Sick green tiger barb

[Cheese Specialist]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could help me with my poorly green tiger barb. I will describe the set-up and then his symptoms.

35g (4ft)

Parameters:

Ph - 7.5
Nitrite - 0
Amonia - 0

That's the only tests I have.

Fish:

2 gouramis
2 small angel fish
8 barbs
1 rainbow shark
3 clown loaches
2 hillstream loaches (added Thursday 4th)
1 L134 pleco (added Thursday 4th)
2 mollies
2 glass catfish
5 corys
1 upside-down catfish
1 dojo/weather loach

The tank is planted and has got wood such as mopani and bog-wood. I have a fluval 4+ filter which runs continously. I do a 30% water change weekly. The tank has been going for about 2 months

Feeding:

I feed the fish flakes, catfish pellets and algae wafers every other day. I also have started feeding them frozen spinach on Wednesdays and meaty stuff such as tubifex on the weekend. I have only just started this and the spinach and tubifex do not substitute a normal feed, but are in addition (although I am going to change this).

Symtoms:

All of the fish have been not well recently, but are better now. I have been treating them for white spot/ich. The white spots disappeared ages ago but one or two (the green barbs mainly) have been occasionally scratching against things in the tank. I continued the ich treatment and it has been ongoing for about 1 month. Perhaps it is not ich causing this now?

Now one of the green barbs is looking terrible. His scales are all pale (he is usually very dark green) and in parts he looks bronzed. He is breathing rapidly and not swimming about with the others as usual. Sort of hiding and going to the surface for a while every now and again. He has been like this for a couple of days but I thought he would get better and just needed a rest. He ate with the others yesterday.

Today he is looking worse... he is acting just the same but around his gills is red (not on the flap but on the back, on body), not majorly but a little. The other fish are showing no signs of ths and are scratching less. The other green tiger barb is fine, if a little itchy!

Medication I have:

* Stress Coat
* Stress Zyme
* Interpet Anti-White Spot plus
* esha 2000 - Fungus, finrot and bacteria treatment combined (also treats neon tetra disease and shimmying)

Thanks for any help, I am at a loss as to what to do! Also, when recommending anything please remember that I am in the UK ad so may not be abe to get particular brands.

Thanks, Dana.

P.S. I am new, nice board!

 

[thecichlidaddict]

My only experience with these painted fish were in a tank I set up for my ex-girlfriends classroom.

Generally I find dyed fish to be shorter lived and more susceptable to disease then natural occuring varieties.

That I think it's cruel to inject dye into fish is a different topic altogether.

Stick to natural fish, you will have better luck.

 

[Mogo]

IMO, I think you're a little over stocked, especially for a newer tank. Your problems sound like they are stemming from overcrowding and water quality. You didn't list nitrates in your water parameters, could you test and please post?

In the meantime, I suggest doing a small water change and see if that helps.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

Stick to natural fish, you will have better luck.

thecichlidaddict

I am a bit worried, are you trying to suggest that I either knew that the green barbs were dyed/injected or that I did it myself? I never thought for a moment that this would be the case and if it was I would certainly not buy them or go to that shop again! Are green tiger barbs not naturally occuring? I think they are.

This is something that I have heard of before and I have just looked up some information on the notion. I got the following - ""Fruit loop" tetras, some colored botias, and a few other fish are also artificially dyed or injected in the same manner, so consumer beware. These are not to be confused with fish which have naturally outrageously colored bodies, such as neon tetras, cardinal tetras, glolite tetras, green tiger barbs, bettas, and many others." from http/badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article3.html .

I am trying to call the petshop (Pets @t Home, Newcastle) that I get most of my fish from to question them on this, their number is engaged at present. They seem very good and we go there a lot for various things. However, if this is something that they are associated with I will not go there anymore.

Do you have any advice on how I can help the fish?

Thanks

 

[Cheese Specialist]

IMO, I think you're a little over stocked, especially for a newer tank. Your problems sound like they are stemming from overcrowding and water quality. You didn't list nitrates in your water parameters, could you test and please post?

In the meantime, I suggest doing a small water change and see if that helps.

Hi,

I do not have a nitrate test but my water was tested at my lfs on Friday and all was fine although the Ph was a bit low at 6.5 (I do not have all the exact levels at that time). This has been corrected now.

