# Unwell Baby Rainbowfish



## Miss Fishy (May 13, 2006)

I have a problem with my three baby Rainbowfish, and I'm hoping someone can help me with it. Before I ask my questions, here are some details about the tank and inhabitants and their history:

*Tank size:* 16 litres (4.2 gallons) but taking the substrate into account, the tank actually contains 12 litres (3.1 gallons) 
*Substrate:* topsoil (I know the soil is safe as I have used it in many other tanks and ponds with no problems for the fish)
*pH:* 7.5
*KH:* 110 ppm CaCO3 (6°dH)
*GH:* 160 ppm CaCO3 (8°dH)
*Ammonia:* 0 ppm
*Nitrite:* 0 ppm
*Nitrate:* 0 ppm
*Temperature:* 18 - 22°C (64 - 72°F); the tank has no heater
*Animals:* three baby Rainbowfish (either _Melanotaenia fluviatilis_ or _Melanotaenia duboulayi_), all less than 1.5cm (less than half an inch) in length, four different species of snails, blackworms, Tubifex worms, Cyclops, Moina, planaria, and ostracods. 
*Plants:* _Azolla pinnata_, _Ceratophyllum demersum_, two species of _Chara_, _Eleocharis pusilla_, _Glossostigma elatinoides_, _Hydrilla verticillata_, _Hydrocotyle verticillata_, _Landoltia punctata_, _Myriophyllum variifolium_.

I set this tank up a few months ago as a home for three baby Rainbowfish which arrived as eggs on plants and hatched in one of my ponds (I wrote about them in this thread over in "El Natural"). The setting up of the tank and the trasferring of the babies went smoothly and all the plants and small invertebrates are thriving. The babies appeared to be thriving too, until two and a half weeks ago.

All my tanks but one have no artificial water movement so I periodically check on the fish at night to make sure they are getting enough oxygen, and one night I noticed the babies were at the surface gasping for air. I immeadiately put an airstone on the tank, connected to a timer so it ran only during the night, but the next day they were swimming near the surface more than usual. I checked the water parameters, and everything was fine, so I assumed the tank must just be getting a little overcrowded what with the babies growing fast and the invertebrates multiplying. It did seem a little odd that all the plants were pearling and streaming bubbles in the evening, which I thought meant that the water was saturated with oxygen. Anyway, I put a small hang on the back filter on the tank, and it seemed to help a little.

I was still worried though. Although they _looked_ healthy, the babies were now not eating as much as usual, and often spitting out food. They were also making "chewing" motions with their mouths, and they were not as active as they had been. Then they started scratching their gills on the plants. Uh oh! All the symptoms seemed to indicate Gill Flukes. I knew I couldn't be sure without taking a scraping, but how do you take a gill scraping on such small fish? I decided to try treating them anyway, as I have read Gill Flukes can kill fry very quickly. I used Praziquantel, at the rate of 2mg per litre. I did a partial water change, the dosed on day one, day four, and day seven (just to be sure to catch all the flukes), and did another partial water change on day ten. During the treatment, the babies picked up a lot, stopped scratching, and began to eat better. They were still struggling for oxygen on and off, but not as much.

Then, six days after the final dose, they went downhill again. Just to see what would happen, I added another dose of Praziquantel, and again they picked up. That was two days ago, and now I am wondering what all this means and what I should do next.

So here, finally, are my questions:

Firstly, why did they get sick in the first place? The tank conditions are perfect, and they eat a varied diet (frozen baby brine shrimps, egg yolk, two types of flakes, two types of pellets, live baby Cyclops, Moina and mosquito larvae, and algae off the walls of the tank). They could have caught something from the fish in my other tanks and ponds, but I only have five other fish at the moment, and they have never been sick in the whole time I've had them (two are 7 years old, and the others are 11, three and two years old). Also, if they did catch something from my other fish, why have they only showed symptoms now? I have used the same eye-dropper to feed the fish in one of my other tanks since the babies first hatched. The only thing I can think of is that my other fish do in fact have some disease (e.g. Fish TB, which is highly likely since they all came from commercial sources) but since they are adults and very hardy species they show no signs of illness. The babies, on the other hand, may be less resistant because of age and species. Perhaps the Gill Flukes are a secondry infection that they have succumbed to because they are already weakened.

