Tetra With Red Gills

[Fishy101]

Hello, 

I got two black phantom tetras about a couple days from a new fish store and just today or late last night one died and the other is not doing well. When I got them they were acting a little lethargic and this one had some red gills, could it be gill flukes? I’ve never dealt with this before. I put him in a separate tank with an Indian Almond Leaf and a little bit of aquarium salt as it says it helps gill function. But unfortunately that’s the only meds I have on hand besides kanaplex and I wouldn’t be able to get till the store till tomorrow, and I hope he will make it till then…

any suggestions on what to do and what it could be?
sorry for some reason three of the photo are upside down (he’s not) and hard to see since he’s hiding but if he comes out I’ll get better ones. 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Fishy101

[CJs Aquatics]

This seems to happen often, getting fish from the LFS that don’t do well when we get them home. Sometimes they carry diseases, sometimes they don’t acclimate well to our water, sometimes it’s old age, sometimes stress, but regardless of the situation it happens in the trade a lot. The practice I use most of the time is pretty simple and as follows. When I’m at the store about to purchase the fish I try to inspect them for a few minutes and choose the liveliest healthiest looking ones. When they are bagging them up at checkout I ask them the ph/ temp of the water in the tank they are kept. I also ask them what food or foods they feed them. When I get them home I have a separate tank with nothing in it completely empty except a sponge filter. You can use anything that’s big enough though if a tank isn’t in the budget, including a mop bucket or a 5 gallon bucket, or a Tupperware container etc. as long as it has been sanitized and is chemical free and holds water. I take an unconventional approach from this point. It has worked for me but is not necessarily advised. If there is enough water in the bag they are in, I skip the temp acclimation and pour the fish into there “quarantine tank.” I temperate match my water to theirs and make sure it is dechlorinated. I then drip that water into the water they are in in the tank until it is full. I have found this to reduce there overall stress from the bagging process and being introduced to a new environment, as well as helps them to slowly acclimate to the parameters they will be kept in. I say it isn’t advised bc it is never advised to introduce LFS water to yours in any way. Once the tank fills up, I dose it with the med trio based on its volume. This tank uses separate equipment from the others like nets siphons etc. Usually around 7-14 days of meds and monitoring then you can plop and drop them to the tank they are going to go in in my opinion the healthiest form they will come in. When you water change them use your dechlorinated water. In your situation, you did the right thing in pulling them out into a separate tank. Next step I would take is to start the kanaplex. There really isn’t a right or wrong answer in this situation whether or not to wait a day, it’s whatever you feel is best for your fish, they most likely already came sick or stress made them sick. Best advice from me personally is monitor them and get some meds through there system and see if things improve. Yes it could make things worse of course but you don’t want any illness to transfer to your other fish. I feel if something negative happens when you were taking a proactive approach in there health, there probably wasn’t anything else you could do, and it could have been worse so you did the best you can. Honorable mention would be reduce the lights during this process to help with stress. I truly hope something in this post helps, I’m sorry it was so long and I hope your fish recover.