Sick Black Ghost Knife Fish And Kribensis

[hopkigg]

Hi, can anyone help me as my kribensis and knife fish are sick.

My black ghost knife fish is about 3-4 years old, he has always hid in a plastic tube but for the past few weeks he has been hanging at the top of the water, seemingly gasping for air. His fins are shredded and he has white patches on him. It doesnt look like white spot though. Really dont know what could be wrong with him. The only thing i can put it down to is stress for some reason. He will still eat blood worms out of our hands. The other fish seem to keep bothering him so we are going to move him to a 3ft quarantine tank. Can anyone give me some advise on what i need to do to the quarantine tank. what temp does it need to be? Do i need put any medication in? Can i use water from my normal fish tank or start from fresh with tap water?

My Kribensis is also sick and has been for a few weeks. He struggles to stay upright and keeps flopping on to his side. Sometimes he will be in the plants upside down. Every now and again he will look fine and start swimming around but will then get tired and start flopping again. He has got a mate in there who is really trying to look after him. Everytime we feed the fish his mate starts nudging him to try and encourage him to eat. He hasnt eaten for many days. There is no obvious sign on the outside and he doesnt look bloated so i was thinking stress again or internal parasites. Has anyone got any other suggestions.

I was going to quarantine the knife fish and the kribensis together, is this ok?

My tank is a 4ft x 2 x 2. Our fish include a 9inch ghost fish, 4 inch african knife fish. 1 angel fish, 1 rainbow fish, 1 gold gourami, 1 polypterus, 2 kribensis, 3 silver sharks, 1 musk turtle, 2 plecos and 1 corydora

I have tested the water. Amonia is 0, nitrite is 0.1, ph is 6.5,nitrate is quite high, but so is the water from our tap. The knifefish has lived happily for 3 years with this high level nitrate so dont think it is that. Temp is 25.

Please help as i really dont want these fish to die.

 

[sangah10]

it almost sounds like he has multiple illnesses. fishes are very prone to illneses if they are already being attacked.

the shredded fins could be fin rot (never seen it on a bgk though, so i would have no idea what it would look like*

um and the quaratine tank;

not sure about med or temp at this point, i think i would use tank from the normal fish tank, make sure you maximize the oxygen levels by agitating the water surface as much as possible using the filter/pump etc.

im not sure about the krib, sorry.

and i wouldnt recommend putting the the 2 sick fishes together, even though it would be quite efficient.

sorry i dont know much else..hope your fish survive and make it through

also, if you could provide us with some visuals (pictures), it would help alot in identifying the illness/problem

 

[hopkigg]

Thankyou for your reply, im so worried about them. If i cant quarantine them together then i have to choose which one to do first. hard choice i love them both.

I have attached two photos, hopefully they work. One of the photos is of the ghost knife fishs shredded fins. and the second one is of the krib stuck to the filter inlet. He gets stuck there quite a lot but manages to swim away eventually.

If anyone has any idea what is wrong with them or what i can do to help them please let me know

 

[Davo86]

A musk turtle in with fish? only last weekend i saw a common plec that had its fins shredded because the owner put it in with a musk turtle

What is the nitrate figure? you have a nitrite reading which is bad enough regardless so i would be doing a 50% water change now.
Long term exposure to high nitrates can actually kill fish.

I would quarantine the BGK, as the krib unfortunately looks like its on its last legs

what is the ph from the tap? 6.5 is unusually low

 

[hopkigg]

the nitrate is darker than the darkest on the colour scale so we dont know the exact figure. We use interpret easy test which is a tablet test kit. We tested the tap water and that gives the same reading. we have put toxivec and a water conditioner in. We have also added a solution that says it gets rid of nitrates and nitrate but the figure is still off the scale.

we were worried about the musk turtle at first but after watching him for a few weeks he seems fine, he doesnt bother any of the other fish, he tends to stay out of their way.

It is really strange, in the photo the krib looked really poorly, straight after his mate went and got him and nudged him out and he started swimming around again. He has now tired and is in another corner.

Could the nitrates be the main problem. We have always had a problem with them and never been able to sort it. We used to have an internal filter and do 25% water changes weekly but we then changed to an external filter and didnt do as many, but its still a problem. The level is no higher than our tap water though.