Secondly, what should I do now? Should I go with the assumption that they do have Gill Flukes, since they improved during the treatment, and that they got sick again because a few eggs survived the treatment, hatched out, and atacked the babies again? Should I follow the same treatment plan again, or try something different? On the Goldfish and Aquarium Board 's website, there is a different method for treating with Praziquantel. It suggests dosing two days in a row, pausing three days, then dosing another two days. It seems to me that this method might be better at catching all the flukes, especially considering the tempertature in this tank is not very high (so the fluke eggs would take longer to hatch).

I am also going to try adding a UV steriliser on the off chance that Fish TB is the underlying problem, as I really don't want to lose these little fish.

Sorry for the extremely long post, but I didn't want to leave out any information that could provide a clue as to what is going on.

Thank you.

From Alex.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Hi Alex.

I know nothing (or less) about Rainbow's, but a couple of things jumped out at me.

The first thing is that you said you have blackworms, Tubifex worms, Cyclops, etc. living in your tank. If you had leftovers from feeding to the point where they are living in your tank, I would cut back on the feedings. Blackworms like it really cool too, so it's odd they are surviving. If you think about how icky the water in a container of blackworms gets in a few days, that would mean they're polluting your tank as well.

I would also suggest adding a heater so you don't get such a big temp swing. That's pretty hard on any fish, let alone fry.

You could very well be onto something about them picking up something from the pond fish. The adults have a much better resistance, so they may not show anything that fry will easily pick up. They may not have shown symptoms right away because over time trying to fight whatever it is, it's wearing them down and they couldn't fight it anymore.

I'm sure you realize that the pearling on your plants is from higher C02 levels, and not oxygen levels (more C02 uses up the oxygen), so that is probably why they were gasping for air. I would continue to use some sort of HOB filter when you have fry in the tank, and to suck up some of the excess waste.
Fry need pristine water conditions, so even something a little off can create a snowball effect.

I hope you can get it straightened up.


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## javalee (May 8, 2006)

Miss Fishy, we have exactly the same problem with our fish, it seems! I don't know if you remember my posts about gasping fish and fluke treatment:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...548-wet-thumb-forum-fluke-treatment-tank.html

To summarize, the chewing motions, the gasping during daylight hours, spitting out food, and flashing. Mine do all this too, AND they responded exactly the same way to the treatment with Prazi---better at first, but several days later began with the same symptoms all over again!

It got me reading around the net for what the problem is and one thing I found is that there are several infections that could cause these symptoms: flukes, chilodonella, "velvet", and trichodina. Like you said, the way to make a definitive diagnosis involves a gill scraping or a sacrifice, which is not feasible for an aquarium hobbyist. I thought that with velvet, for instance, you could rule it out if you don't see the fine "powder" on the fish, but this is apparently not the case.

Read about these here: http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/diseasehome.htm

Diana had recommended contacting "fishvet" on the net. Well, unfortunately, I was able to read all their very good info on the above parasites, write them a letter with my problem, and THEN their site disappeared! So I can't give you their good link detailing the specifics of symptoms.

I'm no longer sure, therefore, that my fish (cherry barbs and guppies---oto is unaffected; that must mean something) have flukes since everything I read about prazipro says that the stuff causes flukes to drop off within 3 hours of standard treatment. My barbs were still flashing at 24 hrs. They stopped flashing on the second day. I'm wondering if it's one of the other parasites i listed and maybe the Prazi was only enough to knock it back temporarily.

