# My fish are sick =[ Is this gill flukes or something else?



## chademrick (Jan 13, 2012)

First some stats on my tank:

Its a standard 55 gallon. Its been set up for about a month and a half, and the first two weeks were used to cycle the tank. Nitrites and Ammonia are at 0, and nitrates are at 10ppm. PH is about 8, and my GH is pretty hard. I don't know the number off the top of my head, but I'm sure its appropriate.

I do a 50% water change weekly and use epsom salts to harden the water. I have well water so there is no chlorine in it.

It is stocked with:
Three white top haras: 1M 2F
Five Yellow Labs: 1M, four unsexed
Three red zebras: 1M 2F
Two female metriaclima pulpican 
One Placidochromis milomo

A note about my stocking: I'm working on correcting the M:F ratios, and I'm aware the the placidochromis milomo will outgrow my tank eventually. Also the puplicans were sent to me as female haras because they were misidentified.

About half of my mbuna are flashing what seems to be just their gills and their "chins" (for lack of a better word. I have one yellow lab that is sitting on the bottom of the tank and refusing to eat. He is getting pretty thin. I also have a male yellow lab (1st picture) with some sort of "tag" hanging off of his chin. Is this gill flukes? I can see similar looking tags hanging out of one of the gills on the very sick lab as well.

I also have a female metriaclima pulpican (second picture) with something cottony on her mouth. At first I thought it was a battle wound from locking mouths with some other fish, but now I'm not so sure. Any thoughts as to a diagnosis? How should I proceed/treat these fish?

My water is blue/green because when I first saw the tag I thought it was ich, so I've been treating that for two days with Jungle Ick Guard to no avail.


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## chademrick (Jan 13, 2012)

I forgot to mention that some of my fish are also shaking their heads.


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## newbiecichlid99 (Jan 17, 2012)

does it look like little grains of salt on there skin?? if so it;s ick


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## chademrick (Jan 13, 2012)

I included two pictures, and no its definitely not ich. When I first noticed the tag I thought it might be the beginning of an outbreak so I started treating for it, but it didn't help. I've seen and treated ich before, this is definitely not it.


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## chademrick (Jan 13, 2012)

I decided it was flukes, and since there are so many different recommended medications out there to treat this stubborn SOB I decided to use Formalin and Malachite Green since its so readily available (its at walmart....) and its so cheap. I've removed all the carbon from my filters, and I'm treating for three days, and then letting them rest for two days. I'm going to put the carbon back in my filter every night to clear out any leftover meds from the day before, and I'm also doing a 50% water change every other day. I'm repeating that cycle three times, and hopefully all the little buggers will be dead by then.


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## NestoJR (Sep 13, 2012)

so what ended up working ?


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

You may not get a reply.

chademrick
Last visited:
Tue Mar 06, 2012


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