Is Luther Sick?

[LBDave]

Update. Saw a pit on Luther this morning. Doesn't surprise me since he is stressed and not eating. Cleaned detritus out of filter. Cleaned substrate a bit. 45-50% water change. Administered General Cure. Leaving salt at about 1ppt. Maintaining temp. at 82 deg. per instructions.

 

[cigars]

A pit? HITH?

 

[LBDave]

A pit? HITH?

He got a pit before (and flashed) when I had him in another new tank. I was not messing with the filter because I had put in media from another tank. Wanted BB to grow.
He flashed a bit and I saw a pit. I cleaned the filter (vacuum & rinse bio balls), did water change/ media clean and dosed salt. He recovered quickly. Also fed vitamins and garlic. But at that time he was eating. A lot.
Currently he's stressed. I'm not surprised that he may be getting attacked by Hex. His immune system is compromised.
I keep my tanks pretty clean/ frequent water changes (vacuum sump also) and am fairly religious on feeding vitamins to the fish and good pellet and stick food. Theo is the only exception but she got some vitamins yesterday. I have never seen white poop in my tanks. I take pride on taking care of both tanks.

I'm not sure what the root problem with Luther is. Have only seen the flashing. But I gotta do something. This is the first step. We shall see if he eats. That is #1.

 

[cigars]

He got a pit before (and flashed) when I had him in another new tank. I was not messing with the filter because I had put in media from another tank. Wanted BB to grow.
He flashed a bit and I saw a pit. I cleaned the filter (vacuum & rinse bio balls), did water change/ media clean and dosed salt. He recovered quickly. Also fed vitamins and garlic. But at that time he was eating. A lot.
Currently he's stressed. I'm not surprised that he may be getting attacked by Hex. His immune system is compromised.
I keep my tanks pretty clean/ frequent water changes (vacuum sump also) and am fairly religious on feeding vitamins to the fish and good pellet and stick food. Theo is the only exception but she got some vitamins yesterday. I have never seen white poop in my tanks. I take pride on taking care of both tanks.

I'm not sure what the root problem with Luther is. Have only seen the flashing. But I gotta do something. This is the first step. We shall see if he eats. That is #1.

Sounds like your doing all the right things, Hex can be really hard to cure with peacock bass keep us posted we are all rooting for his swift recovery such a nice spider kel!

 

[LBDave]

Sounds like your doing all the right things, Hex can be really hard to cure with peacock bass keep us posted we are all rooting for his swift recovery such a nice spider kel!

Thanks buddy
Means a lot to me

 

[krichardson]

Those are some stunning looking cichla,even as they are ailing.Here's hoping you are able to get them straightened out.

 

[LBDave]

Hey everybody,
Just an update. Luther appears to be almost back to normal.
On the 2nd day of the General Cure he ate a krill. After that I did the prescribed 2nd dose.
After that he wouldn’t eat. On Thursday it was last day of general cure. I cleaned tank and did 60% water change. Added some salt to bring it back to over 1 ppt.
Added a bunch of Vita Chem also as well as fresh carbon In the filter.
Water was cloudy and I was hoping I didn’t overdo salt and vita chem. Luther mostly set at the bottom this day.
On Thursday and Friday he wouldn’t eat but he was very active Friday. Very active.
Lots of “fighting the glass”.
Looked like he wanted to eat with other fish.
he seemed frustrated. Almost like he was still hurting inside a bit.
Today he came right up at feeding. Ate 2 krill and half a cube of FD black worms.
After his dinner he calmed down a bit and is swimming around.

 

[TheWolfman]

Just a heads up if your using carbon it’s going to remove the vita chem you just added from the water, as well as any other meds. It will not effect the salinity though.

 

[LBDave]

Just a heads up if your using carbon it’s going to remove the vita chem you just added from the water, as well as any other meds. It will not effect the salinity though.

I have been using carbon off and on for this tank. The general cure directions say to use it after the treatment to remove residual medicine.
On the vita chem - It may have helped. I did a pretty big dose. Boyd claims carbon doesn't detract from it's benefit. Maybe because it takes time for the carbon to filter it out.
In any event glad he is eating. Looks like he may have flashed again last night.
Biggest thing right now is to keep him eating. Glad he ate some good protein from the worms yesterday.
Still monitoring.

 

[LBDave]

Ok, looking for some comments from everybody.
So general cure stopped last Thursday. Now tank has 1ppt salt and carbon in filter. Luther ate a bit Saturday. Looks like he scraped his side (flashing) Saturday night. Now he is back to not eating. He is very active and appears frustrated he cannot eat. It really seems like the smell of food makes him frustrated/ excited. He mouthed a stick but spit it out. After that he would not hit the top. All other fish are fine. Other kel eats a lot and right in front of Luther.
He hasn't flashed again after Saturday.
I have examined him close up. See nothing except scrapes from flashing and the 3 pits on his side of head he got about 3.5 weeks ago. They look to be healing.
I am going to do some maintenance tomorrow/ water change. I actually got a pm from somebody last week that salt could cause the flashing.
But wolfman saws it helped his.
tcav88
Said the prazi may stimulate hunger. Maybe thats why he ate Saturday.

Should I tone down the salt? Tone down VitaChem?(used recently after the general cure but have not really used otherwise for a while).
Remove the carbon?
Treat again?

FYI, I am inclined to not do a medicine treatment immediately but will weigh advice.