# need help fast...red sores around mouth, cloudy eye



## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

so i thought an acei and an albino zebra had bloat(long stringy white feces, lethargy, loss of appetite) so im on the second day of the bloat cure sticky. now my jo has a cloudy eye, the albino has red sores around his mouth and lips appear to be puffy. red zebra has puffy lips and a white crust around them. most fish are a little lethargic.

help me please quick


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

sorry 
55 gallon 1 years old with 
3 acei 
5 yellow labs
1 jo
3 red zebra
1 albino zebra
2 bn plecos
all fish are 5ish inches and acei are 6-7 inches

2 emp 400s
50% waterchanges with vacuuming every week
never a spike
temp 78, ph 8ish, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 10ish


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

HELP ROBIN


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

im getting very tight about this!

im going to do a 50% water change right now 
im going to add melafix and novaqua+
not going to feed and keeping lights out
should i raise the temp a little?
any suggestions would be greatly appreciated


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

nothing?

ok i did a 50% waterchange and added melafix. also raised the temp a little.
i plan to do another smaller waterchange tomorrow...should i add melafix again?
i am going to work tonight at 2300...if theres some downtime i will check here again.


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## dtress3 (Jan 27, 2007)

I see that you have had no response, so I'll try to give my two cents. Sounds to me like your fish may have some type of bacterial infection. I would do a water change, and treat with something like Maracyn or Maracyn II. Melafix may help sores, but I don't think it will help cure a bacterial infection.

Slowly raise your water temp to 82 if you haven't already. Ensure you have good aeration, and perhaps add some aquarium salt. Follow the treatment instructions for the medication. Hope this helps, I know it is frustrating to have no response, especially when you have urgent situations involving the health of your fish. Keep us posted. Hopefully a moderator will chime in soon


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

hey! thank you for your thoughts.
i did do a waterchange and raised the temp.
after work in the morning ill go to the lfs and grab some meds.
i do have very good filtration and a bubble curtain so aeration is in check.

yeah no response is very frustrating especially when i think my babies may be suffering.
i have delt with issues before like bloat and ick but this is very alarming to see. the sores look so, well, sore.
im just a little hesitent to blast them with any meds...i dont want to make things worse, which is what i think happenned when i dosed with clout.

anyway thank you again for your time and consideration.

-------john


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

just got home from work...
im not hearing anything so im going to do another 50% waterchange and when the lfs opens at 1000 im going to pick up maracyn 1 and 2 and treat with both unless i hear different before then. i will check back frequently.
fish are not doing any better


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

i guess im on my own on this one

so it appears im gonna lose an acei and a red zebra to this...hopefully that will be all

just got back from my lfs with maracyn plus...this is a liquid abx that is supposed to attach directly to the fish. the two broad spectrum abx are sulfamethazine and trimethoprim.
being a nurse im well aware of these drugs the one is a cure all in a group of abx known as sulfas which alot of kids are allergic to but hopefully not my babies. and the other is half of the abx known as bactrim or alone proloprim. im dosing today, thursday, and last one on saturday.

i hope this works and i dont lose anymore fish. *** lost fish in the past but its been due to old age, aggression or unknown causes i didnt care about anyway due to my immaturity. now that im much older and have been caring for fish seriously for 9 or 10 years now its very hard to watch this...anyway i will stay the course and cross my fingers.

thanks again dtress3


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

Sorry not to get to you sooner!

It does sound like an infection. 
Using both Maracyn and Maracyn-two is the way to go. You also want to increase water movement and add salt, sodium chloride, at the rate of 1 tablespoon per five gallons. Dissolve it first and add it gradually. The salt and increased water movement will help to keep the bacteria from spreading by preventing it from adhering to the fish's skin. 
I would turn the heat DOWN to 76. Some bacterial infections will grow faster in warmer water.

There is another approach to bacterial infections: SALT BATHS. There are some good instructions on how to do this in the Columnaris Article in the library section of this site.

Do a water change before you treat.

Again, so sorry not to get to you sooner. I saw your PM this morning but didn't have time to answer before leaving for work. I'll check back later with you.

Robin


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

death toll: 2 acei, 3 yellow lab, 2 red zebra.

the jo is recovering, getting a little color back and starting to do a little more than suffer in a corner. the albino zebra is lookoing much better lips are no longer swollen and my last acei is starting to come out more. they still have some sores but look much better no-where near the excoriation of a couple days ago.

continuing with the treatment.

the sick thing was i came home from taking the kids to the bus stop and noticed a yellow lab pair spawning right beside a belly up acei...show a little respect man. now i see 2 labs with a mouthfull. sick huh

thank you robin for your help...helpfull as always :thumb:


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

lost my last acei and my last red zebra.

this was a hospital tank i inherited from my brother and have been trying to get the mix and numbers right and i was almost there. at one time there was a couple kenyi in there as well as aurutus, a front, breeding brichardi and a couple other trouble makers. after multiple tank dividers, time out tanks, re-homing to appropriate homes i was almost there.

the tank is now almost bare and i guess now i can get there with the right mix and numbers...terrible way to get there but...

the jo is coming around...he is the last of the infected


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

Wow so sorry you lost so many fish.

If this was Columnaris, and it sounds like it was, then you may have gotten a strain that moved too fast to do anything about. You still have to try because you never know but--.

Columnaris is caused by a bacteria that is already present in your tank but doesn't present a problem for fish until they are under some sort of stress. So theres nothing you can do in the way of cleaning/sterilizing the tank to get rid of it but you can do as much as you can to keep fish stress free.

So now as you say you can stock the tank with fish that should be compatible. It's about the only positive amidst the loss. 
What species of fish are you planning on getting?

Robin


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

more yellow labs, acei, more jo/maingano


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## iCichlid (Sep 21, 2009)

Such a sad thread... Sorry for your loss, Steelers Fan...


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

thanks for your thoughts...my jo may have lost his eyes. hes got his color back and his face is healing ok. but his eyes are still healing and are very red. i cannot see pupils or an iris for that matter. his face was at one time completely covered with a white haze that did turn cottony to the point where his face was almost eaten away like some kind of weird flesh eating disease. healing but teeth are still protruding... anyway im waiting for him to fully recover or at least start to get his appitite back before thinking of stocking anything else.

for a while when this was going on i was having dreams of inhumanely killing fish...yeah sucked all the way around. and i hope none of you have to experience it. keeping and caring for fish should be relaxing and enjoyable not what this turned into. it consumed every part of my day.

i did receive some help from dtress3 and robin and we did what we could but it was just too late...
again thank you 
---------john


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## XtremeRevolution (Nov 27, 2009)

Very sorry. If you don't mind me asking, how big were the fish that you lost?


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

the acei were all around 7 inches, the labs and zebras were all around 4 or 5 inches


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## XtremeRevolution (Nov 27, 2009)

steelers fan said:


> the acei were all around 7 inches, the labs and zebras were all around 4 or 5 inches


Wow, those are some big fish. Sounds like you've had them all for a while. My biggest fish is a 3.25" Albino Red Zebra. I don't know what I'd do if they all started to die off like that.

I didn't know Acei get that large though.

I hope everything turns out well with your remaining fish. Even I'm surprised how attached I can get to a fish.

I drove my male Rusty from California to Chicago and treated him for fungus 4 times and basically plan the rest of my tank around him.


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## steelers fan (Jun 26, 2009)

yeah in the future i plan to get a 6 footer and planning the whole stocklist and decor around a super red severum..._Sunny Delight _from the SA folder


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