I understand your point about me perhaps being overstocked but the tank seems fine and there are not going to be anymore additions. If I am overstocked there is very little I can do about it and the green barb in question has been unwell for some time in one way or another (see above post) and the barbs were added at the begining and since then I have been adding fish steadily.

I am reluctant to do a small water change because I have been changing the water a lot over the past few days and there is medicine for ich in at the moment. Should I do it anyway?

Thanks for your reply

 

[thecichlidaddict]

Hey Cheese

Please don't take offense - I was informing, not blaming. And green tiger barbs are not natural.

There are two kinds
-line bred (barbs selected and bred in order to get a certain result)
-dyed (injected with dye)

The question is, which do you have? The brighter the green ,the more likely they are dyed.

Anyway, enough on that.

One of the first things I recommend people do before medicating is to think of anything that you may have done differently jsut before you noticed a problem - feeding, aquarium care, additions of livestock or plants... anything. If you can, then it's always worth trying to reverse the process and see if it helps. i personally avoid medication and use it as only a last resort.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

i personally avoid medication and use it as only a last resort.

I think I'm just about there! I have used the esha 2000 that I mentioned as it says that it "eliminates the danger of choosing the wrong treatment" and it has wide range action.

green tiger barbs are not natural.

But what about the article there is a link to above? Would line-bred barbs have the same problems as injected? Very few aquarium fish have not been bred for their purpose, even goldfish.

The barb seems to go through spells of swimming with the others and looking ill and the other green barb is still fine. I still can't get through to my lfs and they are just about to shut.

 

[thecichlidaddict]

But what about the article there is a link to above?

First, do a search, I think you will find more articles arguing the other way. Everything that I have learnt says they are not natural - I think the writer of that artical was misinformed. I think we should let the matter lie and see what other members of this forum have to say about it

Would line-bred barbs have the same problems as injected?

I think it really depends on how long they have been bred for, and how careful the breeders were. I'm always suspicious - I avoid albino fish at any cost, and generally stick to naturally occuring species myself. Unfortunately with any tank bred fish, line bred or not, there is always some risk that we must take, but keeping to pure strains decreases the odds.

Very few aquarium fish have not been bred for their purpose, even goldfish

Yes, golfish are most certainly one of the single most exploited ones around. They were started in Asia, just like most hybrids and genetically engineered fish. As a big cichlid fan I see this kind of stuff creeping into the hobby more and more. First hybrid parrot cichlids, now dyed pastel parrot cichlids. Tailless flowerhorns, etc. etc. Frankly I think it's disgusting, but that is an argument of another topic - just check out the glowing fish thread!

 

[Cheese Specialist]

Things are getting worse...

Another of the barbs is now looking a bit ropey. One of the albino tiger barbs is breathing fairly quickly and has developed bad fins and a red patch on his side. The fins are red at the bottom. Is this fin rot or something else, baring in mind the red patch on the side. All of the others seems ok apart from flicking or rubbing against things.

Is finrot contagous? I want to set up a hospital tank but I have to set my pest snails free before I can use my 8.5g.

It's all going wrong.

I NEED HELP

 

[thecichlidaddict]

Fin rot is contagious, but it isn't a suddend disease that happens instantaniously.

I have a question, forgive me if you have answered it already - you did remove any traces of carbon from your filter before medicating, right?

Double check the ammonia, triple check it - not that I don't believe you, but just to make sure.

There is nothing worse then out of control downhill slides, it's fustrating and upsetting, I hope somebody can help you further. It can be so many things, Parasites, bacterial infection, overload of toxin (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) or even more then one thing. How do the gills look?

 

[Cheese Specialist]

Hi again thecichlidaddict

The first fish I talked about, the green barb's gills are not great, rapidly moving with red patches near them, at the base of the pectoral fin. The albino one's gills seem fine.

I really don't know what to do. I have just done an amonia test and it looks like 0, maybe just off yellow. It's difficult to know when using my kit as yellow and pale green are so similar. It's certainly more yellow than green. Maybe just the tiniest bit, perhaps 0.01. I know that even the smallest amount of amonia is bad, but would it cause this?

I don't have carbon in my filter, just a spongey thing.

 

[bgraber]

Green Tiger or Mossy Tiger barbs are a naturally occuring species..