IronChefItaly Posted September 23, 2013 Report Share Posted September 23, 2013 I've had a tank for 5 months without a single fish problem arising until i bought some ottos 2 weeks ago that came with ich. I'll note all incidents since the following day after introducing the otos that i noticed the ich... Day 2 - Raised tank temperature to 28 degrees Day 3 - Began daily medication of Ich Guard 2 (for scaleless fish) Day 5 - Otos recover and show no sign of ich / Rams begin displaying 1-3 cysts each Day 10 - Ich Guard 2 ran out so i switched over to ParaGuard by Seachem (started at 1/3 daily dosage) Day 11 - One ram is infected with pop eye (single eye - secondary infection from ich) Day 14 - Ich spots have been steadily increasing on the rams to 5-15 cysts each. Popeye is getting fairly sever and it looks like the second eye is beginning to protrude... Local fish store said not to mix medications so i took their advice and am only medicating with Paraguard and alternating 8/16% water changes every day. I cannot add salt due to the sensitivity of the scaleless fish. Are there any other methods you guys recommend for the popeye? I hate seeing my fish suffering from it and was thinking of medicating him on his own or doing a salt bath? Any advice is appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cullymoto Posted September 23, 2013 Report Share Posted September 23, 2013 Ich is a tough one, and I have no experience with scaleless fish so, take my advice for face value I guess. Your water changes are tiny... Biggest mistake made by many. I won't do a water change less than 50% . Usually I'm closer to 100% water changes. ( my discus fry tank gets 100% daily ) It's fairly common for a fishes immune system to fight off things, so long as the immune system isn't compromised by poor water quality. I'm guessing you have aquarium gravel, or a substrate material of some type? All of these substrates do nothing more than hold garbage in your tank... Basically impossible to keep a clean environment, regardless of water changes, when you have substrate. For the Popeye fish I would isolate it and treat it for pop eye. Even keep up with the paragaurd at the same time. That stuff is very very gentle. I use it on fry if I need to.... I've more effective meds wipe out whole batches of fry while paragaurd bothers them none at all. A med like Marcyn-two is good for treating the gram negative bacterial infection that leads to the build up of fluid that causes pop eye. If the fish has red streaks or patches on him than you need to treat for hemorrhagic septicaemia. (E.m. Erythromycin ) Many things can cause swelling or pop eye ( poor water conditions, stress, gram negative or gram positive bacterial infections, wounds are some examples ) Pop eye is not the actual illness, rather a symptom of one. Stay away from Pima and melafix. Those are garbage indeed. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronChefItaly Posted September 23, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2013 Hmm, my understanding has always been that water changes greater than 40% are changing the water parameters by too much and can shock the inhabitants of the tank and approaching 100% would be basically resetting your tanks healthy bacteria colonies. Because of this, supposedly small but frequent water changes are ideal but i could be wrong (particularly in the gravel to capture the ich before it becomes free swimming). In either case, i test with both strips and weekly solutions tests and never find my water parameters to be anything but ideal in terms of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I use fluorite and once again my understanding is that the substrate actually retains more of the healthy bacterial colonies than most biomedia set ups (hence why you don't see people with no substrate in their tank). So from the information you have provided i'm assuming you run a set up where you depend on water changes to maintain water quality opposed to a mature cycled tank which under perfect equilibrium does not require water changes. I do believe isolating the fish and treating it for both the ich and the secondary infection resulting in popeye would be my next move at this point as he is not improving. I appreciate your advice and will keep this post updated over the next week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JORG Posted September 24, 2013 Report Share Posted September 24, 2013 (edited) For ick I use clout. When using it on scaleless fish I cut the dose in half. I find popeye will often clear up without any meds after the cause has been eliminated. Totally agree that pimafix and melafix are junk. Edited September 24, 2013 by JORG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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