URGENT: What's wrong with our lsn?

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danelover79

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Nov 4, 2013
82
0
0
Statesville, NC
Came home tonight to find him floating near the top, gasping and has red gills. Had been acting a little off, not eating and not as active for a few days but this severity was a little sudden. Still alive now but barely.

Have had him 8-9 months. He's about 9" and in a 150 gallon with a 7-8" tsn and five turtles (two are 3", two are 4" and one is 6"). Filtration is a Rena XP3 and XP4. Tank temp stays around 76-77. Ph 7.4, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5.

My first thought was an ammonia spike but that's fine. Second thought is low oxygen (we have air stones on each end but they were starting to get clogged with sand so not putting out as much air).

Any ideas? Anything we can do to save him? :( this is the best pic I could get.


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Little more info...we tested the tank three or four days ago and all was the same as above (which is from tonight's testing). We did just realize that it's been about four months since we've done a good cleaning on the filters...usually try to do them every month or two so not sure what the mix up was there. So, maybe an ammonia spike is a possibility...but why would it test zero every single time we do a test? It's not the test itself as we recently tested another tank we're just starting up and it did test high. Would an ammonia spike go down that quickly?? And would it take a few days to affect the fish to the point that it died (again, hasn't been himself for several days now) or is it sudden? Oh, and we do have a uv sterilizer on the tank as well...not sure if that makes a difference but forgot to mention it above.


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To me, this resembles hemorrhagic septicemia - usually the last step of a series or unfortunate events and ailments. It is the infection of blood and is mostly deadly. Caught in time, there is a roughly 50-50 chance but it is not easy. Erythromycin (phosphate or base dihydrate) could be tried (they will wipe out your filter too). I didn't like that you stated in your 1st thread that LSN's behavior changed when the TSN was introduced - you said he became a picky eater. My guess, it has something to do with it. Perhaps a bacterial infection was introduced.
 
His behavior was changing shortly before the tsn was added...but not enough then that we thought something was wrong (until now) otherwise we wouldn't have added the tsn. Pretty sure the lsn isn't going to make it. We pulled him out and put him in a separate tank. Should we be worried about the tsn if that's the case? Anything we can do to prevent it? So far the tsn seems fine, just hides during the day (which we're told they do until they get bigger). Swims around at night and eats like a pig.


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