Another day, another bloodbath.

My neighbor's friends kid has a fish tank. When they went to the fish store (the kid's mom thought it was petco) she was told the fish would stay to the size of the tank. So, they got 4 JDs, a few Sevs and two of these guys.



I think it's a pike, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, all of this was in a 20g tank. Yes, a 20. They started out tiny, from what she had said, but then gotten big. The best I can gather from what I was told from the mother (they were beginners, but well meaning) was that it seems like two of the JDs went to pair off and started going after everything in the tank.

By the time I got the fish, or what was left, there were two survivors, one a smaller sev, that was smart and hid and that guy. He's in poor shape right now and just sitting on the bottom, but hopefully he'll pull through.

(edited for horrible typos. I really was tired. )

Thats is going to be one nice looking fish when it heals. Best of luck saint_felony!

It's a shame that people can't trust what the pet stores tell them about the pets they are going to buy.

Seems to me that most of the employees arent educated very well, and a lot of times show very little, if any interest at all in the pets that unfortunately depend on them. Im not try to make excuses for or defend the employees, but I suppose at a few bucks an hour there really isnt any motivation for them to do so. However, if you agree to take the job then you should except the responsibility. Just my 2 cents worth.

1nevrkwitz wrote:

Seems to me that most of the employees arent educated very well, and a lot of times show very little, if any interest at all in the pets that unfortunately depend on them. Im not try to make excuses for or defend the employees, but I suppose at a few bucks an hour there really isnt any motivation for them to do so. However, if you agree to take the job then you should except the responsibility. Just my 2 cents worth.

i totally agree,

good luck with new rescues saint

Thanks guys.

It really wasn't supposed to be a rant on fish stores I was just tired, and think it came out more like that than I intended, I am still trying to properly id this guy though.

He's in rough shape. He is a pike cichlid, from the faintly visible markings down the side and the large spot behind the operculum I'd guess a species from the C. saxatilis group. Too dark now to confirm an ID, though, if he makes it and colors back up let me know.

How big is he? Good luck, Saint.

WYite

He's about 6 inches maybe a bit bigger. His tail and anal fins have been totally destroyed so he may have been closer to 8 when he was all in one piece.

He's stressed for sure but has been moving around some at least, and not just sitting in one place, though he seems to be a fan of the chunk of pvc pipe that was in the tank.

Here's hoping he heals up some, some of the pictures of C. saxatilis are really pretty.

Good rescue and just in time...hope your friends are more educated now...to bad for the fish, I hope they heal up!

Wow from the looks of it the pike may be a venezulan or a bellycrawler. Just keep his water as clean as possilbe, turn the temp up and add kosher salt. Good luck with healing these guys!

Saint. Keep us up dated!

Today is looking better. He's not nearly as black as he was yesterday and is actually moving around, like attempting to swim moving around.

I haven't seen him eat yet, but I'm sure he will in the next day or two. Worse comes to worse, I'll get him some worms. No SA Chichlid I've seen yet has been able to resist the lure of the wiggly worms. He's big enough he could more than likely do an earthworm even.

I need to get some pictures of his back fins just to see how bad it is, for when he heals up.

I'm not making this any easier am I?

Came down to do a 50% water change and found out the heater in his tank died.

Water temp was 66 degrees. Stupid heater. He's still seeming okay, but is starting to get cloudy eye. I'm currently keeping an eye on it, but I have some formalin and Machalite Green on the ready just in case. In his shape, I wonder if copper salts would be a better first round? I thought I had read somewhere they were "safer" for delicate fish.

Boy that's a tough one. Is he showin' any fungus yet and does he have any signs of parasites on him? If he's showin' no signs of fungal infection or parasites, I'd say hit the tank with methylene blue as a preventative and watch for further symptoms, but the cloudy eye bugs me. I've never read anywhere that copper salts are easier on delicate fish, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. I do know over-dosing can cause chemical burns. Both solutions are rough. Personally, think I'd go with a light dosage of the formalin/malachite green. I'm assumin' the tank temp is back up, I think I might put it up to 82 or so as well. Get him eatin' but ya already know that.

Do ya usually use methylene blue when ya rescue fish? I've always found it helps keepin' things from gettin' started, but I've never had good luck with it as a cure.

WYite

That cloudy eye bugs me too. It's not parasites, but may possibly be something protozoan. It looks close but not exactly to that cloudy eye that goldies in crap conditions get only it extends past the eye. So far it's only on the left side as well, which is another reason I'm leaning towards that. Maybe also be a bacterial outbreak due to the temp drop.

The temp is almost back up. I've got to swap heaters again. I had a 50w free, but it's just not cutting it for this tank. It's been stuck at 79 for the last hour or so. I need to find somewhere to get cheap heaters too, I never seem to have enough of them around.

I prefer a Melafix/Pimafix combo over the blue. I've had just as good luck with that and none of the crazy staining.

My fish have had a cloudy eye before but it was due to an injury. Maybe he got spooked and bumped into something? Anyway...in his condition I would recommend just keeping his water conditions pristine and doing daily or every other day PWC's for a week or so. Just keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't get any worse. If it does get worse it may require some type of treatment.

