nerdyaquarist

Hey everyone, I figure it would be a good idea to revive this thread with an update in case anyone goes through the same thing I did and is looking for help. It's been now a few months since my last post and he's doing so much better! I would consider him completely cured at this point! Even the bullying has gone down to a minimum, with him initiating some of the chasing occasionally (I'm so proud of him), even towards the big meanie! His color is now very good, just like his mates and his belly has definitely grown more. He still does not look quite like the others bodyshape-wise and I doubt at this point he will ever look like them, but I still think this is a success story. Below are some pictures from today to show his progress. They were so difficult to get, he's crazy active now! Months ago I would've never imagined he could glow up like this. I'm just so happy I was able to save his life, thank you all so much for helping me out!! 🙂 You all are so awesome!

Thank you everyone for your help. Here I've been waiting to have enough money scrapped together to get Expel-P and I ended up finding it in my fish cabinet, completely forgotten! So I don't have a moment to waste now. Question, I've seen many people mention that levamisole only paralyzes worms, not kill them, and so you have to do a serious gravel vac after dosing the medication. My tank is heavily planted so this is not possible. Is this even true? I don't want to just paralyze the worms for them to infect everyone again.

Thanks! So to confirm, even if their stomach isn’t exactly sunken in, it still could be parasitic?

Is Expel-P plant and invert safe? It’s been impossible to net the fish so I’m wondering if it’s possible to dose the whole tank instead.

Hi everyone. I got a new batch of cardinal tetras about a month and a half ago for my heavily planted 29 gallon. They were quarantined for 3 weeks with salt and 2 prazipro dosages and they seemed healthy enough to move to my community tank. Well, ever since I moved them there have been one or two tetras out of all of them that stayed small, never fully colored up, and don’t have the belly that the others do. Every time I feed, one in particular goes for the food (always the last one to go for it) and immediately spits it out. It does that for the entire feeding time. They are definitely skinnier than the other guys, but not enough to have a sunken stomach. I do think they ate frozen blood worms the few times I’ve given them but pretty much nothing else. I have tried feeding Fancy Guppy Hikari micro pellets, small vibra bites (I think they’re too big for them), and crushed micro bug bites on rotation. All this on top of the occasional frozen blood worms. I have resorted to slightly over feeding in case maybe they haven’t had a chance to fully “get into” eating time but it just makes their mates fatter lol. I have tried to net them multiple times to move to a QT for observation and possibly a parasite treatment, but it’s been absolutely impossible to do so I’ve given up. Any thoughts on what’s going on? What else can I try? Is this just normal and will they eventually get used to the dry food? Thanks for reading!

Thank you all for sharing your experience and perspectives! This makes me feel better about the whole thing. My main tank also has plenty of BBA so I hope that if he’s too shy to feed from me at first that he goes for that instead haha. My tank is 29 gal. I only got 1 because I worry about the size possibly being a problem when they get older. I see one of you had 3 in a 29 so maybe I’m worrying over nothing.

Thanks for responding! That’s hopeful to head that your fish turned around like that once he was moved to a more interesting environment. My guy has no symptoms of disease. He’s quite active actually and seems energetic. He is currently in a salt treatment though preemptively just in case there’s anything he might have brought from the store. In your experience, what type of feeders are SAE? Are they slow and over time, or do they feed quickly and in the moment? In this case, could they be easily out-competed by other fish in community tanks or has that not really been an issue for you?

Hey guys, I got an SAE almost a week ago already and I can’t figure out for the life of me how to get him interested in feedings. For context, he’s currently alone in a 10 gal quarantine tank. First time I tried feeding him, I dropped a small piece of an algae wafer. He ignored it for about a day and then I saw the following 2 days that he was munching on it slowly but surely. There’s not much left of it now, but it’s been quite a while! The day after I dropped the wafer I attempted dropping some pellets near him to see if he goes for it, he didn’t even care. I’ve dropped vibra bites as well, also doesn’t go for it. I noticed though that the vibra bites slowly do disappear over a few days, but he’s not going for them immediately at all. I worry that if he’s this much of a slow eater/grazer he may not stand a chance in my community tank where everyone is a voracious feeder. Thankfully, there is quite a bit of BBA in the tank where he’s going, but I wonder how he will fare when that’s gone. This is my first time having an SAE, are they just like this or will he slowly start getting interested in eating food right away as time goes on?

