Big white patches, cloudy puffy eyes

[TheCheese909]

Try not to use your hands unless they are completely clean. Some nets are more rough than others and can cause problems with finnage getting caught. If you have his cup still and you can scoop him out then do that. Using a net though is still okay, just make sure you rinse it under a running faucet of hot tap water before and after each use.

Doing water changes you want to do 100% every day.

I use 1 whole cap full every time i do a water change in my 1 gallons while fish are being hospitalized, if you at all feel like that's too much you can use half a cap. I have never had any problems using a whole, but it's up to you completely.

If you live in an area where there is a WalMart then you can find 1 gallon diamond tanks for $10. They have a hood with a light and a bubbler, you won't need the bubbler but it's a steal to get it all for that price.

Keep an eye on the tank temperature with that heater in it. If the heater isn't supposed to be for that sized aquarium i've noticed with my fish they start freaking out. I don't know if it makes a noise or vibration in the water that bothers them or what, but they tend to like, spazz out. If you notice this at all just take the heater out.

If you don't want to buy a hospital tank or are unable to (anything that's about 1 gallon should work, you don't always need to have it be a tank just so long as you never use it for anything else) you can always just lower the water levels in your aquarium like Virto said. Remove any and all gravel and give the tank a nice hot scrubbing under running water. Keep a plant or two in there so he doesn't get stressed out.

I've never used Maracyn Plus but that should work okay for the eye problems but it doesn't look like it will help with the body fungus.

Look for this next time you go to the store:
http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...uctId=11147323

[SuperNoob]

i've got her in her new hospital tank now. its a plain 2.5 gallon tank and I just put 1 gal of water in it. I added 5ml of stress coat and 1 tsp of aq salt. I'll increase it slowly if she doesnt react to it. I put my heater in there and got it to 80 degrees (same as other bowl) before i moved her. I took a video of her so you can see her behavior and coloring better.

http://s163.photobucket.com/albums/t...=VIDEO0099.mp4

If it doesnt work let me know. I googled what the difference between the Maracyns were and im getting this:

Maracyn Plus is Sulfadimidine and Trimethoprin........It kind of covers everything a real broad spectrum with a fancy way of getting on to the fish.
Maracyn is Erythromycin..............Gram Positive
Maracyn 2 is Minocycline ..............Gram Negative

I actually have a box of E.M. Erythromycin. Another thread said Minocycline is a tetracycline antibiotic which is what i gave her over the past 4 days. The bottle of maracyn Plus says that it contains microscopic biospheres that attach directly to the fish delivering the medication where it is needed. Prevents reinfection during treatment. If it really does that, that sounds awesome. All of this is still pretty confusing because there are so many meds out there. i hope the combo of the salt, stress coat, and antibiotic starts making a difference.

[TheCheese909]

(love your cat)

Your little girl is definitely a little boy, the long ventral fins i see on him in the video shows it. Thank you for posting the video.

He doesn't seem to be stressed, thankfully, and your heater clearly isn't bothering him, so that's also a great thing.

Does he at all seem to act like he can't see his food? I'm just wondering if he has any real trouble seeing. If you can find some frozen glass worms to feed him the extra nutrition will beef him up some more and help him fight off infections. (sorry if i mentioned that before, i skimmed though my previous posts and didn't see it so..)

It's hard to tell if the area around the back near his tail is more like a solid mass or if it's more fuzzy or what.. But that medication you have is better than nothing. Proper dosing and daily water changes can really help.

The only reason I said it might not help with the fungus area is because that medication (from what i read) is for mouth fungus and not body fungus. They are both totally different types, not just because one is on the mouth and the other on the body, they are made from different things. A true fungus on the mouth, body, tail is white and fuzzy looking, like cotton. While "body fungus" or columnaris can have more of a gray color to it and sometimes can be a little stringy. It's not a real fungus but a bacterial infection.

Maracyn Plus could probably work though i don't know for sure, but like i said, it's better than nothing and it will help treat his eyes atleast until we know for sure if it's going to help his body out.

[callistra]

Maracyn Plus is the strongest and is even known to work on dropsy. Erythromycin is good but Kanamyacin in the same family is better. Tetracycline is practically worthless anymore. Minocycline is a little better than tetracycline because there's less resistance to it.

Out of what you've got and considering what he looks like, I'd go for the Maracyn Plus.. it's strong so dose carefully. I would skip the AQ stage he looks really bad.. sorry :(

Are you sure the ammonia levels are .1-.2 and not 1-2? Your tank is uncycled so read the fish in cycling carefully if you want to cycle it, but know tanks that size are really hard to keep an established biological filter.. in which case you'd need 100% weekly changes.

[TheCheese909]

callistra, I was telling the OP to use both the AQS and medication together. Many do it at the same time, including me and it has always worked out for the better.

Thank you for more information on the actual medication, now I know.

[SuperNoob]

Well he made it through the night. He is moving around okay but a bit slower. He looks more tired. The maracyn plus says to give a dose on day 1 3 and 5 so tonight I am going to do the 100% water change and not give him the meds. He may need a little break from all the antibiotics. I may do less AQS too and see if he perks up. He is a strong little guy.

He has been having trouble seeing his food. I had to work with him a little bit when giving him his pellets. When I moved him into the hospital bowl I noticed he wasnt pooping that much so I changed his diet to frozen blood worms and only 1 pellet pre-soaked in tank water. He wasnt sure about them blood worms at first but now he slurps em up eagerly. I use tweezers so he doesnt have trouble seeing them. When I examined him today, the patches are not fuzzy. Just flat and scaly because of his scales. Like his scales are outlined in white.

Callistra, i tested the hospital water with my liquid ammonia test kit last night after i had just prepped it and it showed .5 ppm. I was telling cheese earlier that my tap water shows between .1 and .25 and after I put the stress coat in it increases to .5ppm. I dont understand why. I live on the coast and our water is hard. I just recently got some prime but havent tried it yet because so many people on here say stress coat is the thing to use. Gonna keep my eye on him and post if anything changes.

thanks guys for the guidance.

[SuperNoob]

I just read the following in the "GUIDE: Tank Cycling/Nitrogen Cycle" thread:

Since this process is fairly slow, it is still required on your part to do small water changes just so that there is a safe level of ammonia for the bacteria to eat, but not too much to be harmful to your fish. In my own personal opinion, keeping the ammonia level at 0.5 (considered "stressful" under most bottles) is perfectly fine and fairly optimum for growing nitrosomonas.

If that is the case, then my ammonia levels are ok. what do yall think?

[SuperNoob]

i just read the beginner's guide to the freshwater aquarium cycle. Very helpful. Im going to take advantage of having my new hospital tank and try to do a fishless cycle on my original tank. Gonna use fish food to get the ammonia up to 2-3 ppm. There is one thing Im not clear on. It says the beneficial bacteria grows on all the surfaces so does that mean Im never supposed to scrub the decorations and walls of the tank? they get slimy. Also i have algae growing on the silk plants, yuck. How do i get rid of that and not harm the new beneficial bacteria?

[callistra]

.25 is okay short term but .5 is pushing it.

If you have an ace hardware store you can get bottles of pure ammonia from them and an eye dropper from the pharmacy and dose that way and the tank never clouds up. I'm doing a 10 gallon for the first time with bottles of ammonia and I'm loving it.

[SuperNoob]

Did my 100% water change just using salt and stress coat. He has perked up a little bit but other than that he's about the same.