What Is Wrong With My Green Barb?

[Dr. Zoidberg]

My ‘Green Barb’ is looking like that he is gulping for air and shaking back and forth and staying in the same corner of the tank even at feeding time the other fish will follow the food but he~she stays there ‘The mouth is opening and closing constantly, like always and he fitting

 

[gazb5590]

My ‘Green Barb’ is looking like that he is gulping for air and shaking back and forth and staying in the same corner of the tank even at feeding time the other fish will follow the food but he~she stays there ‘The mouth is opening and closing constantly, like always and he fitting

I'm not really an expert on fish keeping but recently I noticed my rainbow shark gulping for air a lot as well and a couple of my yo-yo loaches not moving around. This started to happen after adding amquel+ which detoxifies ammonia but at a cost of lowering oxygen level in the water so I just got my air pump up and running and they seem fine now. Could be that there's not enough oxygen circulating in the water but that's just a guess

 

[Gidge]

I'd go with lack of oxygen also. Get an air pump/stone in there! Can't hurt

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

The Pump in the tank is fine and the other fish seem to be OK

Ria

 

[Prime Ordeal]

It could be gill flukes.

 

[afremont]

It could be gill flukes.

Is it just another one of my strange ideas or is there a general increase in fish with these symptoms? ;-)

I rescued a bunch of dwarf gouramis from a box store that were dying one after another like this. No flashing, nothing visible or swollen, just panting, sitting, moping, hiding and finally doing the death swirl. The fish would flash very infrequently and only when within a day of dying. I treated them with everything and they stopped dying. Initially I treated them with QuickCure (malachite green and formalin) along with maracyn (recommended) and maracyn 2. I also gave them all a methylene blue bath when leaving the hospital tank. In their new home quite a few of the fish were having stringy poop so I proceeded to treat them with General Cure. After the four day medication round, I fed them medicated pellets (praziquantel) for three days to make sure they were cleared out. They all seem ok now, everybody seems to eat and poop just fine. Not sure what was killing them though. Sure looked like ammonia and/or nitrite poisoning at first. I guess it was some kind of flukes. The QuickCure seemed to have an immediate affect on their behavior.

 

[Prime Ordeal]

It could be gill flukes.

Is it just another one of my strange ideas or is there a general increase in fish with these symptoms? ;-)

I rescued a bunch of dwarf gouramis from a box store that were dying one after another like this. No flashing, nothing visible or swollen, just panting, sitting, moping, hiding and finally doing the death swirl. The fish would flash very infrequently and only when within a day of dying. I treated them with everything and they stopped dying. Initially I treated them with QuickCure (malachite green and formalin) along with maracyn (recommended) and maracyn 2. I also gave them all a methylene blue bath when leaving the hospital tank. In their new home quite a few of the fish were having stringy poop so I proceeded to treat them with General Cure. After the four day medication round, I fed them medicated pellets (praziquantel) for three days to make sure they were cleared out. They all seem ok now, everybody seems to eat and poop just fine. Not sure what was killing them though. Sure looked like ammonia and/or nitrite poisoning at first. I guess it was some kind of flukes. The QuickCure seemed to have an immediate affect on their behavior.

To be honest afremont I'm surprised your fish made it at all after being subjected to so many powerful medications! But I suppose if the fish are dying anyway then it doesn't really harm to throw everything their way and hope for the best. At least some of them made it through, which is good news.

 

[afremont]

It could be gill flukes.

Is it just another one of my strange ideas or is there a general increase in fish with these symptoms? ;-)

I rescued a bunch of dwarf gouramis from a box store that were dying one after another like this. No flashing, nothing visible or swollen, just panting, sitting, moping, hiding and finally doing the death swirl. The fish would flash very infrequently and only when within a day of dying. I treated them with everything and they stopped dying. Initially I treated them with QuickCure (malachite green and formalin) along with maracyn (recommended) and maracyn 2. I also gave them all a methylene blue bath when leaving the hospital tank. In their new home quite a few of the fish were having stringy poop so I proceeded to treat them with General Cure. After the four day medication round, I fed them medicated pellets (praziquantel) for three days to make sure they were cleared out. They all seem ok now, everybody seems to eat and poop just fine. Not sure what was killing them though. Sure looked like ammonia and/or nitrite poisoning at first. I guess it was some kind of flukes. The QuickCure seemed to have an immediate affect on their behavior.

To be honest afremont I'm surprised your fish made it at all after being subjected to so many powerful medications! But I suppose if the fish are dying anyway then it doesn't really harm to throw everything their way and hope for the best. At least some of them made it through, which is good news.

All I can say is that I initially treated them with what was off-handedly recommended to me, while I studied and searched the web for information on what they might actually be having a problem with. It seems that the maracyn that was recommended, was the least likely thing to help with their actual symptoms, hence I added maracyn 2 to the regimine when I found it was safe to use them in combination. Given the symptoms now, I would probably treat with the antiparasitics first. In my defense, I only had one out of eleven expire on me after 48 hours at my house. I had another get stuck to the (hidden) intake of an aquaclear 50 powerhead that I was running in reverse flow mode at 96 hours, but he was actually showing signs of coming around (roaming, eating etc). The other nine seem to be fairly normal now after nearly three weeks. Considering they were dying at the rate of better than two per day at the store, I don't feel so bad about the outcome. I paid approx 60 cents each for them and spent a small fortune experimenting. I think it was worth it.