My fish are all still infected. The new guppies I added that were in good shape got it too. They aren't gonna die from it, I guess, since this has been a long standing problem, but I do have to leave heavy aeration on at all hours. They perk up considerably when I aerate, and begin gasping or hanging at the bottom as soon as I stop. I'm so frustrated by this that I started to contact a real fish vet at LSU (Louisiana State University) Vet school here. I haven't been able to get him on the phone yet.

At this point, it's not diagnosing I'm concerned about, since that seems impossible without a scraping; it's how to treat this tank and fish with a good gold-standard parasite killer. I also posted about using Potassium Permanganate. That was a disaster since a NPT has so much organic matter.
In fact, that had me wondering if organic load was interfering with the Prazi since it recommends a good cleaning and water change BEFORE usage. I've found this to be the case with many medications---that organic load interferes with the effectiveness of the med.

I'm at a loss and very frustrated by this as you can see.  I'm sorry I can't offer you any useful information! You could peruse the website I linked above in the medication section to see if any might work for you, but I found that there were contraindications that applied to me in each one. One of the big issues is that if the gills are affected and the fish are laboring to breathe, then any medication you put in there is only going to make it harder for them to breathe and there are warnings about only using these treatments if you think the fish is gonna die anyway. Malachite green and formalin sounds like a good gold standard treatment for parasites, but it makes breathing difficult too on its own. Urgh! I just leave heavy aeration on in this tank now at all times.

My 29g fish have it too, but they are otherwise healthy. They just scratch occasionally---no gasping or anything. I've always figured that it's worse in my NPT because of the funny smell originating from the pine bark in the soil. But who knows really?

Good luck, and let me know if you are successful with anything.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

The rapid opening and closing of their mouth, and piping both signal something happening to their gills that's making them work less effectively. Could be flukes. Could be other parasites. Improvement with prazi would suggest that it is flukes, cuz prazi doesn't affect other common parasites.

You're right. at lower temps flukes take longer to hatch out. It may be a good idea to treat every 3 or 4 days for two weeks to make sure... or even better, add a heater and bring it up to 78. then a week should do it. I don't know about the level of organics and prazi. It's not an oxidizer like PP, so I wouldn't guess that organics would mess with its effectiveness. The prazi dosing instructions on GAB came from Rick at Goldfish Connections. If I'm treating a tank at tropical temps I'll dose at day 1 and again at day 4, then do a partial water change on day 7.

What you could do is remove the rainbows to QT. Add a heater and take the NPT up to tropical temps and leave it fishless while you're treating the fry. That should burn out any parasites in the tank since they wouldn't have a host. and treat the fry in QT. I would raise the QT temp up to 78ish, add plenty of airation/surface agitation, and treat with both formalin/malachite green and prazi. I'd also keep an eye out for bacterial issues since both parasites leave wounds that may get infected.


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## Miss Fishy (May 13, 2006)

Thank you so much for all your replies, everyone! It makes it so much easier when there are several brains working on the one problem. I've thought about it so much over the past couple of weeks that I can no longer be sure if I'm missing some important detail. 

JanS, sorry, I did not explain clearly enough two important things about the tank. 

Number one: the temperature swing does not happen every day! What I meant to say is that the tank is unheated, therefore the temperature varies from day to day depending on the weather. It is autumn here at the moment, so one day the tank might be 22°C, then two days later it might have dropped to 18°C. I check the thermometer in the tank frequently, and the temperature changes happen very gradually. Our house is double brick and the windows have double glazing on them so the temperature in the rooms changes very slowly, even when the weather outside turns suddenly hot/cold. 

