Sick Fish

[Swordtailmolly]

I have 2 tanks but currently there are 2 much loved swordtails sick. The water conditions have been checked and they are perfect. I have attached a photo of one of them because i am unsure what is wrong with her unless its early stages of whitespot. She is rubbing on the sand and flicking her tail and also although she isn't going to the top of the tank she is gasping for breath through her mouth but her gills don't appear to be going any faster. The other female is lethargic in the back corner of the tank and i cant get to her at the moment All the other fish appear to be ok at the moment apart from the black Molly who I wasn't sure if she had a tiny spot on her side but its hardly visible to the eye. Google suggested salt but although we have aquarium salt i have been told it kills cat fish and snails? I had tanks many years ago and have re set up and its like a new learning curve. Please HELP!!!!

 

[Essjay]

When you had the water conditions checked, I assume it was at a shop? Did they tell you the numbers of just say 'perfect'? Some shop workers don't understand what the numbers mean and will say anything. The only 'perfect' numbers are zero ammonia and nitrite and nitrate under 20 ppm.

How long has the tank been set up, and how long have the fish been in the tank?

What is the hardness of the water - in the photo you have have hard and soft water fish (the swordtails and mollies are hard water, everything else is soft water) Your water company's website should give your hardness; you need a number and the unit of measurement.


If it does turn out to be whitespot, heat is the safest treatment. Turn the heater up to get the water to 30 deg C and keep it there for 2 weeks.

 

[Swordtailmolly]

When you had the water conditions checked, I assume it was at a shop? Did they tell you the numbers of just say 'perfect'? Some shop workers don't understand what the numbers mean and will say anything. The only 'perfect' numbers are zero ammonia and nitrite and nitrate under 20 ppm.

How long has the tank been set up, and how long have the fish been in the tank?

What is the hardness of the water - in the photo you have have hard and soft water fish (the swordtails and mollies are hard water, everything else is soft water) Your water company's website should give your hardness; you need a number and the unit of measurement.


If it does turn out to be whitespot, heat is the safest treatment. Turn the heater up to get the water to 30 deg C and keep it there for 2 weeks.

Hi Thank you for your reply. The water was tested with strips at pets at home. They did say no ammonia but didn't mention the other reading apart from that it was perfect.
Our water is as follows
Typical Hardness SOFT
Hardness Clarke 1.82
Check update 20/11/20

We have added the fish slowly in different occasions the last being a week ago (male swordtail). We have had this tank approx 6 weeks.
We have now turned up the temperature and wi so is that all that is needed or do we still buy the treatment for whitespot and add that? We have also removed the snails before adding treatment but if not required we can put them back. Will the treatment be ok with cat fish.
Sorry for so many questions.

 

[Essjay]

I wouldn't trust anything Pets at Home say, to be honest. There are a few good ones here and there but most of their staff know nothing about the pets they deal with as they are trained only in how to make a sale. I would strongly advise you to get your own, liquid reagent test kit (the kind with test tubes) rather than dip strips.

That is very soft water. The two units used in fish keeping are ppm and dH, fish profiles use one or other of those. Your 1.82 deg Clark converts to 26 ppm and 1.5 dH. Swordtails need over 200 ppm and mollies over 250 ppm hardness. While the 'wrong' hardness does affect fish, it does it slowly so it could be a contributing factor for the swordtails rather than the cause. But long term, your soft water will affect them and the mollies. Something shops don't tell you is the need to match a fish's hardness range to your tap water.


The reason I asked about how long the tank had been running is because a tank needs to grow 2 species of bacteria to deal with the ammonia made by fish as their waste and nitrite that one of the bacteria species makes from the ammonia. Irritation caused by ammonia and/or nitrite can cause fish to rub against things, and as ammonia and nitrite affect the fish's ability to take up oxygen they also gasp at the surface where the water is more oxygen rich. 6 weeks should be long enough to have grown these bacteria but the swordtails may be just more sensitive to tiny amounts.

High temperature is the best treatment for whitespot as all the medications contain chemicals which are hard on fish - and they kill snails. All your fish (and snails) will be fine for 2 weeks at 30 deg C. The other aspect is not using treatments unless a disease is definitely diagnosed. Unnecessary use of medications can cause drug resistant diseases.

 

[Swordtailmolly]

I wouldn't trust anything Pets at Home say, to be honest. There are a few good ones here and there but most of their staff know nothing about the pets they deal with as they are trained only in how to make a sale. I would strongly advise you to get your own, liquid reagent test kit (the kind with test tubes) rather than dip strips.

That is very soft water. The two units used in fish keeping are ppm and dH, fish profiles use one or other of those. Your 1.82 deg Clark converts to 26 ppm and 1.5 dH. Swordtails need over 200 ppm and mollies over 250 ppm hardness. While the 'wrong' hardness does affect fish, it does it slowly so it could be a contributing factor for the swordtails rather than the cause. But long term, your soft water will affect them and the mollies. Something shops don't tell you is the need to match a fish's hardness range to your tap water.


