[Devanta]

Ryou is worse. He has mild fin rot, amonia poisoning (which Ive determined I bought him with and its never gone away), and it looks like he is in the early stages of dropsy x.x He is not eating or moving much either, but he is at least hanging out close to the surface, but he is doing it a little crooked. What should I do?

He is in a 1 gallon tank with no decorations right now, water is at 77, conditioned with AquaSafe (which is getting switched to Stress Coat when I change his water in an hour). The water has a ppm of .25. He has no tank mates, he is about five months old, pink VT. He doesnt have a filter or heater and I change his water daily with aged water. He gets fed three bio-gold pellets twice a day, but doesnt eat them.

Sorry the pictures are so big and not very good. He wasnt into posing today x.x

 

[callistra]

I'm not sure how often you're changing the water but if he's sick like that I highly suggest changing before the ammonia hits that point. A 1 gallon should be changed every 2-3 days tops (3 is too long imho). It looks like you may have it half full.. in which case every 1-2 days tops. I see in the other forum it was suggested you do daily water changes.. in that case you should not be seeing .25ppm ammonia.

How are you determining his water is 77? That is a very hot unheated bowl.. in order to maintain a tank temp of 78 I have a betta room with air temp set at 83.. if that puts things in perspective.

I'm not seeing dropsy from the photos but you can maybe see some pine coning that's not picking up. If this is the case he needs to be in some epsoms and antibiotics asap. I suggest something that goes internal like Kanamyacin (Kanaplex by Seachem) or the Maracyns in combo. Stable water temps and frequent enough changes are also crucial here.

 

[Devanta]

Ive been keeping my house at 80-85 for them, because they are tropical fish and im getting paranoid about it now. I change his water everyday. There is a bit of bloating and scale raising that the camera cant seem to capture. Not much, but enough to notice it. Kanamyacin or the Maracyns - gotcha. Im going to try and find that today then.

 

[callistra]

Good for you for keeping your fish warm I would suggest picking one temp and keeping the house at that, instead of letting it go from 80-85. 5 degree temperature swings in one day can cause issues. In my experience ambient temp of 82-84 is sufficient but that's with a quarantine room not a whole house.. so anywhere somewhere in the range you have it would be good.

Very good sign you caught the pine coning this early. Make sure the epsoms you pick up are pure 100% salts and have no additives. Best of luck! I would continue offering the food daily and if you see him eat this is a very very good sign. Also you might be able to entice him by changing up the food or doing a 10-15min soak in garlic guard by seachem (if you can find the kanaplex you'll prob see the garlic guard too).

 

[Devanta]

can i use epsoms and medicine at the same time? im starting him on t.c. tetracycline by API for his fin rot and cloudy eye. I dont know where to find kanaplex or maracyns yet x.x

 

[callistra]

This will not work for internal infections and if he's bloating it's internal. It may work on the fin rot though, depending on the bacteria that's causing it, but his major concern at this point is the pine coning. I've never known Tetracycline to work on dropsy causing bacteria.. but if you can find nothing else it's better than nothing..

Epsoms are fine to work in combo with the antibiotics.

Petsmart carries the Maracyns. You'll have to find a local specialty shop for the Kanamyacin. I would try typing aquariums into yellowpages.com and calling down the list until you find a place, or you can order from Amazon.com

 

[Devanta]

How much epsom salt for a 1 gallon tank?

 

[Devanta]

Now hes trying to jump out of his water periodically x.x hes had the tetracycline for about half an hour now. What does the jumping mean? He cant jump high enough to reach the rim of his tank, no worries there, btw.

 

[Tikibirds]

how much did you put in? 1 packet is for a 10 gallon tank...
1 teaspoon per gallon for epsom

maracyn is hard to find. I had to order online.

 

[Devanta]

I divided up the meds into ten parts and gave him part of one. Thank you for the epsom advice. Im only supposed to do that for four days, right?

 

[callistra]

The cutting method isn't the best method but you probably did ok. In the future, I suggest dissolving the packet in 10 tablespoons of aquarium water in a cup. Then measure out one tablespoon of the mix and put it in the tank. If the meds won't dissolve well, as is my experience with some meds including the tetracycline, you can double this.. dissolve in 20 tablespoons and put two in the tank.