Number two: My tank is actually set up differently to many planted tanks, which I should have made clear. It is set up using Diana Walstad's methods and every water test I own says conditions are perfect, and the health of the plants and small invertebrates also suggests that water conditions are excellent. In addition to that, the babies hatched in an outdoor pond which has almost identical conditions (except lower temperatures, which is why I brought them inside in the first place), so I would not have expected them to survive this long (they are four months old) if something had been badly wrong all this time. The reason I mentioned the pearling was because this tank has pearled during the afternoon and evening from when it was first set up and the fry never showed any sign that they weren't getting enough oxygen until two and a half weeks ago, when all the other symptoms began as well. I thought pearling indicates that CO2 levels are high, meaning the plants are photosynthesising a lot and producing lots of oxygen, hence the bubbles of undisolved oxygen on the plants but maybe I've got mixed up (quite likely since my brain is getting slowly fried from all this puzzling over what is wrong with the fry!). 

Also, I should have explained that I added the blackworms, Tubifex worms, Cyclops etc. to the tank intentionally, and feed them as well as the fish. All my tanks contain a multitute of small invertebrates (in fact, only three of my tanks have any fish at all), and none of them cause any problems, least of all pollution. When people keep blackworms in containers to feed their fish (I still keep a few this way), there are many worms in a very small volume of water, with no plants and few bacteria to take up ammonia, and usually no aeration, so the water very quickly goes bad. You will often see them crawling out of the water in distress as the water conditions worsen. When you keep blackworms in a healthy aquarium or pond, they stay on the substrate and creep about cleaning the plants. In a tank with a soil substrate and plenty of plant life, their waste contributes to the health of the tank as long as they don't get too numerous. Although people say blackworms prefer cool conditions, I have found this is not true but then again, perhaps I have a different species which can tolerate warm conditions. I have blackworms in all my outdoor ponds, which reach quite high temperatures over summer (some over 30°C), and the worms all survive and thrive. 

What you say about the babies picking up something from my adult fish and slowly getting worn down by it makes sense. As I said, my adult fish are pretty tough, and I would imagine that a couple of Gill Flukes (if that is what is causing the problem for the babies) wouldn't bother them much at all. 

javalee, I do remember the problem you have with your fish. I've read through your thread a number of times since the babies got sick, and kept thinking, "this sounds just the same.". Actually, I was hoping you would reply to this thread and say that you found a simple cure for it! No such luck! The link you posted to the site about fish diseases is very interesting. Again, I see that I'm really just guessing and have no way of knowing what disease the babies really have without gill scrapings and other investigations. It is encouraging to hear that all your fish are still alive and relatively well despite what ever it is that is attacking them. If that fish vet ever rings you back, please tell us what he says! 

Betty, your idea of treating for two weeks because of the lower temperatures sounds like the way to go. Putting the babies into a heated quarantine tank and also raising the temperature of the planted tank sounds even better, but unfortunately it's just not possible in my situation. My health is not at all good at the moment, and by the time I find the space for and set up a quarantine tank, buy two heaters (I've only ever owned one aquarium heater, and it broke), and transfer the babies, I won't have any strength or energy left to look after them. This is why I didn't want to get any more fish until my health improves! In hindsight, perhaps it would have been better to give the babies away when I first found them, rather than try to keep them, but it's too late now. 

I am a little reluctant to treat for a longer period of time, but the babies didn't seem to mind the Praziquantel at all and I can't see any other option anyway. As javalee pointed out, all the other medications I could try seem to have side effects of their own and certainly aren't suitable for adding to a soil based planted tank. 

Thanks again for all your help! 

I will post an update again when I see how things progress. 

From Alex.


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## javalee (May 8, 2006)

Betty, that _is_ a great idea! I thought about treating the fish outside the tank, but I kept thinking, "but I still have no way to safely kill the ones in the tank." I never thought about them dying off without hosts! Hmmm...I wish I were better set up for a QT tank too.

I hear you, Alex! I'm thinking this is a great idea, and contemplating how I could pull it off over several days. I often feel guilty about getting seriously into fishkeeping without a quarantine tank. I should be getting a 2.5 gallon in the mail soon. If I am able to manage giving it a try, I'll definitely post the results here.

