xXInkedPhoenixX

Your betta bulb is an Apongeton. I have some in my tanks. I cut that bloom because some seem to say that it makes the plant die back- like when you don't pinch blooms off of a Basil plant. I've never tried the theory- I just cut them off.

Hi @Mohammed welcome to the forum. This probably won't stop them but deter or slow them a little maybe. Have you tried a shelter like a pleco cave or similar that the Cories could hang out in? If your Cories are more active at night like my Otos are, feed them at night instead.

I have kept it alive and killed it. The Duckweed did NOT like the surface agitation from the Sponge filter even though it was in a 20 tall- it eventually died. That tank has a lid- but the tank that I CAN keep it alive in has a pump with directed flow and has a lid- duckweed does very well in it.

@Odd Duck and @Beardedbillygoat1975 I appreciate the insight very much I started this treatment today. Thanks!

I'm treating a Tiger Oto with Popeye. 😔 This gives me hope. Thank you.

@Odd Duck no so far just Maracyn and Aquarium Salt. Today is the last day of that treatment. I've thought about the Epsom but not Kanaplex. Not sure what antibiotics will do at this point in the healing process since there is no longer any inflammation (well, redness anyway). Advise?

@Odd Duck I appreciate the honesty and I was prepared for that. Since they've been in the Oto tank if they go back they won't be bullied, just more a matter of what you said- infection prone and eyesight problems. I'm stubborn though, I'm determined to get them as back to normal as is possible for them. I might lose, but I don't give up.

One of the things I learned when starting the hobby "for real" again was having a fishy first aid kit. Having the meds ON HAND makes a very stressful situation waaaay less stressful. When I got my fish for my 20 and they then proceeded to break out with Ich I was so happy to have already had the treatment for it. It still sucked, it was still not fun, but I didn't have to sit chewing my nails waiting for an amazon shipment or sitting outside a store waiting for it to open. Because let's face it- emergencies never happen at 2 on a Monday. It's always midnight on a sunday holiday. It's an investment $$ wise but worth its weight in gold. Well good to know about your betta- then if you decided to move him he'd be the only occupant to worry about for now and you could treat the tank but only for whatever specific he might have. The only things you have to worry about when treating tanks is whether it will negatively affect your scaless fish (like corycats) or inverts (like snails or shrimp). The decision to move him or not is entirely up to you my friend.

Aww, it is very traumatic especially when we blame ourselves. Every fishkeeper goes through something like this. These are the kinds of things we never forget and can help others avoid it when possible. Most of the time I would not recommend changing medication in the middle of treatment- sometimes that causes more harm than good (like when your doctor prescribes you antibiotic you MUST finish the course). I may let @Colu speak to changing course. I can say if your fish have columnaris I have recently successfully treated with the suggested course (but I do have Furan2). Per Fritz's website Maracyn does treat columnaris. And again, this is going to also depend on your comfort with the process, only you can see what's going on with your tank. Until you get the new meds continue on your course. Not feeding fish during medication: If you're talking about the Aquarium Co-op page: I can't say FOR SURE, but my suspicion is that feeding fish creates waste which contributes to ammonia- the process suggested there is NOT to change water (which would remove ammonia). That is why they suggest if you DO do it on day 5 or 6 (because it's a week process, doing it towards the end, less chance of ammonia build up/issues). The betta, yes it's possible but if he has no symptoms maybe not. Is he going to be the only occupant if you moved him? I'd consider moving him could stress him more, he could potentially get sick or sicker if he already is OR it could save him. This is the sad thing, there's no real way of knowing. You might have to consider if you did some sort of acclimation process for example: putting him in a bowl with the 55g tank water and slowly over 15 minute increments put the 10g tank water in- acclimating him over a few hours until it's mostly or all 10 gallon water. Considering factors like what the 55 and 10 are testing, what the temp difference is, etc. Careful consideration must be made.

@JettsPapa then they started making pasta out of veggies....genius.

