Fish: Re: [tropical fish club] Sick Parrots

I agree with everything Ray has said here. While my choice of medication would have differed, everything else we are in agreement on. Considering the conditions of the tank as well as the fish I would have suggested Melafix for a medication. There is less potential for issues with toxicity if the tank is cycling and it works quite well on parrot fish plus it has antibacterial as well as antifungal benefits besides being all natural ingredients. There are some fish that don't respond to it as well or at all, but for this situation that would be my first choice. It will be less harsh on the fish if they are experiencing other issues due to their previous and/or current conditions.

Dawn

Dawn Moneyhan
Aquatics Specialist/Nutritionist
To learn more about me go to
http://www.helium.com/users/449334

--- On Sun, 7/1/12, sevenspringss@wmconnect.com <sevenspringss@wmconnect.com> wrote:

From: sevenspringss@wmconnect.com <sevenspringss@wmconnect.com>
Subject: Re: [tropical fish club] Sick Parrots
To: tropicalfishclub@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, July 1, 2012, 1:01 PM

Hi Chris,

If this Bio-Clean product works (and it may, I'm not questioning it), then

with the newly set up tank being cycled, there definitely should be a

nitrate reading -- even one with a low level as would be expected, after the six

days of being set up with three large fish in it. -- although the nitrate

scale is in increments of 0.5 ppm (and there may not yet be enough to register

a 0.5 ppm minimum).. If this product doesn't work however, then there

should be a definite ammonia reading as this is the first waste product tio spike

during a cycle, at around 10 days into it.

There are still a lot of important fact not mentioned, which would be most

useful here. No where do I see the size of this larger tank which was just

cleaned. How many liters are we talking about here?

I also have never seen the size of these Blood Parrot Cichlids mentioned

anywhere, and I've read through every one of your messages. It would be

helpful to know their size. You're right though; the Blood Parrot Fish (Hybrid

Cichlid) does not get as large as the Parrot Cichlid (Hoplarchus psittacus).

This latter fish get between 38 cm. (15") and 46 cm. (18"). At 8 years old

though, These Blood Parrot Cichlids would certainly be fully mature, and

full size. They would be expected to be a minimum of 20 cm. (8") or up to

about 30 cm. (12"). depending upon which two Cichid species were used to make

the hybrid. If they're not that size, I might suspect they may have been

stunted as a result of housing them in too small of a tank over the 8 years.

Stunted fish often have health issues from this constant stress of being kept

in an inadequat sized tank for an extended time. Of course, I don't know

yet if this condition exists in these fish, but am explaining the result if

this possibility exists. Dawn is correct in stating the needed size tank for

these fish, hoping that's what size they're being maintained in.

There one extremely inportant water parameter of which the results were

never given -- and which I suspect has differed enough from the temporary 120

liter tank having the old water, from the newly set up larger tank. What is

the pH of the old water and what is the pH of the newly drawn tap water now

filling the larger newly-cleaned tank?

I noticed that a dechloramine was used, although I don't know if the tap

water contains only chlorine or whether it contains chloramine. I'm sure that

the correct water conditioner was used, as all fish would be dead within

the first 10 minutes if this weren't the case; it's just that I don't know if

the correct term had been used.

By my question above pertaining to pH, this is where I suspect sufficient

shock/stress has been given to the fish to have them contract body Fungus --

are you are right -- this cottony substance sounds unmistakenly like this

disease. Dawn has a good point of not adding more stress to these fish with

medications, but I would at least start treating them with salt -- at a

minimum rate of one teaspoon per 3.75 liters, the first day, and the similar rate

each day afterwards, for a total of 5 days. If the fish still look strong

at the end of 5 days, you may add another same amount of salt on the 6th

day. There are Fungal medications that are not very stressful however -- even

though this topic may be controversial to Dawn -- but in lieu of the

progressive salt treatment I just outlined about, I would add Furan 2 initially,

and add with it only enough salt to total 3 days worth. Temperature should

be raised to 26.6 o C. This will increase the activity of their immune

system, as their metabolism is raised. If they're in an adequate sized tank of

clean, newly set-up water, oxygen should not be an issue here, but it's

always good when treating sick fish, to increase the aeration whenever possible

to ensure maximum oxygen concentrations.

Ray </HTML>

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