I learned allot about the available meds, symptoms and treatments because of this adventure. Hopefully it will help me be more prepared should (when) something happen to my "real" fish. It seems that the shotgun approach is not all that out of place today considering that many of the meds are various combinations of antifungals, antibiotics and antiparasitics usually taken two at a time. Kinda makes sense since parasites lead to infections, bacterial infections like finrot lead to fungal infections, and so on. One problem seems to often lead to another and symptoms are pretty generic and often ambiguous. For example even if you know that you are dealing with an infection (somehow), without a culture you can't even be sure whether to use a gram-positive or gram-negative antibiotic in many cases, much less which one to use. Of course this makes broad-spectrum antibiotics very attractive since they are more likely to have some effectiveness thru statistical chance.

Edit: Some additional junk. I wouldn't exactly equate giving antibiotics with using powerful medications. Also, it is safe to use methylene blue in combination with all known fish medicines according to a report I read. Malachite green (dangerous stuff that it is) also reacts negatively with few other meds as I recall. Any new fish I buy will be going thru a methylene blue bath before going into quarantine. It's really good stuff, messy but good and safe. Pretty hard to overdose a fish on it too. It can be done, but there are easier ways to kill fish. ;-)

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

It could be gill flukes.

Is it just another one of my strange ideas or is there a general increase in fish with these symptoms? ;-)

I rescued a bunch of dwarf gouramis from a box store that were dying one after another like this. No flashing, nothing visible or swollen, just panting, sitting, moping, hiding and finally doing the death swirl. The fish would flash very infrequently and only when within a day of dying. I treated them with everything and they stopped dying. Initially I treated them with QuickCure (malachite green and formalin) along with maracyn (recommended) and maracyn 2. I also gave them all a methylene blue bath when leaving the hospital tank. In their new home quite a few of the fish were having stringy poop so I proceeded to treat them with General Cure. After the four day medication round, I fed them medicated pellets (praziquantel) for three days to make sure they were cleared out. They all seem ok now, everybody seems to eat and poop just fine. Not sure what was killing them though. Sure looked like ammonia and/or nitrite poisoning at first. I guess it was some kind of flukes. The QuickCure seemed to have an immediate affect on their behavior.

To be honest afremont I'm surprised your fish made it at all after being subjected to so many powerful medications! But I suppose if the fish are dying anyway then it doesn't really harm to throw everything their way and hope for the best. At least some of them made it through, which is good news.

All I can say is that I initially treated them with what was off-handedly recommended to me, while I studied and searched the web for information on what they might actually be having a problem with. It seems that the maracyn that was recommended, was the least likely thing to help with their actual symptoms, hence I added maracyn 2 to the regimine when I found it was safe to use them in combination. Given the symptoms now, I would probably treat with the antiparasitics first. In my defense, I only had one out of eleven expire on me after 48 hours at my house. I had another get stuck to the (hidden) intake of an aquaclear 50 powerhead that I was running in reverse flow mode at 96 hours, but he was actually showing signs of coming around (roaming, eating etc). The other nine seem to be fairly normal now after nearly three weeks. Considering they were dying at the rate of better than two per day at the store, I don't feel so bad about the outcome. I paid approx 60 cents each for them and spent a small fortune experimenting. I think it was worth it.

I learned allot about the available meds, symptoms and treatments because of this adventure. Hopefully it will help me be more prepared should (when) something happen to my "real" fish. It seems that the shotgun approach is not all that out of place today considering that many of the meds are various combinations of antifungals, antibiotics and antiparasitics usually taken two at a time. Kinda makes sense since parasites lead to infections, bacterial infections like finrot lead to fungal infections, and so on. One problem seems to often lead to another and symptoms are pretty generic and often ambiguous. For example even if you know that you are dealing with an infection (somehow), without a culture you can't even be sure whether to use a gram-positive or gram-negative antibiotic in many cases, much less which one to use. Of course this makes broad-spectrum antibiotics very attractive since they are more likely to have some effectiveness thru statistical chance.

Edit: Some additional junk. I wouldn't exactly equate giving antibiotics with using powerful medications. Also, it is safe to use methylene blue in combination with all known fish medicines according to a report I read. Malachite green (dangerous stuff that it is) also reacts negatively with few other meds as I recall. Any new fish I buy will be going thru a methylene blue bath before going into quarantine. It's really good stuff, messy but good and safe. Pretty hard to overdose a fish on it too. It can be done, but there are easier ways to kill fish. ;-)

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Well Guys thanks for your replies but the green Barb was found dead by his owner Cian the other mmorning

Now i have another problum with a black Angel Both hs Eyes were swolen and now after treating the tank they seemed to clear but one is swolwn again please can you help