So, whatever it is, is nasty.

There's not really anything in the tank that I *think* could have caused an injury, but that's not to say it didn't have it, or wasn't there from before I picked him up.

It started from the left eye yesterday. When I first saw it it extended past the eye just a bit, now it's in odd patches all over it's body, everywhere there was previous damage. I tried taking some pictures of it, but it's a really subtle grey coating on him and the pictures don't look hardly any different from the ones I posted already.

If it is a fungus, I've never seen one move this fast. Since the preventative doses of melafix and pimafix weren't working I did another heavy water change and gave him a short 1.5ppt salt bath. The creeping funk flaked/fell off in some patches (think like dandruff) and he was acting a lot happier about it and actually ate one big cichlid stick. (The compressed cheesy poof looking kind)

I did a double dose of pimafix, and all was looking good.

14 hours later, or so and it's all back. Ever spot the creeping crud fell off is now covered again and it's up on the fins now as well.

So, set up another salt bath and got him going in it, changed out a lot of the water again, and since I had some on hand did a .5ml intraperitoneal injection of Amikacin. (.1ml Ami, .4 saline) Amikacin is kinda rough on fish, (I use it for tort URIs) so it may kill him, but this funk may kill him first. Blah.

He's currently still alive 2 hours later, (amazingly enough) though back to just sitting on the bottom. If he somehow manages to survive this, well, wow. I'll be completely amazed.

Satin what your describing kinda sounds like what I had ie cloudy eyes, gray coating, and patches of white on the body of the fish.

looks like you have started treatment, I have my fingers crossed for you and the fish. I bought Coppersafe after I salted my tank and it doesn't say its safer for fish. If you do end up using it make sure you do not have any plants or inverts in the tank because it may kill them.

Cheep heaters try ebay. I've bought stealth heaters rated for 100g for 10 bucks there.

Yikes...definitely more than just an injury. Sounds like it may be velvet but it's hard to say. Is it breathing heavy or flashing at all?

No flashing, there was heavy breathing right after the salt bath and shot, but that was to be expected.

Still alive. Still funky, but the funk looks different today than it did last night, like the meds might be working. Still just sitting on the bottom in the same spot he was last night though. His only hope really right now I think is that it doesn't go systemic.

He doesn't have the speckling that I'm used to seeing with velvet, but that's not to say that it's not either. Sometimes it's really really hard to tell. I know there's a good handful of variants of ich, so why not velvet too.

Oh I and I figured out where I saw the copper salts are "safer" part. When I was going through the box of meds, I have a bottle of copper salt ich treatment formulated for delicate fish. It's just a lower percentage solution but I just remembered what was in it and the delicate part, not that it was weaker.

when my fish were sick a couple of weeks ago that is what my Severum looked like...After closer examination it was spots of the slime coat that were missing. I am pretty sure what was in my tank was velvet although I only seen the spackling on a few fish..the others just lost their slime coat and began to lose their skin and theit tail and fins started to deteriorate. I was using salt along with aquari-sol (copper salts) and dosed melafix every other day. I was also doing salt bathe which helped...10tsp salt to one gal. Best of luck keep us posted.

Not much has changed. Still alive. Still isn't moving much, but I'm beginning to suspect that's due to the heavy fin damage.

I'm going to start copper salts tomorrow after the heavy beating he got yesterday.

Any update, saint_felony?

Like I said I was going to do in the Chat, he got a salt bath and hit with one more round of Amikacin Sunday night. Any more drugs

As of right now, I am doing nothing else besides daily water changes and some extra salt in the water. Twice now I've caught him laying on his side and he's still not eating. The funk seems to be holding and not getting any worse but it's not healing like I'd like it to be either. Also (and I may just be imagining it) there seems to be a bit of abdominal swelling that I didn't notice previously. That being said, I haven't seen him drop any friends off yet either the entire time he's been here. Not to say the filter hasn't gotten it before I saw anything, but usually the pvc pipes need to be at very least shaken out of poo now and again.

At this point, I'm not sure what to do. I don't want him to starve to death since I'm sure that would suck, but don't want to end it in case he does pull through. I wish I was better with fish ailments and knew if this was normal or I'm just wasting my time.

saint_felony wrote:

Like I said I was going to do in the Chat, he got a salt bath and hit with one more round of Amikacin Sunday night. Any more drugs

As of right now, I am doing nothing else besides daily water changes and some extra salt in the water. Twice now I've caught him laying on his side and he's still not eating. The funk seems to be holding and not getting any worse but it's not healing like I'd like it to be either. Also (and I may just be imagining it) there seems to be a bit of abdominal swelling that I didn't notice previously. That being said, I haven't seen him drop any friends off yet either the entire time he's been here. Not to say the filter hasn't gotten it before I saw anything, but usually the pvc pipes need to be at very least shaken out of poo now and again.

At this point, I'm not sure what to do. I don't want him to starve to death since I'm sure that would suck, but don't want to end it in case he does pull through. I wish I was better with fish ailments and knew if this was normal or I'm just wasting my time.

I wish you best of luck!