Sick Rainbowfish?

[Colin_T]

Aquarium salt is fine and often is rock salt just sold under a different name. You can also use marine salt or swimming pool salt, whichever is cheapest and easiest to get.

When you first add the salt you just add it to the tank water. Then every few days do a partial water change with brackish water. Once the treatment is finished, (after a couple of weeks) you can start doing daily 10% water changes with fresh water to dilute the salt level in the tank.

You can treat the sick one or all of them. If the male has red gills then it might be an idea to treat them all. You can put a few plastic plants in the tank and that should help give the others a chance to hide from him if he gets a bit boisterous. Otherwise just leave him out and hope he doesn't show any other symptoms. The plants can be held down with lead weights (fishing sinkers or plant anchors) or gravel.

You need to have the filters running in an established tank for about a month before it will be cycled and can be used. I don't normally bother with one in a quarantine tank with salt. If you keep the feeding down, (just a small amount every couple of days), and do regular water changes, that will dilute any ammonia produced and help keep the water clean enough during the treatment. The fish won't starve during that time and should be fine without lots of food.

 

[razorkai]

Last question, I hope So I have added about 4 tablespoons of salt per 20 litres, and I am waiting for the tank to warm up and the salt to melt. Are you sure its ok to add the fish directly to the water like this (once its warmed up)? I'm just a bit worried it will be a big shock to them as it seems like a lot of salt!

TIA

 

[Colin_T]

I usually add the salt once the fish are in the tank. Then it disolves over an hour or so and it isn't such an issue.

As long as the water is free of chlorine and has a similar temperature and PH to the main tank they should be fine to move across.

I usually set up the quarantine tank with water from the main tank and then just move the fish straight into it. Even if you only manage to half fill the quarantine tank with old water you can just top it up with some clean dechlorinated water. Have the fish in there and then add the salt.

Make sure there is plenty of surface turbulence in the quarantine tank as the salt reduces the oxygen carrying capacity of the water. Lots of surface turbulence will help to maximise the oxygen levels for the fish.

 

[CentricOregon]

nothing to do with the fish but if you have green water just use the green away treatment, it helps a bundle.can't remember who makes it but should find amongst the other water treatments in a fish shop.

 

[razorkai]

nothing to do with the fish but if you have green water just use the green away treatment, it helps a bundle.can't remember who makes it but should find amongst the other water treatments in a fish shop.

I did! It went away and came back. So I used it again and the same happened. Then again and so on. I think it has gone now and instead I seem to have a problem with slightly white cloudy water. I've also used several treatments to combat this with no success. At the moment I suspect it may be caused by my dosing of Flourish Excel as I've read about this somewhere, but that's another story!

 

[razorkai]

Well that didn't go very well! So I had my old tank all cleaned up, heated the water to the correct temperature and added my salt. Only thing left to do was transfer the fish. Despite trying for nearly an hour I was forced to give up as the fish was just able to hide far too easily. The tank is planted and I was close to totally trashing it with my net. There is also a centre brace that got in the way and a huge piece of bogwood that I cannot remove from the tank. So I am stuffed! Don't know what to do as there is no way I can get that fish out. Is there no hope of fixing the issue in the current tank?

 

[Colin_T]

You could try putting a bit of salt into the main tank but probably no more than about 2 heaped tablespoons per 20litres. The loaches & algae eaters should tolerate it but probably won’t like it. You can try to increase the hardness of the water. Epsom salts will increase the general hardness or use a “rift lake salt” from the petshop and get the hardness up to 300+ ppm. Hard water has a lower bacterial count and the high mineral content can help calm fish a bit.
*NB* Rift lake salt will also push up the PH.

Try catching the fish at night after the lights have been out for an hour or so. Make sure the room lights are off as well but don't turn the room lights off until at least 10 minutes after the tank lights have gone out. This will prevent the fish becoming too stressed by going from complete light to complete dark.
Quite often rainbows will sleep up near the surface and if you are very careful you can move a net under them and lift them up and out. You would probably want to move the lights off the tank straight after lights out and if you have a coverglass maybe take that off too. That way they shouldn't be woken up by the lights and covers being removed and it should be a simple matter of scooping them out. Use a torch to spotlight them before netting them out.

The other option is to use 2 nets, 1 big (10-12inch) and 1 small (about 4-6inch). Position the big net against the front glass so it is sticking out into the middle of the tank. Then slowly drive the fish towards it with the smaller net.

The only other thing you can do is true to improve the fish's immune system. Try adding some vitamin C and Beta-carotene to their diet. These are the same things people take to help fight off colds and flue virus. Just crumble up a bit of vitamin C and sprinkle it onto some frozen brineshrimp or similar. Leave it for a minute and then feed the fish.
Beta-carotene is available in a capsule and you puncture the end with a needle or pin and drip the orange liquid onto some frozen or pellet food. Then feed it to the fish. If you do this a couple of times a day it might help the fish fight off the problem by themselves.

You could try some “Waterlife Myxazin” but it probably won't make any difference to the problem. It would reduce the bacterial count in the water and help prevent secondary infections getting in. This might be enough to help the fish overcome the problem in the tank they are in.

If you do add medication remove any carbon before treating.

To work out the volume of water in the tank
measure Length x Width x Height in cm
divide by 1000
equals volume in litres

When measuring the height, measure from the top of the gravel to the top of the water level. If you have big rocks or driftwood in the tank, remove them before measuring the height. If you can’t get the big bit of driftwood out then try to estimate how much water it has displaced.