Silver Dollar Sick

[scorzellim]

Hi All,

I am new to the forum... I am looking for some help with a sick silver dollar. I just had one die on me the other day and another one is showing similar symptoms; I know he will die soon if nothing is done. The fish has a sore that has started as what looked like a small cut on his nose but appears to have grown into a sore on its whole face. The fish that died had a cloudy face / eye when it died, which this one is starting to get.

As background information, these fish were in a quarantine tank for the last 1-2 months and had no signs of disease. They were moved into my primary tank about a week ago. The other fish in my tank (SA cichlids) are showing no signs of disease. The tank is a 75 gallon and the current stocking is 10" Oscar, 4" Green Terror, 3" Firemouth, 5" Severum, (3) 3" Silver Dollar. Water parameters are 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 40-80 Nitrate (High). The quarantine tank also had high nitrate levels so I don't think that there was much of a change moving between tanks. I am working on getting those down.

After the first fish died 2 days ago, I did 2 water changes (about 30%) each, added a UV Sterilizer (small greenkilling machine (not sure it will help much, but I figured why not)), and I added 6 packets of API General Cure. Since then it seemed like at least the fish wasn't getting worse until this morning when I saw the silver dollar had a partially cloudy eye, a sign that the other one had just a few hours before he died.

If any of you are able to help me diagnose the problem and come up with a solution I would really appreciate it! It may be too late for the one, but hopefully I can atleast stop it from spreading to the other two.

Attached is a picture taken last night.

 

[tlindsey]

Welcome to MFK

kno4te

 

[kno4te]

Unfortunately elevated nitrite and nitrate levels is the likely cause for the eye problems. The mouth looks like mouth rot/ulcer from poor water quality with bacterial infection.

Would suggest moving the silver dollar to another tank and add some triple sulfa. The water needs to be checked daily for quality.

Ur main SA tank needs to have the filtration assessed if not done so already.

 

[bothdays]

aww man, wish i could help

 

[scorzellim]

Thanks for the info. I think you may be right with the mouth rot. I am going to continue to treat the tank with an antibacteria and hopefully that helps. I don't want to move him out of this tank and back into the quarantine as I'm worried he will just end up getting the fish in the quarantine tank sick and I don't have a third tank I can set up. For now the plan is to medicate my primary tank and hope it resolves. It doesn't seem to be affecting the cichlids and in all likelyhood, the bacteria was probably in my primary tank all along.

I don't think water quality is the issue. Nitrites are 0 and while the Nitrates are high and could be a secondary issue, that could cause long term health problems and make them more susceptible, but it wouldn't be the primary cause. Filtration is fine... I run an FX5 which is plenty for a 75 gallon and my ammonia and nitrites are 0, which tells me I have adequate biological filtration. I do 30% water changes once a week, but obviously based on my nitrates I should be doing larger and / or more water changes. I'm working on putting an algae scrubber in my tank to help control nitrates, which will hopefully go in the tank in a couple of weeks.

 

[kno4te]

Sorry. Didn’t see the comma lol. Though the nitrites were 40-80 and nitrates were high.

Yea likely due to water quality issue with nitrates being elevated.

Be careful with meds to the main tank as it’ll kill ur beneficial bacteria in the media. It’ll crash ur filtration. Just a FYI.

Likely need 50% wc’s twice a week. Algae scrubber would definitely help.

 

[scorzellim]

I hadn't considered what it might do to my good bacteria.... I'll have to put some thought into how I want to handle this.. Thanks for the heads up

 

[scorzellim]

Unfortunately the Silver Dollar in the picture died before I got home from work last week and another one got sick. I have been treating the tank with API Pimafix daily and it seems to be slowly getting better. I have had no spikes in ammonia or nitrites, which is good