Thanks everyone for your insight, it’s been a little while now and all my fish are fine but I did see a shrimp body the day after the water change. Unsure if it’s related. I think I learned my lesson now though, I’ll wait for spring to do 30% water changes. Thank you all!!

Thank you for the reassurance. I have cardinal tetras, honey gourami, and endlers. I can’t really keep it much cooler due to the cardinals. 79-80 seems to be the sweet spot for everyone. I thought of that but I worried about freaking them out more since I was doing plant maintenance before the water change and already stressed them out. I hope not too many of my shrimp go 😞 I have been doing smaller changes throughout the winter to prevent this but I just completely forgot today since it was looking particularly algae-y.

Hi everyone, I just did a 30% water change in my 29 gal community tank with 7 gallons of RO water and almost 3 gal of tap. It completely went over my head that the room temperature is currently about 65 F. I noticed immediately after doing the water change that all of my shrimp started coming out and jumping everywhere! All of my fish start freaking out and glass surfing and gathering in the corner. I checked the temperature, and my tank dropped an entire 8 degrees during the change. My temperature is usually about 79 F and my thermometer said that it was about 70-71 F. I’m really concerned now about my fish and my shrimp. The shrimp have now since mostly stopped twitching and jumping around but are still inactive and look almost frozen. Not all, but many do. I honestly need some reassurance here if everyone is going to be fine or not. And if not, what can I do?? For reference, my fish stock is endlers, honey gouramis, and cardinal tetras. The cardinals are the most sensitive and are the fish I’m most concerned about.

Hey everyone! It's been a long time so I figured I should give an update on the situation. Thank you all once again for all of your insight. So I ended up doing 1 round of levamisole and 2 rounds of the flubendazole just so I could really kill anything that might be in there still, not leaving any stones unturned. I noticed he was doing great, plumping and coloring up even, so after a waiting period once the second round was done, he was returned to the main tank. I did notice that quite quickly after returning him, the other two gouramis started chasing him, which is really frustrating. It's his second day in the community tank so there's no immediate signs of harm, but it does feel like I'm back to square one. Despite his clear progress, once he was back in the main tank the differences between him and the other gouramis was very evident. He still doesn't look nearly as plump and colorful as the other guys, despite being fed so much throughout this time. I brought him back from the brink of death, so I do hope that it'll just take a while before he looks "normal". I am seriously contemplating giving back the other 2 gouramis though, as this chasing just doesn't stop no matter who I separate or for how long. I have heard opinions that red honey gouramis are not "true" honey gouramis, so this might be thick-lipped gourami behavior and they may be better off either in a big shoal or alone. I don't want the 2 other gouramis to end up stressing out my guy to death, especially after all I've invested in him (money-wise, time-wise, and emotionally). What do you all think about this? Pictures of how he looks now are attached below. The last pic is of his gourami friends/bullies to show you the difference in appearance. Excuse the CO2 bubbles in the way. There is a clear difference between how he is now and how he was, but there is still some recovering to do. Pictures are unaltered.

Yea I was moving them and aerating the water for maybe 15 minutes and nothing 😞 I posted this on Reddit too and a redditor recommended me to “pump” them with my fingers and I did it super gently and ended up crushing one :(( this is too much and the crushing part was traumatic I feel like giving up….

I’ve been doing aggressive plant maintenance for the last hour and after that I fed the my tank. I noticed I was missing 2 of my Endler’s and started to panic. I looked through my trash until I found the two fish curled up and unresponsive. They were not dry, still moist. I got some aquarium water and put it in a container and desperately tried to move them around the water so their gills could breathe. One of the endlers sinks in the other floats. That was unsuccessful, so I’m agitating the water currently with a turkey baster and they’re still not responding. Is it too late? Should I keep trying? What else can I do? I don’t want them to die 😭

His weight has improved tremendously! He's filling out very nicely actually and has colored up significantly. He still has a ways to go to be as "chonky" as his mates, but I do think we are on the right path. I don't know when I should taper down feedings though because I obviously can't continue to feed him 2-3 times a day everyday. I worry if I taper down eventually he will lose all his progress. Thanks for the response, I'll go ahead and do that this week. Maybe now that he's doing better the medications will actually do something instead of failing like in the past.

