HELP ME I NEED EXPERT HELP BACTERIAL INFESTATION

[calgaryflames]

perhaps it will work, there are no guarantees.
melfix and pimafix are a waste of time and money, as said earlier in this thread.
MASSIVE water changes are also very important. Columnaris ( there are 2 distinct types) is usually a result of horrible water conditions and lack of quarantine.
I don't understand why anyone would risk "$20,000" worth of rays by just throwing in fish like that, but lessons learned the hard way usually stick.

i didnt just throw fish in with my $20,000 worth of rays.i have many tanks in my home and the ill fish were contained and in seperate tank.i suspect cross contamination occured but a couple sevrums did develope this fungal looking whit stuff and swollen looking around nose and gills.I am at the point i dont think the rays are infected at all and the henlei i found upside down was a complete unrealated event.when you have many different tanks with many different rays anything can happen.

i am going to treat the almost dead henlei with some antibacterial meds and same with the infected fish i still have in seperate tank.i juts dont know whats ray safe,i am leaning towards
kanaplex because their are no noticeable signs of any problem with the rays maybe just internal bacterial infection.all the other rays still eat no need to weaken them with any hard meds unless i have too.The cichlids that melted down i have no explanation for at this point.the infected fish i brought home 3 weeks before are all gone but who knows maybe i cultured bacteria in my home some how and it slowly made its way via my stupid mistakes of using the same net and syphon

 

[calgaryflames]

oh im sure this is a lesson that will stick. we can burn him later but right now lets stick to getting out of this with as little fatalities as possible.

now also what about lupins thoughts. could it be parasites? if you have a microscope you might want to check that out. also check it out on your dead ray and other fish that have died. we can tell you what meds work for what but we need to find the main problem first.

david also what is the difference between the two types and what signs should he be looking for to tell them apart?

parasites on the rays not a chance the rays are ok parasites dont overtake the cichlids just like that unless they weakend them and a bacterial infection overtaken them overtime.I just hope the bacteria that over taken my fish is not a crazy one that can wipe out my rays and more fish.we will see all the rays eat minus the one henlei that was upside down she is still alive with white pale coloring starting to occur.

any suggestions on what to treat her with,i wrote her off already but i have seen rays in worse shape pull through.better yet i will post a video later of her for everybody too see

 

[jeffers]

hmm well now we will need more info on your ray tank since its two totally seperate things. binox is ray safe and treats bacterial and fungus. but this could be something else.

we were all thinking that you had them all in the same system and what was affecting the cichlids was also going to the rays.

 

[DavidW]

ill fish were contained and in seperate tank.i suspect cross contamination occured

sorry if I misunderstood.
yes, cross-contamination happens easily, just one drop from one tank to another is more than enough. I also understand your feelings with what you are going through, having lost hatcheries full of Discus to the so-called plague ( which turned out to be citrobacter freundii when it was analysed) .
Introducing new fish is always fraught with risk. Eventually I figured out I had to set up a whole other isolated fish room for new arrivals just to be sure, and treat prophylactically. Ultimately I only brought in wilds, they never seemed to get the same degree of problem ( probably having much stronger immune systems)
My fingers are crossed for you.
In the meantime you cannot go wrong doing massive water changes.

 

[calgaryflames]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eFfjQg6PSM
here is a link to the video i just made of her,their are clear tube like poop hanging out now definatley not good and not parasites not a chance

 

[skynoch]

I'm thinking the same way you are Matt in these 2 problems were unrelated. I also remember you were saying Calgary was having some problems with there tap water. I'm wondering if this was the initial cause of your problems and the intoduction of meds, salt, water temp change, and all the other activity didn't stress this ray out more than your others. I think for now your best to just do some large waterchanges with water pretreated outside your tank and try covering your tank to see if you can relax them until you can properly see what is happening in the ray tank. I'm as guilty as anyone of overreacting to something which is more than likely a water or filter problem caused by me and wanting to go straight to the miracle cures which end up causing the final death blow, but you will find like david said clean water is the best medicine for now. I also would not move the ray out of your tank as that would probably kill it and if she has anything your other rays will allready have it and the whole tank will need to be treated anyways. When I looked at the video it looks like the pearl is reacting to the meds or salt introduced into the system.
It's going to be hard to do but go back to the basics with the test kits, lots of waterchanges and some patience. I'll give you a call later when I'm off work.

 

[DavidW]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eFfjQg6PSM
here is a link to the video i just made of her,their are clear tube like poop hanging out now definatley not good and not parasites not a chance

Hexamita can cause white stringy poop with small 'lumps' in it, the eggs of the parasite, do you have access to a 'scope? On the other hand fish sometimes shed parts of their intestinal lining as a normal thing.....

When a fish is stressed parasites are able to gain, so it could be a secondary thing, but this is not certain. Parasites won't be the cause of the crash, just an opportunist taking advantage of a weakened fish.
Binox contains metronidazole I think ? and is pretty benign, and apparently treats what you think may be the cause of the bacterial problem also.
The water issue as mentioned above could also be a cause. Diagnosis is , as you see, very tricky, mostly guess work.
change water as much as you can as often as you can, perhaps drop the water level to 50% making it easier to change a bigger %, as well as having less water to treat of you do decide to go ahead with something. Run the new water over carbon and age it before using it.
hth

 

[calgaryflames]

i think when it comes down to it nobody in the world is even close to a expert on dosing freshwater rays with meds.

i have seen this clear poop before when i had a ph crash actualy in two of my tanks it happened.i think alot of the time like 99% clear poop means stress.i used to think parasites and freak out but skynoch gave me the best advice ever on that subject.and parasites will rarely win against a ray.

i am on to another lead my wife picked up the ray food last week and didnt realized the smelts were freezer burnt and looked like the freezer broke down.maybe a bad food issue does anybody know anything about issues with bad food.the worst thing about this story is that my stupid ass went and fed it to them.my larger rays wouldnt eat them but is suspect that some did get eatin by that henlei.

the cichlids that melted down are being treated with maracyn right now.i tried prazi on one of them and it died right away with in 3 hours.

now since all of my drastic water cahnges and cleanings the tanks have ammonia readings.larger ray tank is at 1ppm pup tank .5ppm.this could get bad.i added zeolite and 50% water changes on both tanks.

 

[skynoch]

I know binox contains nitrofurazone but not sure about metro. I would maybe stay away from the zeolite and use some prime instead as the zeolite will absorb the ammonia while the prime will convert it to a safe form which I think can still be used by your bacteria. Someone please correct me here if I'm wrong.

 

[DavidW]

The best philosophy imo is to remove things, not add. Prime etc convert ammonia to ammonium, but you are still adding a chemical (Principal Ingredients: Bisulfites and hydrosulfites, aqueous solution, buffered at pH 8, with ameliorating ingredients. Reducing agents.)
If you have an ammonia reading then I guess you over-cleaned the filtration. It should catch up soon, but in the meantime, change water until you have a zero reading.
The reason I was able to successfully breed discus and then rays was because i changed water obsessively. sometimes 50% twice per day. By doing this you also dilute bacterial problems and remove other unseen organics.