# What's wrong with my cichlids gills?



## jennyg (Apr 2, 2012)

My yellow and blacks cichlid's gill plates have become white and inflamed over the course of about 48 hours. Became very dark in color too. Behavior seems basically normal and none of the other fish are picking on it. We briefly removed it from the water and it seemed like a little blood came out of the gills.

What can we do?


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## jennyg (Apr 2, 2012)

https://picasaweb.google.com/mvcrews/Fi ... 9276188226


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## newbiecichlid99 (Jan 17, 2012)

no picture found


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

Need some additional info, please post:
Tank Dimensions-
Water Parameters (Temperature, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, pH and if possible GH and KH)-
What and How Often You Feed-
How long the fish has been in it's current tank-
Tankmates-
How long the tank has been running-
Regular water change amount and frequency-
List any water additives-

Try www.imgur.com to host pics. Paste the BBCode (message board) link in your reply.
Make sure you're using dechlorinator for water changes.


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## jennyg (Apr 2, 2012)

Hopefully this picture works. The fish is camera shy so it's difficult.



http://imgur.com/jdvp3




http://imgur.com/uuFrE


The tank is 20 gallons and has 5 African Cichlids and pleco that we've had for 2.5 years. They got upgraded to the 20 gallon tank about a year ago. None of the cichlids have died almost 2 years. We've been doing 1/3 tank water change with salt conditioner basically ever other month.

It's got a penguin bio wheel filter and and small air pump.

The temp is usually 80-82.

We feed them wardley advanced nutrition flakes once a day.

I don't have testing stuff for the water.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

Normally with 5 mbuna cichlids, you'd prefer to have at least a 3 foot long tank, if not larger. They're fairly aggressive fish and need breathing room, both the aggressors and the submissive ones.
Also, with that size tank and the number of fish in it, you really need to be doing weekly water changes, in the neighborhood of 30-50%. Bi-monthly or even monthly isn't nearly enough to keep nitrate levels at an acceptable level. I would guess that your levels are quite high, which has likely contributed to the illness your fish is experiencing now.
On to treatment. Ideally, you'd want a separate tank with it's own filter to treat the sick fish, if you have one, great, if not, we can make do with the 20g.
The gill problem could be one of a few different ailments, however, based on the picture and description you gave, along with the assumed high nitrates, I'm going to say it's likely a bacterial infection. Diagnosing fish illnesses isn't easy but this is where I'd start.
Begin treating with 2 antibiotic medications, kanamycin and nitrofurazone, (Seachem Kanaplex and API Furan-2). Both can be found at www.kensfish.com. Choose the fastest shipping available.
For now, perform a 20% water change and vacuum, followed by another 20% a few hours later. Tomorrow, do another 40% water change. Be sure to add dechlor when adding new water.
If you don't get to them tonight, do them tomorrow. Morning, early afternoon, evening.
We'll figure out a dosage schedule when you get the meds. Also, pick up a freshwater test kit if you can, API makes a decent one. I recommend testing water parameters while medicating.
Sorry for writing a book


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## jennyg (Apr 2, 2012)

We have a spare 6 gallon tank that I can get set up. We also have a 10 gallon tank that hosts community fish, a geophagus, and a cray fish, but I assume I shouldn't move the sick fish over there.

There's a petco right by my house, are their meds not that great?

The cichlids in the 20 gallon get along pretty well.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

jennyg said:


> There's a petco right by my house, are their meds not that great?


Not from what I see on their website, no. Nothing antibacterial with enough strength, unless they carry other products in store.


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## jennyg (Apr 2, 2012)

Just to follow up:

We quarantined the sick fish in a separate tank. We used a Mardel Master Test kit and found that all of our tanks had really high nitrates and nitritres but that hardness, alkalinity, pH and ammonia levels were all ok. We've done 3 water changes the past week and the nitrate and nitrite levels have dropped. The fish are brighter and the water looks cleaner. The crayfish in particular seems to be thriving.

Back to the sick fish. After 4 days the meds (kanamycin and nitrofurazone) arrived. We took out the filter and used the meds and the fish actually seem to get better for about 3 days and started eating again. Unfortunately last night, he(or she) suddenly turned very pale and then started swimming erratically and then died all within about an hour. We performed a brief necropsy and the picts are below if that sort of thing interests you.

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