SunniSki Posted January 27, 2022 Share Posted January 27, 2022 Hi! I would like a bit of advice since I'm at a loss at this point. I have a 75g established freshwater tank. I have mollies, tetras, corys, shrimp, 2 snails, gouramis, maybe whiteclouds. Parameters are good on my tank pH 7.6 Nitrates 20 ppm Nitrite 0 Ammonia 0 Water Temperature 78 I have the whiteclouds, mollies and corys doing some flashing. I automatically assumed it was due to Ich since about 2-3 weeks prior I probably stressed out my tank by fishing out 99% of my molly population (due to the constant breeding, and took them all to a fish store). I also picked up 3 Gouramis and 3 cory's at that store. I treated with Ich-x for about a week. I thought I was I was in the clear since I didn't see flashing after about 7 days of treatment. (no visible signs of any dots or lesions) Flashing started again, I treated with Paracleanse according to the directions.. so that was about a week treatment. I did a water change on Sunday and on Monday or Tuesday, I saw that 2 or 3 fish were flashing again. Last night I did a 25g water change and retreated with Paracleanse... this morning I did see 2 mollies and a cory scratching themselves against rocks. How quickly does paracleanse work and has anyone experienced this and what did you do and did it work? I have considered trying PraziPro as well after the next cycle of Paracleanse is done but I feel like I'm missing something and that is why they are flashing yet again. I have considered adding in Expel-P but that it says you have to water change after 24 hours but Paracleanse you dont water change until after the 5 day course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H.K.Luterman Posted January 27, 2022 Share Posted January 27, 2022 How often are they flashing? Is it once in a while or constant? (I only ask this because flashing IS a normal behavior if it's just every now and then - the fish just has an itch. Flashing can also be triggered by a change in water parameters, like after a big water change). Did you see a presence of Ich in the form of cysts on the fins/scales before you treated with Ich X? It looks like salt sprinkled on the fish. I would hold off on dosing any more medications for the moment - Prazipro and Paracleanse are pretty much the same stuff. Overloading fish with medications often can stress them out even more. Has anything changed in the aquarium? Have you added anything new to the system? Are there any other symptoms? Sunken bellies? Rapid breathing? Listlessness? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunniSki Posted January 27, 2022 Author Share Posted January 27, 2022 (edited) Most times when I look into the tank I catch "someone" flashing. The tank is right behind me and I work from home so I can peek into my tank several times a day. (I dont know what is normal flashing) Before I treated with Ich-x I never noticed any cysts or white dots. I literally was going off of what I was seeing in behaviors; which was the flashing, clamped fins, hiding and not eating. (I went though ich twice and waited too long before realizing was it was (cysts exploded on everyone) and my whole tank was wiped out, so I tried to be earlier than later this time. I also did notice "clear" poop a few times and that is what made me decide to try Paracleanse. I just remembered, last night I noticed my Bristlenose pleco has very "sheer" clear/slightly green poo were normally he is a POOP Machine. He used to decorate the tank with poo but lately now thinking about it, I have not seen much of his poo. I also don't see him eating like I normally do. Besides the time I picked up the 3 corys and 3 Gouramis (3-4 weeks ago) I have not added anything new into my tank. I do have a outbreak of nuisance snails (from a plant but that was brought in 2+ months ago) but my assassin snail, Cory's and I are trying to take care of that. Other than flashing I don't see anything out of the ordinary on any fish. The only listlesness I can think of is there was a point where 1 Gourami maybe 2 (they are the same color so Im not sure) hung out on the bottom of the tank and some times I would catch them sitting in the dark under the coconut shell or inside the cut out tree log decoration shelter area. (I was thinking this was because it might be new to the tank or feeling stressed.) Edited January 27, 2022 by SunniSki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunniSki Posted February 28, 2022 Author Share Posted February 28, 2022 Hi I'm revisiting this since I'm still seeing flashing..... I have been through 3 rounds of Ick Treatment, 3 rounds of paracleanse and 1 round of Expel-P (will do one more expel-p treatment this coming Saturday. I have been dealing with very frequent flashing and I just lost one gourami due to a secondary infection due to an injury which I suspect was from frequent flashing against objects. The flashing is constant and I would say when I see them flash, it happens repeatedly 6-8 times and it appears they are trying to scratch against things near the gills are. HELP!!! Any one deal with this? What did you do. I do feel I brought something home with my Gouramis I got in December, I have a variety of fish that are flashing not just a single fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colu Posted March 1, 2022 Share Posted March 1, 2022 Flashing can be caused by poor water quality active carbon dust can irritate the Gills of fish causing flashing I would do 1 more course of Expel p it's possible they have bacterial Gill disease have you noticed any rapid breathing reddening of the Gills your fish looking pale @SunniSki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunniSki Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 I would assume my water quality is good, I say this since I have good water parameters and my fish are breeding and spawning. I do weekly gravel vacs as well. (I have bladder snails so I'm trying to keep those under control and gravel vac and getting rid of the egg sacs manually is a constant weekly maintenance now.) I don't notice rapid breathing or reddening of the gills. I just see the aggressive flashing against objects and I'm only catching it on a few fish and not all of them. All of my fish seem to be eating fine and now the one fish that was hiding for a while just died on Saturday. I dont see consistent clamped fins anymore either. The only thing I have not tried is Prazi Pro and I have a bottle here but figured to do one more round of Expel P and see if I notice improvement. @Colu I just wish I knew what was going on, changing out water weekly and when I was treating with IchX (every few days) is