Urgent help needed!

[Sabre_Tooth]

Help!

There are alot of problems going on in my arowana tank! There are thousands of planaria worms and the sand in the tank is sticking to my oscar. The oscar is on the bottom on his side sorta and covered in sand. It is really really fine sand too. What should I do?

 

[Miguel]

planaria are the result of oerfeeding and poor water changes. The oscar is overproducing slime coat and that is why the sand is adhering to it..

Take it out to a hospital tank. do a vacuum of the aro tank and change water.

 

[Sabre_Tooth]

Ok, I dont know how I can vacumm the sand though. Its a big aro, prob 30". Sould I do a 100" water change?

 

[Sabre_Tooth]

Are there any bottom feeders I can put in there that will be fine with a 6" fh, a 18 or so inch rt giant gourami, 2 talking cats, oscar, and the aro?

 

[Nick660]

Don't add any more fish until you sort out your current problems!

Water changes - how often and how much?
Water tests - ammonia, nitrIte?

Best to do moderate (maybe 25%) daily water changes rather than one big one especially if you haven't been changing your water regularly.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Planeria infestations most commonly come about from over-feeding teh fish and/or not cleaning the tank regularly enough, these worms thrive off left over food in fish tanks.

Do the worms stuck to your oscar look anything like these ones;

http://www.watergarden.com/store/product/firshtreatment/AnchorWorm.jpg

? Can you describe their appearance plus are any coming out of the fishes anus plus what does the fishes poop look like (white/stringy looking at all etc)?

 

[Sabre_Tooth]

No, they are planaria worms, not anchor worms. I managed to get rif of the planaria worms, but the oscar is acting weird. I have him in a 5g bucket right now. He is laying on his side on the bottom of the tank. He cant get up and when i try to help, he just flips over. He also has a fin rot like problem. His pelvic, pectoral, and caudal fins are falling off and there are small white pits on his body, mainly under the pelvic fins. He wont eat either. what should I do?

 

[Sabre_Tooth]

The trimac is also acting weird. He is swimming head down (like a headstander characin) and there a few califlower-like patches. very small patches though.

 

[fishdance]

Sounds like you medicated your tank to get rid of your harmless and beneficial planaria worms and you killed biological filtrtion so now you have secondary infections from poor water conditions created by lack of bio-filtration. Its pretty hard to guess though since you arent providing much information or photos.

I would treat the fish for the symptoms shown in a seperate hospital tank or if you dont have a hospital tank, I would remove and run your filter on its own in a bucket (keeping bio filte alive). If you have in fact killed the bacteria, do a search for new tank syndrome.

 

[Wolf3101]

I have yet to see any water perams posted and that worries me. Everything points to VERY poor water conditions and testing is the only way to identify the problem and know when or if it's corrected itself.