I wonder if your rainbow fry suffered some stress from the move from pond to tank (since that's almost unavoidable), and that left them open to infestation from parasites that were already on them in small numbers. My barbs had a very mild infection with this mystery parasite before I set up as a natural planted tank (one of the females scratched occasionally), but after adding soil and doing lots of waterchanges in the process, she got much worse and the other previously unaffected female came down with the same problem. They've been infested ever since. Mine seem to get worse a few days after a water change even when I'm very careful about matching water parameters.

Keep the aeration really high in the meantime and I bet they will perk up. I worried about my plants losing CO2 at first, but I've been aerating heavily for months now and the only difference is that I don't see pearling anymore, but I'm still pleased with the growth and appearance of my plants. The funny thing is that, as you mentioned Alex, my water parameters and other snails and shrimps are fine---so happy in fact, that the female amano is continually carrying loads of eggs.

I do hate having chronically ill fish; I feel so bad for them when they scratch and flash! They really look like they're in serious distress. We'll have to stay in touch on this issue, and maybe we can fix it somehow!


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## Miss Fishy (May 13, 2006)

That's a very good point about the move being stressful for the babies. Actually, while worrying about the current situation, I had completely forgotten that they got severley chilled before I had a chance to move them (the water temperature in their pond dropped to 7°C overnight!). I was amazed that they survived that at all. If they already had some parasites on them, the chilling could have weakened them to the point where they couldn't fight them any longer. Add to that the inevitable stress of being caught and put into a new environment, and perhaps it's no wonder that they eventually got sick. 

I do have several tanks and containers that I could use for a quarentine tank; it's just that I don't have the strength and energy needed to set up and maintain one. If I were to set one up, it would require frequent water changes, since I have no cycled filter to put in it, and careful monitoring of water conditions. In my case I think the babies have a better chance of survival if they stay in their established, stable tank. 

I really hate having sick fish too. I'm sorry to hear that your fish are so distressed, javalee. My three fry are not this bad, thank goodness. They certainly do not appear distressed, and they do not flash very often (I only see them doing it a few times per day usually). They are also active and still eating OK, even though they still spit some food out, and they are also growing very fast. The filter is helping greatly with the gasping at the surface, but I might also put an airstone on the tank at night. 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the longer treatment plan will work! 

From Alex.


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## Miss Fishy (May 13, 2006)

Time for an update on the babies' progress.

I tried treating the tank with Praziquantel every four days for two weeks, but by the third dose the babies started looking worse whenever I added it. As soon as the medication was in the water they became very inactive and barely ate, and became so nervous that they would panic every time I went near the tank and crash into the walls. Between doses they were not so bad so I stopped adding the medication, put some activated carbon in the filter, and waited and watched.

Over the next 20 days, they alternated between being relatively active and eating well, and spending days sitting in the plants with their fins clamped and being uninterested in food. They were still scratching occasionally, and were struggling for oxygen on and off during the day and some nights. It all seemed very odd.

On the 20th day after I stopped adding Praziquantel, I put a small U.V. steriliser with a built in powerhead into the tank. I stuffed the intake with filter floss until the water flow was about the same as the hang-on-the-back filter, removed the filter and switched the steriliser on.

The U.V. steriliser has now been in the tank for 20 days, and the babies have not had a single day where they did not eat well or swim around together. I have not seen them scratch, and they no longer struggle for oxygen during the day or night.

I think it is still much too soon to say for sure whether the U.V. steriliser is what made the difference and whether or not the babies will go downhill again, but its arrival in the tank certainly _appears_ to have been the turning point. So, assuming that the babies now stay healthy, does this mean that they actually have a bacterial problem like Fish TB or Velvet or something and not Gill Flukes? Or perhaps they had Gill Flukes, which the Praziquantel killed, as well as some bacterial problem which the U.V. steriliser helped with? Or can a U.V. steriliser kill Gill Fluke eggs, or what?