The reason I asked about how long the tank had been running is because a tank needs to grow 2 species of bacteria to deal with the ammonia made by fish as their waste and nitrite that one of the bacteria species makes from the ammonia. Irritation caused by ammonia and/or nitrite can cause fish to rub against things, and as ammonia and nitrite affect the fish's ability to take up oxygen they also gasp at the surface where the water is more oxygen rich. 6 weeks should be long enough to have grown these bacteria but the swordtails may be just more sensitive to tiny amounts.

High temperature is the best treatment for whitespot as all the medications contain chemicals which are hard on fish - and they kill snails. All your fish (and snails) will be fine for 2 weeks at 30 deg C. The other aspect is not using treatments unless a disease is definitely diagnosed. Unnecessary use of medications can cause drug resistant diseases.

Thank you so much for your help. We will now put the snails back and monitor things for 2 weeks.
Is there a way to get the water hardness up that will suit the mollies and swordtails but won't be detrimental to the other fish?
We are fortunate that the girl at our pets at home seems to know what she is saying to a degree but obviously she hasn't the knowledge you have. She doesn't try to sell us things for the sake of selling and we know she has fish and as she told us that she didnt learn with staff training she has learnt with her own trials and errors with her aquarium.
We will look into buying the proper testing kits that you advised us about.

 

[Essjay]

I'm afraid there's no happy medium for hardness One solution is a second tank, keep one as plain tap water and add something like Rift Lake salts to make the other harder for the hard water fish.

Hardness is something a lot people are unaware of; it's only fairly recently we've come to understand its importance.
Hard water fish come from water with lots of minerals so their bodies have evolved to remove most of the minerals they take in from the water. In soft water they continue doing this, but soft water has few minerals to replace them. The fish suffer calcium depletion - and fish like mollies start to suffer from something called the shimmies, a sort of swimming in one place (like jogging on the spot).
Soft water fish come from water with few minerals so their bodies have evolved to hang on the the few minerals they can get. The continue doing this in hard water and they get calcium deposits in their kidneys.

 

[Swordtailmolly]

Many thanks for your help

 

[Swordtailmolly]

Hi I have been chatting about my swordtails and got some helpful advice. I've just managed to get these 2 pics of them because they are both still. The one facing me is also doing a shimmer dance.?

 

[Essjay]

Hmm, they are not happy fish, are they

Whitespot has been mentioned but if none of the fish have white spots which look like grains of salt, it shouldn't be that.
It could be that the swordtails have some disease, or it could be the water conditions. How long have you had the swordtails? if you only got them recently they could have been sick when you got them.


Lots of clean fresh water is the first thing to try when fish are not well. That means water changes of at least 50% every day.
I can see the head of a catfish in the first photo - is it a hoplo or a synodontis? I'm not very familiar with those species but other members have them and will be able to tell you if it's OK to add salt to the tank.

 

[Swordtailmolly]

Hmm, they are not happy fish, are they

Whitespot has been mentioned but if none of the fish have white spots which look like grains of salt, it shouldn't be that.
It could be that the swordtails have some disease, or it could be the water conditions. How long have you had the swordtails? if you only got them recently they could have been sick when you got them.


Lots of clean fresh water is the first thing to try when fish are not well. That means water changes of at least 50% every day.
I can see the head of a catfish in the first photo - is it a hoplo or a synodontis? I'm not very familiar with those species but other members have them and will be able to tell you if it's OK to add salt to the tank.

Ive had them aporox 6 to 8 weeks. We introduced a male a week ago but he is happy as larry. Im sorry i dont know what typr of catfish they are they were purchased as a gift to where i usually get my fish from which is Barlows Aquatics. We did a water change yesterday but will continue doing until they are happy and well again.

 

[Essjay]

Can you post a photo of the catfish - the reason is that a lot of catfish are shoaling fish which need to be kept in a group. If we can identify it you'll know whether ot not you need to get more of them.

Apart from whitespot, which I have personal experience of, I am not good with diseases. Hopefully members who know about diseases will be able to help better than me.

 

[Swordtailmolly]

We have 2 of them at the moment. If you want anymore just let me know and i will try and get them. Hopefully someone else may reply to the swordtails pictures. Thank you

 

[Essjay]

They might be this fish

Megalechis thoracata (Spotted Hoplo) — Seriously Fish

www.seriouslyfish.com

 

[Swordtailmolly]

They might be this fish

Megalechis thoracata (Spotted Hoplo) — Seriously Fish

www.seriouslyfish.com

Looks like it. Swordtail male has started rubbing on the sand and one of the females is shimmering still and colour looks to be fading.

 

[Colin_T]

This is not white spot. The fish is covered in excess mucous, which is caused by poor water quality or external protozoan infections.

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Your water is way too soft for them.
Mollies need a pH above 7.0 and a GH above 250ppm.
Swordtails need a pH above 7.0 and a GH above 200ppm.

If you add some Rift Lake water conditioner (mineral salts) to the tank and raise the GH to about 150ppm, it would help the livebearers (swords and mollies) and wouldn't be too high for the other fish. However, the best option would be a second tank and put the livebearers in one and raise the GH to 250ppm.

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Until then, add 2 heaped tablespoons of rock salt (aquarium salt) for every 20 litres (5 gallons) of tank water.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.