Scratching and Twitching

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PeacockKeeper

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jun 23, 2008
84
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Sacramento
Posted this in the Cichla forum but did not get much input...

My four Azuls (6-7") and one Orino (6-7") is scratching themselves on the gravels and are twitching while posted in the middle of the tank.

They were fine before Sept. 11th. I did a 55-60% WC on that day and cleaned out one of the Fluval 404. I have two of the 404 and a filter sponge on a 125 gal tank. I cleaned one of the 404 with clean water since the other will not get cleaned and figured the other has been establish long enough and the BB will be fine besides the filter sponge is not cleaned. Add my stress coat and filled it up...

Sept. 14th, came home to find that they are scratching themselves on the gravels and at times would twitch like crazy.

I did a 40-45% WC and added salt.

I see that the upper portion of their eyes are turning white (not the eye itself but above the eye). I think that's a sign of pop eye as I have seen it on my other orino before he got pop eye and died. I dose the tank with melafix.

Sept. 15th, I checked my water parameters and the results are:
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 40 or 80ppm (can't tell the difference between them two)
pH: 7.6

What is going on? Help????
 
id say its ich with the twiching and scratching
but i am confused about the eyes ...usually a foggy eye is a problem with the diet and watter perameters as do most fish problems but if you have good water then i might take a look at the food i am feeding and how much i am feeding....
please tell me you are not feeding feeder to them as that would most likley be the cause of the sickness and the foggy eyes
however i do not claim to be a pro and have only had cichlids for about 4 years so if this is no help or a point in the right direction i atleast gave your thread a bump and gave some insight
have a great night and i realy hope that your fish get better because i hate to hear about a loss from a fellow member
 
I've been feeding them market shrimp for the past year every other day and never had any problems....and I did forget to mention that just this past week, I bought a bag of pellets (cichlid gold) to try to convert them over to pellets. I've been stuffing the cut up shrimp and feeding it to them. Whatever pellets that they spit out, I netted it out. So I don't have to worry about excess pellets messing up the water parameter. Thanks for the input. They been fine on shrimp until I started stuffing it with pellets....I guess change is not good this time.
 
with doing such a large water change did you allow the water you put into the tank to come close to the existing temp of the tank itself. if not the sudden shock of new water with a totally different temp may have caused some stress on the fish, which is a leading cause of ich. and ich is what it sounds like your fish are suffering from with the scratching and twitching, although i dont know what the cloudy eyes might be from.
 
The amount of the WC is perfect....If I had to take a guess your Nitrates are pretty high I like to keep them 20ppm or less you may want to up filtration...

But the real cuplrit, did you pre-mix the salt before adding it to the tank they may have gotten burned by it or it might not have fully dissolved check your salinity make sure it isn't high.
 
Could be gill flukes or fish lice.

Can you see anything parasitic attached to their fins or belly?

I introduced a wild caught fish to my tank and a few weeks later I found fish lice attached to the others, dosed the tank with paracide meds and it cleared them up and they stopped twitching and scatching.
 
jcon;4476828; said:
Could be gill flukes or fish lice.

Can you see anything parasitic attached to their fins or belly?

I introduced a wild caught fish to my tank and a few weeks later I found fish lice attached to the others, dosed the tank with paracide meds and it cleared them up and they stopped twitching and scatching.
Click to expand...

I have been monitoring these guys and do not see anything unusual attached to their bodies.

Darth Scohin;4476791; said:
The amount of the WC is perfect....If I had to take a guess your Nitrates are pretty high I like to keep them 20ppm or less you may want to up filtration...

But the real cuplrit, did you pre-mix the salt before adding it to the tank they may have gotten burned by it or it might not have fully dissolved check your salinity make sure it isn't high.
Click to expand...


I did pre-mix the salt in a cup prior to pouring it by the outputs and around the tank. Got some tank water, poured the right amount of salt into it, then used a plastic fork to swirl the salt making sure all is dissolved before pouring it into the tank.

fishmanbob87;4476645; said:
with doing such a large water change did you allow the water you put into the tank to come close to the existing temp of the tank itself. if not the sudden shock of new water with a totally different temp may have caused some stress on the fish, which is a leading cause of ich. and ich is what it sounds like your fish are suffering from with the scratching and twitching, although i dont know what the cloudy eyes might be from.
Click to expand...

I've been doing about the same percentages of WC each week and have not had any problems. Since I had these guys, water came straight from the faucet during water changes and it has been fine.
 
Keep in mind if it is gill flukes, you will not be able to see them. The visable parasites are the lice.
 
PeacockKeeper;4476871; said:
I've been doing about the same percentages of WC each week and have not had any problems. Since I had these guys, water came straight from the faucet during water changes and it has been fine.
Click to expand...

Did you dose with Prime? or did you local municipal add chloramine in the water? this could be the problem contact your water treatment for your area check if they added Chloramine into the water
 
Here's the scenerio now...one of azuls have been scratching himself on the gravel that he is all pale now. His vertical bars are gone. From researching, I'm going to go get some Prazi-Pro or Parasite Clear to dose the tank.

I performed a 20% WC last night and added Stress Coat as usual but it doesn't seem to have done any better for the fishes.

I'm at a point where I'm bout to give up and just euthanize them and call it quits.
 
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