Well, whatever the reason is, the three fry seem very happy and healthy at the moment and I'm enjoying watching them grow. The small invertebrates are also thriving (they can't get sucked into the U.V. steriliser because of the filter floss in the powerhead intake), and the plants are also doing well. The water parameters remain excellent.

I'd be very interested to hear any comments.

From Alex.

P.S. If anyone would like to see some photos and details of the tank and inhabitants, I have started a thread about it in "El Natural".


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## javalee (May 8, 2006)

Miss Fishy, you know I'm very interested as my fishes have similar refractory symptoms! I'm so glad to hear that they are improved; you must be relieved as well.

Kudos to you for thinking of a UV sterilizer. I'm so upset by my fishes' chronic problems that I'm willing to obtain one if it will help.

I wonder too, if it was a combination of Prazi treatment plus UV sterilizer. I know that gill flukes can damage the gills and cause secondary bacterial infections. So it stands to reason that these insults could take time to heal once the flukes are erradicated.

But, on the other hand, it's possible that the UV sterilizer could have "nuked" swarming pests like velvet right out of the water so....who knows, but I'm glad to hear they're better, and maybe I'll even try the exact combination just to make sure I get rid of my pests too! I'm so glad you shared your experience. I've been wondering how your babies were. They are some lucky fish considering the trials and risky situations they've survived since "egghood!"

Javalee


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## Miss Fishy (May 13, 2006)

I'm sorry to hear your fish have not improved, javalee. If you do decide to try a U.V. steriliser, it would be interesting to see if it makes a difference on its own without any medication. 

I still think it is too good to be true, and I keep expecting the babies to get sick again. Well, we'll see what happens. They certainly are tough little things! 

From Alex.


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## javalee (May 8, 2006)

Well, the UV sterilizer option might be out of the question due to costs. I haven't been able to find a petstore that will rent me one .

Since I'm about to move my fish and plants into another tank, I thought I should try to get them healthy _before_ subjecting them to the stress of a move.

Since I'm about to dismantle my pretty little 10g anyway, I figured I might go ahead and try using salt to treat them, and if a few plants don't make it, oh well. So far I've found that bacopa, dwarf sag, cabomba, and the amazon will be ok for a while in salt.

What do you think, treat them in their tank now with a long bath before the move, or do a dip? I have no experience using salt, but it's so safe and highly recommended. I thought the long bath may be better than a dip, but who knows.

Anyway, I'll post the results here whatever happens since this is a frustrating infection to watch your fish suffer from, and it seems so difficult to tackle in a planted, invertebrate tank.

Javalee


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

So how salt tolerant are they?
Here's a list of plants that are supposed to tolerate brackish water.

Is formalin a problem for inverts?


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## javalee (May 8, 2006)

Betty, thanks. Yeah, I've read and heard from other hobbyist that a dose of formalin can put a fish with gill disease over the edge so I'm leary of trying it since they aren't at risk of dying, just unwell. The fishdoc website mentioned this too. I don't think it's a good thing for plants either. I was gonna treat them in "Quick Cure" in a hospital tank, but I "chickened out!"

I forgot to check and see how much salt the cardinia japonica and ghost shrimp, oh, and MTS can handle. I need to check that first, but I'm thinking long term, lower doses must be less stressful for the fish. 

I spoke with a pretty well-informed pet store employee yesterday, and I found it interesting that they only use salt to treat their tanks for parasites. They don't use those expensive and sometimes dangerous meds that they sell!

Javalee


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

I've used formalin quite successfully quite a few times. It hasn't been a problem so far. If you do use it make sure you have plenty of airation. Also it's deactivated by organics, so keep that in mind.


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## Miss Fishy (May 13, 2006)

Have you tried the salt treatment, javalee? If so, how are the fish doing? What about the plants?

My baby fish are still going strong! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they stay healthy! 

From Alex.


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