a killer on a 75gallon. I also have 2 shoulder impingements right now so this water changes are literally killing my shoulders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colu Posted March 1, 2022 Share Posted March 1, 2022 (edited) On 3/1/2022 at 1:24 PM, SunniSki said: I would assume my water quality is good, I say this since I have good water parameters and my fish are breeding and spawning. I do weekly gravel vacs as well. (I have bladder snails so I'm trying to keep those under control and gravel vac and getting rid of the egg sacs manually is a constant weekly maintenance now.) I don't notice rapid breathing or reddening of the gills. I just see the aggressive flashing against objects and I'm only catching it on a few fish and not all of them. All of my fish seem to be eating fine and now the one fish that was hiding for a while just died on Saturday. I dont see consistent clamped fins anymore either. The only thing I have not tried is Prazi Pro and I have a bottle here but figured to do one more round of Expel P and see if I notice improvement. @Colu I just wish I knew what was going on, changing out water weekly and when I was treating with IchX (every few days) is a killer on a 75gallon. I also have 2 shoulder impingements right now so this water changes are literally killing my shoulders. It a difficult one if it were Gill flukes I would have expected the 3 rounds of paracleanse to sorted that out if the last course of Expel doesn't solve the problem then I would look at treating with antibiotic medication such as kanaplex in food to rule out any possible bacterial infection of the Gills Edited March 1, 2022 by Colu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunniSki Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 On 3/1/2022 at 9:18 AM, Colu said: I would look at treating with antibiotic medication such as kanaplex in food to rule out any possible bacterial infection of the Gills @Colu I was going to try this before but from what I read about it... Kenaplex is not good for invertebrates. I have fancy shrimp, ghost shrimp and snails. I dont have an extra tank either to move them to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandy Posted March 1, 2022 Share Posted March 1, 2022 Dosing in food should ease the amount of kanaplex getting to shrimp and snails, but could you possibly catch a portion of the invert population and put them in a container of any sort? If they need the exact water that your tank has you could even put them in some floating breeder boxes and just feed them separately. Insurance against total losses. Alternatively, I've used a sort of tank within a tank trick to treat just one fish, and avoid dosing a giant tank. You do daily water changes with preconditioned tank water and the temp is stable... Anything water tight that fits works. I've used a 1 gallon pickle jar before. Not with the lid! It stuck out of the water. Not sure if this will help, just a way I have gotten around incompatible dosing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwcarlson Posted March 1, 2022 Share Posted March 1, 2022 (edited) I dosed Kanaplex in food heavily about 5-6 weeks ago. Rabbit snails and cherry shrimp didn't seem to skip a beat. Shrimp were hatching during that time as well. Six adults survived and probably had 30+ babies in there as well when treatment was over. Edited March 1, 2022 by jwcarlson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunniSki Posted March 7, 2022 Author Share Posted March 7, 2022 I am still dealing with Fish Flashing... what would be considered normal flashing and what is not? Prior to be getting the Gourami's and additional Cory's, none of my fish were flashing... 2 weeks after getting them, this is when the fish flashing started. I initially starting with Ich-X just assuming that was the issue, since all these years of having fish I only had Ich once in my tank and never anything else and I knew that flashing was a noticed behavior. So if we have parasites in the tank, I'm learning and trying to do the best thing but I'm still seeing several fish scratching themselves on decor and I have the Cory's scratching themselves on the gravel. I have tried almost everything except Kenaplex so far. I also am going to redose with PraziPro today, I did another water change yesterday.. Also... If I am doing another round of PraziPro, can I does Expel-P on Saturday I actually forgot to do my second round of Expel-P this Saturday. I dose it on Saturday since Sunday's are my water change day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunniSki Posted March 7, 2022 Author Share Posted March 7, 2022 On 2/28/2022 at 8:57 PM, Colu said: Flashing can be caused by poor water quality active carbon dust can irritate the Gills of fish causing flashing I would do 1 more course of Expel p it's possible they have bacterial Gill disease have you noticed any rapid breathing reddening of the Gills your fish looking pale @SunniSki I wanted to add in... I dont use carbon in my canister filter anymore. I used to since I thought this was needed but after a bit of research it does not appear to be a necessary thing. I don't notice any rapid breathing on any fish. I see fish flashing and my Bristlenose's poop is damn never non-existent. He used to decorate the tank with poo, then it turned white and clearish. Now his poop is sometimes solid, sometimes clear with a green tint and sometime has white small poo in the middle of his "strings." Still not normal poop so I know something is going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaTheWulf Posted December 14, 2022 Share Posted December 14, 2022 How did this all turn out? I came across this thread looking for reasons fish flash. Been really helpful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunniSki Posted December 15, 2022 Author Share Posted December 15, 2022 Low PH and Over-cleaning…. Due to all the other things I observed, I thought it was Ich or something else going on. I did lose a fish in the mess of it and all my plants died. Due to what I have learned here and from research, I added crushed coral and Wonder Shells and stopped “over cleaning.” Slowly water quality improved and the flashing stopped. (I was over cleaning trying to siphon up any Ich or whatever I suspected was thriving in the substrate) Hope this helps! On 12/14/2022 at 6:46 PM, LisaTheWulf said: How did this all turn out? I came across this thread looking for reasons fish flash. Been really helpful! Just answered, but forgot to quote your post. Hopefully you see my reply. 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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