Feels like I’m posting to the void…. but here I am with an update in the hopes someone can provide insight and help me see if I’m going the right direction. It’s been a week since I’ve started the copper + salt treatment. I gave myself a week for me to decide to spend on flubendazole or not. I honestly don’t know now whether to do it or not. He is SO active now, eating like a pig, has colored up noticeably, and is starting to plump up. But, I have no idea if this is because of the treatment or because I’m feeding him big meals twice a day everyday. I have no idea how to proceed. I was able to catch a picture of him so you guys can judge for yourselves. First pic is on the second day of quarantine, second pic is from today. Because he’s in a storage tote, the pics are color-corrected to hopefully better represent the colors I’m seeing IRL. My question for this forum is: should I get the flubendazole and treat him? Or should I continue doing what I’m doing? Or insert third option.

Some of you may have seen one of the many DIY youtube videos and tutorials that are out there that show how to make a sliding glass lid. Here's one of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whwqdsF4GiI To bypass the steps of buying and cutting my own glass, I just bought a new hinge lid to have all the materials minus the molding. For those who have attempted this, what molding have you used? The one that everyone recommends is way too thin for the glass that I have. Because the glass is thicker than the opening (so it can't go all the way in), I can't fit the lid on the tank. I don't want to go through the hassle of finding someone to cut my glass, and I want the glass to fit securely in the molding. I can't seem to find moldings of different sizes unfortunately, but I believe there's gotta be a bigger one. Here's a link of the one I bought: https://www.homedepot.com/p/205347157?cm_mmc=ecc-_-THD_THANKYOU-_-V1_M1_CA-_-Product_URL&ecc_ord=WP51009973&em_id=68b19b0ac2035306175e5879de977a577ac254d626174e8966a3bfee150b4813 Anyone know where else I can find something like this? I have seen some hobbyists mentioned a Lowe's one but it may have been discontinued since it's no longer on the website.

Hope this thread can reach more people. Here's an update for today: he was FEROCIOUSLY eating today and swimming all over the tank. Haven't really ever seen him this active. I don't know if this is a sign of the treatment working or of him being stressed out by the treatment. Color looks the same. I did notice that there is a thin black/red line visible on his skin stretching from his gills to his pectoral fin. This angled line is visible on both sides of his body. There's no other area of his body that I can notice these lines. I don't see this on any other of my gouramis. I couldn't get a clear picture of this unfortunately as he was moving too fast. What could this be? Can this give a clue to what his ailment is?

I decided to do the copper for at least a week to see if there’s any improvement, and if I don’t see any then I will do a water change and do absolute wormer as my fish continues to behave and eat normally, so there doesn’t seem to be a dire rush. Here’s an update (I think): Nothing different in terms of behavior. I’ve been feeding 3 times a day every day. I found a few of these thin red things on the bottom of the QT. I’m inclined to believe they’re dead worms of some kind, although I also have a fake red silk plant and it could be some threads have have flaked off. I think it’s unlikely though because the threads are thicker than the “worms”. The picture below is what I’m referring to, I know it’s not a great picture but if anyone has insight it’d be appreciated.

Thanks for the help! I actually went with copper treatment so I wont be doing water changes that frequently. The fish is a very skinny red honey gourami.

Thanks for the info. I can go with absolute wormer. Could I use that on top of with copper and salt? I worry it may be too much at once.

So I actually went ahead and decided to discard the sponge filter and moved the backup one I have in my main tank into the QT. I tested the water with my API test kit and the only questionable parameter were nitrites. There were some so I'm assuming either the cycle was gone or the tank was that gross. Hopefully now that I moved the seeded sponge filter I won't have issues. I don't like being wasteful which is why I hesitated in doing this first but it truly is the only way to be safe. Thank you for your help, I'll be testing the params daily just in case.

Which medication do you recommend that contains flubendazole? Wish I read this earlier before I got swayed by my LFS to try copper since the other parasite meds haven't helped. I have isolated the fish now and added copper and some salt. Could I possibly add flubendazole on top of that?

Do you believe if I do a complete water change and move media from my main tank, it would be safe to immediately quarantine a sick fish?

None of those symptoms, except maybe sunken belly - but I can't even tell that for sure because he has a noticeable round bulge under his gills, which I assume is where his stomach is. His behavior is perfectly normal and on par with the other gouramis. He has no clear, white, or stringy poop. He eats perfectly well too. He is a bit shy though which I am assuming is because he gets chased around by the other gouramis any time they see him, which has gotten worst lately due to his deteriorating condition. The other fish (which I assume is about 1 or 2) that have had this wasting disease lived with it for months (some more months than others) before dying. This guy has had it for the longest out of everyone and I believe I've had him for about 8 months or so and he's been skinny since I bought him. I thought he was thinner because he's male so I didn't give it much thought.