Just make sure to check the expiry date, which is on the tinfoil wrapping of the pills. I always do this now, as I have come home with expired meds and have had to go back to the store. At one store, I actually found a package of tetracycline that had expired in '98. I found the package this year!

 

[Feline]

Sori for the late update... Been to the lfs (2 of them) this late afternoon, bad news, they don't have anything like minocycline or tetracycline. These r only available thru vets! And they don't have maracyn II coz they don't import anything from outside europe! One of the lfs suggested me to use Myxazin from Waterlife for treating fin rot and bacterial diseases, saying this one works better than the others so I bought this one instead. The bottle didn't list out any ingredients tho. Do u think this one will be any good?

Anyway they r still in the 8L hospital tank, with a small filter that I bought today and took out the Penn Plax Smallworld filter. I'm stilll searching for any bigger tanks. From the instruction of Myxazin, it said to have 1 drop per 1 litre so I added 8 drops to the tank.

If both my guppy and platy have swelling tummies, does that mean they have dropsy?

 

[Mogo]

Hi Feline,

"Dropsy" is a general term used to describe any abdominal swelling (not caused by pregnancy). Could be many things that cause swelling, worms, bacteria, viruses (very rare).

I did a search on the Myxazin and couldn't find anyone who listed the actual active ingredients in it. However it is a bacteriacide and not an antibiotic. It will lower the number of bacteria in your water, but it won't do anything for an internal bacterial infection. How the stuff works is by swaying the balance in your fishes favour. It lowers the number of bacteria in your water allowing your fishes immune system to fight the external bacterial infections it already has. As it is not an antibiotic, it will not penetrate the skin and scales of the fish, and therefore won't even begin to put a dent in the systemic infection. You might want to take the stuff back to the store and get your money back.

I'm gonna do a little more searching and I'll post back in a little while and give you other options for meds you can try to find.

 

[Feline]

Hey Mogo! Ugh so the medicine won't really help my fishies much, will it? That's bad... Now I'm thinking the only way to get the antibiotics is to visit a vet!! Thanks a bunch for helping me thru this!!

 

[Mogo]

Hey there,

Check your LFS for Nifurpirinol (also sometimes called Furanace). Other than that, I can't seem to find anything else that might work. Do the LFS over there carry any of the Aquatronics products? You may want to consider heading over to your vet and asking for him/her to do you a favour and write you a prescription for minocycline or oxytetracycline. If this is an option for you, I will give you the proper dosage information (so the chemist can make capsules in the appropriate amount).