RTC help

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OTp1144

OTp1144

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Oct 7, 2013
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Swimmin' with the fishes
I came down this morning and my RTC was belly up in the bottom of my 1300 gallon pond/pool. Still breathing, normal speed but a bit heavy. Water was:

Ammonia maybe 0.25
Nitrite 0
Ph 7.6
Temp 76.7 (a bit cold I know, working on getting it up)

I did an 80% water change, added 1/4 dose of salt, 1/2 dose of Melafix and turned off the lights

I also gave him a 1/2 dose salt bag during the water change for about 20 minutes.

Currently he's sitting in his bucket cave, still belly up, still breathing heavy and slow. Temp is 76.6. I added another heater to help bump it closer to 80.

I'm pretty sure I'm dealing with a contaminant. But not sure what. I removed a kitty litter bucket I was using as a plant bucket and turned off the filter that came with the pool. I'm hoping it was one of those.

During the salt bath I checked his gills and noticed some black streaks going along them. Not sure if that's new, related, or not. I also inspected his stomach as that's what was floating to the surface most, like there was an air bubble. I felt around and nothing seemed off. He was a bit bloated and I pushed on it to make sure there was no air. This caused him to vomit up some of last night's dinner, but nothing else. Food was clean and there was no bile or blood with it.

Please, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Lower the pool water level and keep him upright. Try with decor/wood. Keep home near some flow to get oxygen and clean water to it. Add some metronidazole and some maracyn2. Keep the salt and forget the melafix. Cross ur fingers. Keep lights dim. Possibly move to a qt tank.

Don't see ur nitrate level. Watch ur water parameters with abx. BActeria will be killed off.

My suggestion.
 
Hey bro! Sorry to hear. Sorry too I was away from my PC yesterday.

I think you may be correct in thinking of a possible contamination / poisoning. You know as well as I do that whatever you place in contact with fish tank water must be fish friendly and must not make water non-potable.

While some materials / equipment like that pool filter, pump, pipes, furniture, buckets, etc. may be made of inert and benign plastic or what not, they may contain harmful things on their surface, like machining lubricants / oils from manufacturing, detergents, conditioners, sprays, industrial dust, dust from shipping / sitting on a shelf that could be of any origin, heavy metals like shavings and tiny flakes, etc. which are ok for a swimming pool but not for drinking water or fish tank water.

Sounds like you jumped the gun (I've done so many times and too paid for it) and didn't test the new setup with dispensable fish like feeders etc. or hadn't tested it for a long enough time.

Since the RTC fed, the contamination was either milder in the beginning or it had a delayed effect.

Are the black streaks on gills black slime or just color right on the rakers?

Could the RTC get poisoned by eating any of the plants? Just a thought.

Could the soil in your planters contain fertilizer? Pesticides? Herbicides?

Reddening of the mouth may also be consistent with poisoning albeit these may be bruises from running into things while swimming incoherently.

Anyhow, have you fish-tested the new setup? And if so, for how long? I think a month or two are usually recommended.

HTH.

PS To improve the survival chances, I'd place the RTC in a different, proven tank / your old 300 gal trough and direct a strong water flow into its mouth or stick a hose in the mouth or wedge him with his mouth right in front of a strong powerhead. This will provide the artificial respiration and the washing out of any possible poison in its blood.

To get rid of the possible poison in the gut, I'd administer Epsom salt laxative via bath or maybe even forcefully via a syringe and a soft tube through mouth into stomach.
 
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Epsom salts. Whether its serious bloat or a contaminant I'd make this fish crap its pants for at least a day or two to try and remove the toxins/possible blockage.
 
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The black streaks aren't slime, it's the actual filament that turned black. But it's random single ones spread out.

The plants are taro, umbrella palm and water sprite. Definitely nothing poisonous there

Substrate is black diamond sand and generic multipurpose sand. Both inert and harmless. I use them in other tanks/ponds with no problem.

I found out my wife checked on him at 815 and he was fine. I checked on him 5 hours later and he was belly up. She didn't idle in the garage or do anything that might have harmed him in any way.

We're kind of at a loss as to what caused this.

Slightly good news is he's still alive. He looked like a goner last night but he's still breathing and kicking more than he was last night.

Somehow I totally forgot I had the trough....I don't know how. But I'll bring that back inside and get it setup for him as a qt. Basically just his old setup

Does anyone have a link to doing Epsom salt baths?

I appreciate all the help guys. I'm hopeful now that he's made it through the night
 
So I've got his old pond setup, lower water level. I'm warming an Epsom salt bath to 80, then I'll heat the pond to the same.

I put his cave in the pond to use as a wedge between it and the wall to keep him up right, or as much as possible. I'll probably grab a plastic planter too. I just don't want to use anything sharp and hurt him.

I've been watching him while waiting for the water to heat up and he's been trying to right himself. Not with a very strong effort, but it's definitely a good sign.

IMAG5247.jpg 1481745175779-637615121.jpg

Ps when I moved him to the bath, he grunted hard the entire way and his strength is nearly 10 fold what it was last night.
 
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Try 1tbsp per gallon of Epsom salt as a bath. 15-20 min then back to the original tank.
 
kno4te said:
Try 1tbsp per gallon of Epsom salt as a bath. 15-20 min then back to the original tank.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I found and did. Thanks for the reply though, glad I did it right. :)

It didn't cause him to poop, but tomorrow/tonight is another try. Should I limit the baths to one a day?
 
Daily should be fine. Did you get any abx?
 
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