I'll try to keep this as short as possible while also providing as many details as I can so you can make an educated decision. About 3-4 weeks ago I purchased a small 2" Salvini from a lfs, and upon putting him into my quarantine tank noticed that he had some obvious trauma to the right side of his face and eye. The eye was clouded over and the whole area of his face below the eye was a darker color and looked almost like he had stayed pinned against a heater and got burned. I figured it was trauma that occured while the kid was trying to catch him in the fish tank at the store. after about a week the injury appeared to be getting better, the eye had started to clear up but he still wasn't eating much and hid all day long. After a whole week of not seeing him I decided to take out the rock cave I built just so I could better monitor him, and replaced it with a small ceramic pot so he would still have some security. When I removed the rocks and finally saw him for the first time in a while I realized that now both of his eyes were extremely bulged and I immediately tested the water. My ammonia reading was 1.0 so I did a huge water change to try and dilute it for him a bit. This is a new 29 gal tank setup and apparently the stuipd HOB filter that came with this "deluxe starter kit" is not worth a damn, so I ordered an Eheim Pro II 2026 which should be arriving today. Since I tested the water I have stopped feeding and have been doing massive water changes twice a day, adding epsom salt and melafix to treat the pop-eye but he has not improved in 3 days now. For the past day and a half he has just been laying on the bottom on his side with very little gill movement, and when he does attempt to swim he looks more like a shrimp than a fish. I want to think that he'll be able to pull through but I'm worried about permanent damage to his vision and gills. Should I just leave him be and see if he makes it with the water changes and new filter going in later today? The weird thing is I have a small 1.5" EBJD in the same tank with him who has had absolutely not visible problems whatsoever. I have been able to maintain the ammonia levels below .25ppm with the water changes, but I'm probably going to need to get that filter up and running and somewhat established before it is completely taken care of. any thoughts? thanks in advance.
Is it time to euthanize?
- Thread starter jbarbaresi
- Start date
ur guna need to cycle that filter before it goes in the tank otherwise he will def be dead. tbh im not good with cichlids. im not sure what it sounds like either.
i really hope he gets better for u soon.
x
i really hope he gets better for u soon.
x
How new is this tank? You didn't cycle the tank before hand? Got another tank you could take some gravel, media, or spare seasoned filter you could throw on that tank?
If it's only been three days you still got some time to save it.
If it's only been three days you still got some time to save it.
the tanks been up for about a month now. no i didn't precycle it cause i've never had a problem cycling with fish in until now. i've also never used a hob filter before either, there's literally almost no biological media in that POS. i have two established fluval 405's on my 90 gal tank but am worried about upsetting or ruining that tank if i remove one. i guess my best bet is to put some of the ceramic rings from the fluval into the eheim that's arriving today and speed cycle it that way. the sand in the 29g is from the established 90g but i don't think sand is a good way to establish bb in comparison to gravel. ugh, i feel so bad now i knew i shouldn't have trusted that dainty little hob filter. at least the eheim will be here today. so you think i should still give him some more time to recover? i just don't want him to suffer if there's no chance of recovering.
Give him a chance you're doing good so far. Keep up with the waterchanges, salt additions, maybe even raise the temp into the mid 80's. But adding maybe a handful of media from a 405 ought to help loads. If anything extra add new media to the 405 should see no difference. 2 405's on a 90 is awesome btw heh
ProblEmZ;3238179; said:
thanks. i hope he makes it he's one of the most yellow salvini's i've seen at this size, absolutely beautiful. my 90g is housing a 7" and 5" oscar at the moment so the overkill on filtration is a must. i'm waiting on my 150g to get here and i've already got two new ehiem pro II 2028's waiting on it, i'm a big fan of overfiltration. i really didn't think a 2" salvini and 1.5" ebjd would create such an issue in a 29gal or i would have upgraded the filter in that tank as soon as i got it.
Keep up those twice daily water changes. He's trying to heal plus going through a cycle at the same time. It's going to be tough on him. It's not because of the HOB that came with the tank, it's because that HOB wasn't cycled. A bigger filter isn't going to get the tank cycled any faster. Get a sponge from a buddy's tank, something-anything. Pop-eye is a symptom (usually of bad water quality) not a disease in itself. It take 7-14 days to start clearing up. If you can keep up twice daily water changes (since the tank is in the middle of cycling) the fish has every chance in the world to make it.
Just add sand from your other tank as suggested. That is the best thing you can do at this point. You really have no other options. Maybe add some decorations from other tanks as well.
Doing water changes during a cycle is bad IMO, but in this case I see how it's needed. But you need to seed the tank.
Doing water changes during a cycle is bad IMO, but in this case I see how it's needed. But you need to seed the tank.
i went home and put my cycled fluval 405 into the tank at full capacity. i would think it will clear up the ammonia within a couple of hours seeing as how its only a 29gal. i'll put the eheim 2026 into my 90gal and get that established before swithing the filters back. hopefully this helps. i'm also going to stop on the melafix treatments since i don't want to wipe out my 405 bacteria colonies. any other suggestions? he looked really bad when i went home, belly up and "shrimping" when he's trying to swim. i don't know if he will make it or not.
any reason the salvini would be so bad and the smaller ebjd is fine? do you think the popeye is from the ammonia or from a bacterial infection from his previous eye injury, or both?
any reason the salvini would be so bad and the smaller ebjd is fine? do you think the popeye is from the ammonia or from a bacterial infection from his previous eye injury, or both?
I think the ammonia could have stressed the fish enough to let the bacteria get in the eye and cause an infection.