@Colu totally is luck at this point. The medicated food you recommended was just about sold out when I found it on ebay (I'm sure they may be able to stock quickly but I haven't looked) I supposedly bought the last one at the time. Just wanted @Goldie Blue to know if it cannot be found at the LFS or normal channels that is why.

Furan2 and related medication has been pulled from the market so if you don't already have it the only thing to get is the medicated food with nitrofurazone.

I am so very sorry for your losses, and sadly it may not be over. I know how bad it feels. Medication can be really hard on our fish friends. Imagine how you might feel when you take a medication that doesn't interact with you well or has nasty side effects. It never feels good. Sudafed always makes me feel super loopy, I'd almost rather deal with the symptoms of a cold. Cories, my understanding is they can be rather sensitive but per Aquarium Co-op has tested the products with them. They may have been, just like you said, sadly on the way out but weakened fish don't usually react well to medication. Keep an eye on everyone, pull the deceased ASAP. Test your ammonia levels often. If you have Prime or some other ammonia/nitrite neutralizer use it. If you do a water change before redosing meds only do small ones i.e. 20% or so. Keep stress to a minimum, consider turning down the lights. And hopefully more advice will be incoming. 🙂

Shouldn't be Nerite eggs, the only ones I know of are white, from all the types I have that is all I've ever seen. Without knowing what else might be in the tank, it would be hard to say.

Hi @Goldie Blue I'm very sorry for your troubles. Sadly this is a lesson on Quarantining new fish- we all learn things the hard way in this hobby don't beat yourself up about it, just do what you can to help your remaining fish. It sounds like the guppies may have brought a fungal infection with them, as the cotton fluff you noticed is indicative of that. Here is a good informational page on treating fungus and some of the causes from the Aquarium Co-op https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/fish-fungus As far as the med trio, with weakened fish all three at once can be very stressful for them. There are recommendations for weakened fish when using the med trio: "If you have very weak fish, it may be easier on their bodies to space out the treatment. Bacterial infections are the most common, so use Maracyn first for a week (at the dosage recommended in Step 4). Ich and external parasites are the second most common, so next treat the fish with Ich-X for a week. Internal worms and gill flukes are slower-acting pathogens, so dose ParaCleanse in the third week." The recommended treatment would be Maracyn and IchX for the fungus however so you could consider skipping the ParaCleanse until after treament of fungus. These are all shot calls we have to make in the hobby because nobody is in your house, in your shoes with your tank. As far as the picture of your dead fish: is there anything different about it that wasn't when it was living? For example were those spots/marks there before it died and normal, does it have less fin that it did before? I can't tell myself I apologize. Have you seen any other signs or symptoms? Behaviors, markings, bloating, poop looking funny, etc? THEN your Betta. This is your call. Does he have any symptoms of illness? What signs of stress are you observing? Their fins being so long they are suseptible to fungus, fin rot and all sorts of other illness. Thing is it doesn't sound like you have a working Quarantine tank for him, how far along is the 10 gallon tank? There is potential to move him there but his condtions would have to be very, very carefully monitored for what would essentially be a "fish in" cycle. This could be hard for a betta. I've found them to be very hard to keep, super sensitive to changes in their environment. Our friend @Colu here is very good at helping with medications and we have lots of other users with experience who will hopefully put up some input too, but I wanted to answer you so you had something to start thinking about. 88 ****also you may want to consider adding airstones to your tank, when medicating it can really help

