Chris the Fish

Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays from the fish!

Ok, thanks Colu

I've recently watched Cory's video on Paracleanse dosing, and am planning to, as a precaution, do the three treatment rounds of Paracleanse on my new fish. The one question I have is with the two week break in between each of the three treatment rounds, is that two weeks from the date of the first dose, or two weeks from the date of the water change after the two doses? Or does it not matter so much as is just a rough two week gap? Just want to make sure I get it right so I properly get rid of any and all tapeworms! 🙂 Thanks in advance!

Hi Colu - Afraid I can't get any clearer of a picture than that, it was quite hard even to see in person. In any case, the guppy has now sadly passed away. I'm wondering if anyone has seen / experienced this before? The appearance of tiny red dots and then loss of the fish shortly afterwards? Any shared experiences / advice here would be great so I can try to avoid this happening to any of my other fish. Thanks in advance.

Hi - wondering if anyone has ever seen this before? One of my guppies has been quite lethargic past few days, seemingly struggling to breath a bit, and today I've noticed he has tiny tiny red dots on various parts of his body (kind of like a rash on a human, in the picture you should just about be able to see one on his tail, which also appears to be faded a bit). I recently had to deal with a round of Ich carried with some new fish I bought from the store. That is all done now, and I had to deal with a few secondaries after so have just finished a round of Maracyn. I wanted to let the fish rest for a bit now, also because my swordtail female has just given birth a few days ago, but am not sure what to do now with this guppy and his red spots. To note, none of the other fish have any similar symptoms, and seem to be behaving normally. I also just did a spot check, no ammonia or nitrite and the other parameters are as per usual for my tap water. Any thoughts or advice here would be helpful. 🙂 Thanks!

Thanks Colu - My one concern though is that by taking the one guppy out, I am dealing with a symptom rather than the cause. I.e. if I take him out, it is likely that others will end up with a similar issue b/c the Krib is nipping their tails and causing stress. I feel fairly confident that the early-stage dropsy is as a result of the fin-nip from a week and a bit ago, and being that dropsy in and of itself isn't contagious, I'm thinking that perhaps the best course is to remove the cause of stress, taking the other guppies out of the line of fire and so reducing the risk to them, and also giving the sick guppy a chance to potentially recover (although I do acknowledge that dropsy is often fatal in any case). Thoughts?

Yes that's correct 🙂

Hi Lloyd - Yes as Colu said, Rams generally like to be warmer. If it was Pets at Home who gave you the advice I'd always take it with a pinch of salt - When I first started out my only local fish store was Pets at Home and I listened to them and lost a lost of fish. Since then I always try to find a small outfit / family run place, if I can; in my experience they tend to care more, and so be a bit more knowledgable, generally. So in my opinion, Rams need to be warmer than that (i.e. 26 C or higher), and that is probably a bit reason why you lost them unfortunately. As Colu said, maybe some cold water fish might be better options (danios, white clouds, or some types of platy, such as variatus, as well). I agree your Ammonia is probably too high as well, but Nitrates are a little more flexible in my opinion. I would recommend testing your tap water to see what the Nitrates come out at, because if you change loads of water but your tap is already at 25ppm, it won't make any difference. A natural remedy of sorts to nitrates is to add plants to your tank - As they grow they will eat up the nitrates (and any ammonia) as fertilizer, so if you don't have any plants at the moment that might be a good option to help out. You also don't necessarily need planted substrate or anything - Plants will readily grow in normal substrate, eating up fish poop, etc, but make sure the substrate is porous enough for their roots to grow (i.e. very fine sand is usually a no go, but everything else should be ok). Hope this helps!

I had a similar issue a year back. For me it was just repeat doses on a two week interval that did it. I think I did three in a row like that and it cured it. I used General Cure at the time but as Paracleanse is that same thing that should do the trick. 🙂

Could be temperature related - I think from your post you said tank temp is between 21-22 degrees C? If that's right I would suggest that probably has something to do with it, so I would suggest heating to 26 degrees C. Other things could be the tank itself - Has been it been set up very recently? I think a trace of ammonia can be expected (<=.25), but perhaps 0.50 is a bit high and indicative of your tank not being ready quite yet for the current stocking level or alternatively if the tank has been set up for a while there is a chance something put it out of whack. Also, from your use of metric units I assume maybe you are in the UK? If so, where did you buy the fish? I have a million and one bad experiences with Pets at Home for example, so if you bought them there recently there is a chance they may have come in with some disease as well. Not to say that LFS are perfect everywhere but Pets at Home in particular seems to take a very lax approach to fish care (and fish advice for that matter). Hope this helps!

Hello fellow fish nerds. I have a question which I am hoping will lead to a discussion that other people might find useful. I am a bit of a livebearer nerd and I have a tank of guppies, platys, and a swordtail F and molly M. I also have a team of corys and kuhli loaches. They are all housed in a very well planted 55g with a relatively deep substrate bed, lots of hiding spaces (hard + soft scape), and many, many airstones. All has been well since the move, though I have noticed it may have made my traditionally relatively peaceful Kribensis female somewhat more aggressive. I have noticed since a few nipped fins on my guppies, though everyone else seems fast enough to dodge her. One guppy in particular got a bad nip last week, and I am noticing what looks like some early stage dropsy, given that his scales on his belly look to be starting to pinecone. His belly doesn't seem too swollen yet, though on balance I would say its a bit fuller than the others. I have a quarantine / hospital tank set up. I am wondering whether people think that I should (a) remove the likely-dropsy hit guppy and try to treat him or (b) relocate my Krib to this tank for a period of time to prevent remove the stress from the main tank, and prevent any other of my guppies from falling ill. I should mention that I really don't want to have to re-home my Krib unless absolutely necessary because I adore her and I've had her for almost four years now, so I'm trying to find a solution that allows me to keep her and to keep my guppies safe. Also, another tank probably isn't an option unless I want my significant other to kick me out! :) Any and all advice welcome! Hopefully this can also help others who may be experiencing other issues with semi-aggressive fish and / or dropsy. Thanks everyone!