 

[pippoodle]

you should still be doing weekly water changes to keep
did you keep the old filter in when you changed to the new filter

and did the problems start not long after the filter was changed - if it did i think maybe you have had an ammonia and nitrite spike that has poisoned the fish
all you can do is 50% water change right away and then test the water again in 2 days if there is still nitrite then change 25% again and do this until you have no nitrite readings , a fully cycled tank shouldn't have any nitrite readings

 

[Davo86]

You really need to be testing with a liquid test kit, so you get a more precise reading, strips and tablets only tend to give you a rough guide.
what is the highest value on the scale?

mixing the treatments probably isn't helping as BGKs are sensitive to meds,

Also i'm sorry but there is no way that the BGK could have gotten in that shape unless he has been constantly been catching himself on objects Or somethings been biting at him. BGK are most active at night and this may well be when it is happening.

gasping is a sign of low oxygen r poor water quality and yes if the stats are as bad as you are saying then you will see deaths,

My guess is that the turtle waste is adding to the issue, turtles are very messy fish and BGK are sensitive to bacterial infections which may be an explanation.

with a turtle you should be doing 50% water changes each week as a standard, if you haven't been then your contributing to the illnesses of the fish

 

[pippoodle]

i agree with davo that the BGK is being attacked at night . your best if you want to keep fish and the musk turtle to have seperate tanks .
they do not do well with fish - google the musk turtle and have a read about them

 

[hopkigg]

you should still be doing weekly water changes to keep
did you keep the old filter in when you changed to the new filter

and did the problems start not long after the filter was changed - if it did i think maybe you have had an ammonia and nitrite spike that has poisoned the fish
all you can do is 50% water change right away and then test the water again in 2 days if there is still nitrite then change 25% again and do this until you have no nitrite readings , a fully cycled tank shouldn't have any nitrite readings

we took the old filter out when we put the new one in. No the problems didnt start after the filter change. We have had the external filter for about a year now and these two fish have got sick in the last few weeks. We lost a 12 inch pleco a while ago aswell.

We are going to do a 50% water change today and then will test again at the weekend. We are also going to put the knife fish in the quarantine tank and see how he goes. Dont really know what to do about the krib, but dont think i will be able to save him as he hasnt eaten for so long, at least the knife fish hand feeds still.

what do we do to the quarantine tank. Is 25 degrees hot enough. I have heard mention of salt, is this beneficial or not? I will increase oxygenation and hope for the best.

 

[hopkigg]

i agree with davo that the BGK is being attacked at night . your best if you want to keep fish and the musk turtle to have seperate tanks .
they do not do well with fish - google the musk turtle and have a read about them

sorry tested again and i got the figures the wrong way round. The nitrite is 0, amonia is 0.1 but that is the lowest on the scale we have and the highest figure on the nitrate scale is 100 which is dark red and our figure was burgendy.

I agree i think fish have been attacking the ghost fish. We turned the lights off last night to see what happens and the african knife fish and the gold gourami kept bothering him, wouldnt leave him alone. his problems started not long after the introduction of the african knife fish. We think this fish may be stressing him out, so hopefully quarantine will help him. As for the krib, really dont think there is much i can do for him.

We will try and get the musk into another tank. I dont think he has been a problem though, the knife fish was sick before we got the must, even in the dark he doesnt go near the other fish, but his bacteria might be making the fishs problems worse, so will try to move him

 

[Davo86]

You may well find that Daily water changes may be needed for a while

when quarantining
take water from the main tank,
keep the temp the same as what it is used to,
take a small amount of filter media from the main tank filter and add it to the filter in the quarantine tank.

Don't use salt with BGK's

knifes should generally be one per tank as they rarely get on, What size is this tank btw?

edit: nitrates at 100 and ammonia at 0.1 is seriously bad, your lucky that it is only 2 fish that are Visibly suffering - with this is mind then you definitely should be doing daily water changes.

 

[hopkigg]

You may well find that Daily water changes may be needed for a while

when quarantining
take water from the main tank,
keep the temp the same as what it is used to,
take a small amount of filter media from the main tank filter and add it to the filter in the quarantine tank.

Don't use salt with BGK's

knifes should generally be one per tank as they rarely get on, What size is this tank btw?

edit: nitrates at 100 and ammonia at 0.1 is seriously bad, your lucky that it is only 2 fish that are Visibly suffering - with this is mind then you definitely should be doing daily water changes.

I think the tank is about 55 gallon. We put two hiding tubes in there hoping they would have one each but the ghost knife fish stopped going in there. I will do water changes daily and see how the levels go.

 

[pippoodle]

good luck hun keep us informed how the fishies get on

 

[hopkigg]

good luck hun keep us informed how the fishies get on

Im just quarantining the knife fish now, the kribensis is looking better so there is hope yet. I am also going to do water changes until conditions improve.

Thankyou all for taking the time to reply

 

[hopkigg]

We have quarantined the knife fish and the kribensis together in a 3ft tank. We have taken our water down to the pet shop for them to test, they say the amonia and nitrite are 0, but the nitrates are 160, so that is our problem. We have done a 50% water change on both tanks. How often will we need to do this until the levels will come down.

we are going to keep the knife fish in the quarantine tank once he is better as we are sure he was being attacked by the gold gourami and the african knife fish, if we put him back the same thing will happen again.

Will he be ok on his own in that tank or should we buy a shoal of fish like danios to keep the levels right.