OTOCINCLUS COCAMA (TIGER): The 2 Gallon QT Popeye patient: Day 4 MARACYN treatment. (Also tank dosed with Aquarium Salt on day 1 only since no water changes, roughly 1.75 TBLSP as the tank is not quite 2 gallons). Today it seems things are looking up a bit for my poor sick Tiger Oto. I'm not sure they're eating much as I clean up leftovers every day (thankfully since the QT tank has been running a while there should be plenty biofilm and sponge filter goodies for them as well as stuffs growing on the Narrow Leaf Java). As I've observed before with Vittatus the salt in the tank does not seem to be negatively affecting the Oto. They're not super active but that's to be expected with this type of infection with the research that I've done. No signs of any more Popeye in my Accidental Oto Tank. I emailed Fritz. Their fish disease chart says they recommend Maracyn Two for Popeye yet both boxes of meds on the label and in the instruction sheet inside say they treat Popeye. So I asked them for clarification. I'll probably hear back from them some time this week. In comparing the picture of the day I found Tiger with a swollen eye and now they seem to be doing better, the skin around the eyeball is not red, more white and slightly less swollen. We'll continue with this treatment and see how they are at the end of the 5 day period (and see what Fritz comes back with).

@Beardedbillygoat1975 ATK! Woot! The Nerd's kitchen go to buddy!!!

I see. Have your fish gone back to normal more or less since then? Others might have a differing opinion but I wouldn't change more than 50% tank water. I have found (IME) even with spike in ammonia or nitrite- and you know it's an issue- to do daily small water changes of 20% or so and treat the tank with something like Prime. This should also prevent any crazy temperature spikes. Fish may already be stressed by the spikes, you want to try and keep their stress minimal to prevent an illness outbreak.

Hi @Endless3, is there a reason you did such a big water change? I also see you don't have an ammonia reading, do you have a way to test for ammonia? Just to be clear the temperature swing was from the water change or ?

@eatyourpeas oh my apologies when you said you have 3 that do it I thought you only had three, my bad! The CPDs are so quick too, it would be so hard to tell who is doing the nipping!

@eatyourpeas maybe it's because you only have 3. Seems like when you get a small amount of a fish that typically hangs in groups of 6 or more there's more in-fighting when their numbers dwindle. Can you add more?

So until this last week I'd never experienced Popeye in any form. Sadly one of my Tiger Otos appears to have gotten a unilateral (1 eye) case of Popeye which per many people and the internet is more likely caused by an injury. So he's in solitary being dosed with Maracyn and Aquarium Salt (IME salt has never negatively affected my Otos). I feel so bad for the poor thing but hopefully I'll get them on the mend. The internet doesn't really talk about how long to treat (as healing can take weeks or months) or what you can expect as you treat a fish so I was wondering. Who here has experience with treating Popeye (unilateral or bilateral), what did you do, how did you treat it, how long did you treat it, did you keep the fish isolated the whole time, when did you release it, did it recover, how long did it take? Any input would be great- as there has not been a lot of general discussion about the disease just for specific intances. I think sharing our experiences on a general thread about it could help others who come here in a panic about it.

I'm with @Guppysnail on this, I'll defer to her veteran CPD rank I've not had my 9 very long, I think I have 5 female 4 male (hard to say they're in a planted cube that's really started to grow in so I never see them all at once. No matter the gender they seem to do the little dances with each other male/male female/female and male/female quite a bit.

I would say yes in a way they are- by that I mean, some fish like to take their food off the top of the water- flake foods fit that well. Some like to feed in the middle, flake will eventually sink for them to eat if they grab it while it is in the middle, pellets can be good for middle feeders since they sink a little faster than flake and bigger fish may get fuller faster as it would be less effort for them as 1 pellet might equal 4 or 5 flakes (just guesstimating). Pellets are great for bottom feeders as pellets designed for them sink. Really it just depends in the end it's just- what will my fish eat? If we're speaking of just flake vst pellet. Mine are mostly smaller fish, 2" or less. I've not had success with pellets- even micro pellets or floating pellets made for these type of fish. Mine prefer flake, and I usually crush it up pretty good before putting it in the tank. Especially for my CPDs, Endlers and Embers. My Rasboras won't eat giant flakes. My Black Neons don't mind. Really that's all it is. As far as shape goes.

@Streetwise on the subject of 2 pans. If you got yourself the right "chicken fryer" you could have 2 pans but one would be a pot.