Now Whisper is sick too

This morning she wouldn't come up for food. I couldn't even find her and worried she may have jumped out of the tank. I finally found her hiding deep inside her cave. She came out and had her tail all clamped up and just layed on the bottom of the tank. Her eyes looked so sick. I don't know what she has but probably an internal bacterial infection. She's not constipated because I've been giving them all peas every second day and I only feed one pellet at a time. Karma who lives in the same tank is still active and eating but her color is very pale and she has stress stripes. She may be coming down with something too. I decided to just treat them both with Maracyn-Two. Hopefully it's nothing serious and they feel better soon. I just can't handle any more fish with swim bladder problems.

 

Good Morning, Phlox....it saddens me to hear Whisper is not well. These little guys certainly can break our hearts as easily as they can make us love them. Neptune & I send our good thoughts and best wishes to you and know that you will do everything possible to see them healthy again. If love & support from people on this forum can help...and I believe it does, they will both be back to them silly selves in no time. Val & Neptune

 

I'm sorry to hear the girls are feeling bad. Maracyn-2 sounds right for treating them. Whisper's clamped fin would indicate an external parasite or bacterial infection and with Karma being stressed, that sounds like confirmation. It really doesn't sound like anything swim bladder related and now that you're treating them, they'll be happy girls again soon.

 

You have certainly had your share of trouble with your little ones lately.  Could there be something in your tap water that is making them sick?  I know we test for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates regularly but there are a lot more bad things in water sometimes.  The thing is some things only show up at certain times of the year and the way I determined this was to fill my tanks with bottled spring water from the store (I know just one more expense) after Noel died and my fish all perked up and the sickness in my tanks all went away and so I basically used my grocery budget (or a lot of it) buying spring water during the bad season and will probably have to do it again this year.

Just a suggestion.  If you were not having so much trouble in multiple tanks, I probably would not even give this a thought.

I really hope all goes well with your little ones, I know how much you love them.

Rose

 

I have a Brita water filter attached to the faucet and I only use filtered water for their tanks. I condition the water with NovAqua+
I do have very high PH but they've been living in this the whole time so I think they are used to it. I treated that tank for parasites a couple weeks ago because Whipser has a small lump on her chin and I thought it may be fish lice or something. The lump never went away so it must be something else. Hopefully not cancer or anything. It hasn't gotten any bigger but hopefully she doesn't have tumors internally. If it's just an internal bacterial infection she should get better within 2-3 days. If she doesn't I'll be more worried.

Update: I just examined her from above with a magnifying glass and her gills are VERY swollen and red. She has gill disease. No wonder she doesn't want to eat. It hurts too much. It's not parasites because she is not scratching and flashing like Lava was. She was fine and ate last night and had some pea so hopefully I caught this early. This is exactly what Karma had, twice, and I managed to cure her both times. I'm treating both of them to make sure Karma doesn't get it again. I checked all water parameters to make sure there is no ammonia or nitrites that could be burning her gills and all parameters are fine. Poor little Whisper is just floating at the top and every few seconds a little bubble comes out of her gill. She seems to be in pain.  :'(  I hope the Maracyn works quickly so she can be her happy carefree self again.

 

I'm sorry to hear about whisper. Hopefully she'll get better fast. If you cured Karma of it I'm sure you can cure Whisper of it. Natalie