Liosamadora Oncinus - Urgent advice required

[Marc van Arc]

Ime most auchenipterids are not fond of huge water changes; I lost quite a few fishes that way, among which my Tetranematichthys.
Although the Groke is a nice bloke, I'd stick with Wrasse this time. Too much advice will only increase your confusion, which is one thing to avoid.

[redfan, posts: 169]

Exactly my point Marc lol

Well I have done a 25% water change this evening while the lights were still on (just to lower the nitrates a little) and one of the Jaguars appeared from his cave .. went a bit nuts, bumped himself into a piece of wood, now he has a little white lump on his head .. oh dear!

Tomorrow I will do a small 5% water change and add the salt to the fresh water and add over the day. Will also increase the temp up to around 30C.

How long should I do this for? Oh final query here am I ok to leave the carbon in the tank and should I feed while doing this (jags and or other fish)?

Have found a new home for the LDA33 so he will be leaving the tank tomorrow to go into a fellow local Aquarist society member QT tank.
Cheers guys

[wrasse, posts: 729]

Redfan,
can I suggest you read again the replies you have had... the answers to your questions have been given already. Temp up, air up, carbon out, spot treatment in, salt in, dim lights.
When you add salt, just dissolve it in a jug of water and pour it in, simplez.

With regards to Grokefish's advice... have you checked the nitrates??? If they are high then he's right it is an issue.

[wrasse, posts: 729]

Also... I have to say, what are you doing selling a fish from an infected tank? Tell your mate to wait a week or two.

[redfan, posts: 169]

Wrasse - Yeah your right the answers were there ... However confusion set in etc sorry.

I need to just remove the carbon, I have a half bucket with salt ready to go, so will be doing that this evening. Have increased the temp and added an additional air stone.

As for selling the plec, this was done as eventually he needs to be moved on (the person sold to is unavailable for next few weeks). This was an ideal opportunity and the plec seems very much healthy. The person he is going to will QT him for several weeks, so I do not see why that is such an issue.

I wont be adding the Ich treatment again as the salt should take care of that if it exists in the tank. Re the Nitrates, I did post the results of those last night.

Many thanks for the advice, it's really appreciated and I will update as it goes on.

Cheers

[grokefish, posts: 1531]

Wrasse knows his stuff so I could defer to his experience however personally I wouldnt add salt or any other meds, just clean the water right up.
Woodcats are pretty hard and with clean water they ususally sort themselves out.
This is just what I would do if it were MY fish, you must make the decision yourself.
Which ever you do will end in the same result probably.
Either:
A Dead fish
A cured fish

If your fish is going to die its gonna happen whatever you do.
I personally think that meds do nothing in particular other than add another stress and that fish get better in spite of them rather than because of them.

That is my opinion.

[redfan, posts: 169]

Grokefish thanks for you reply

I just need to figure out when to start diluting the salt out of the tank and to put the temp back down.

Had it running at 30C and with salt 2 days now .. no improvement at all really, so will try and give it the week I think wrasse mentioned.

Anyhow, many thanks

[Viktor Jarikov, posts: 2273]

If the following further muddles up the waters, then, Redfan, just forget/disregard it...

When treating ich with salt, it usually takes at least a week at about 2 (or 1-3) teaspoons (5 gram each; or ~3 US lbs per 100 US gal) per US gallon and when the visible parasites disappear, another week is recommended on top. Non-iodized salt is needed. Better without anti-caking agents (calcium salts, chalk that murky up water).

But, I am not sure what we are treating with salt here. Plecos had the velvet. You seemed to have killed the velvet. But as a result your jags are doing not so hot. Are you and Wrasse going on a supposition that jags got velvet too? But that would be visible. I don't get it.

If yes, then it is more understandable. If not, then Groke may be right.

Groke has got a lot of experience, yet he clearly would be in a small minority with wide sweeping statements defying any and all meds and that "if fish's gonna die, it's gonna die". Take it as he said: his opinion. If conflicted, I (personally!) would rely on Marc's advice. After all he is Mister Woodcat for a good reason (or at least I call him that )

Nitrates are not what I'd call high. Rather normal. Best to keep at 10 ppm and under but 20 ppm cannot be the cause IMHO&E.

[racoll, posts: 4473]

But, I am not sure what we are treating with salt here

I would maybe second that. The jags could just be reacting badly to a combination of the meds and the swinging temp/salt content of the water.

I guess without observing them it is hard to say. Both ich and velvet do have a habit of not going away if you don't kill them off completely.

[rmiller, posts: 9]

Ok Mark, this is totally a long shot and I have no idea how likely this is so let's not read too much into this until we get more info.

What is the likely hood of fish tuberculosis? 2 with sunken stomachs, one with a lumpy stomach. It tends to thrive at 30C. Is there any possibility of it being something this serious?

Does anyone else know more about this disease?

[MatsP]

When treating ich with salt, it usually takes at least a week at about 2 (or 1-3) teaspoons (5 gram each; or ~3 US lbs per 100 US gal) per US gallon and when the visible parasites disappear, another week is recommended on top. Non-iodized salt is needed. Better without anti-caking agents (calcium salts, chalk that murky up water).

Sorry to derail this discussion even further:
Iodide enriched salt is 100% safe with fish.

This thread on a Swedish forum discusses Iodine and Anti-caking:
http://www.zoopet.com/forum/showthread. ... ost1559060
Here's a (rough) translation:

The use of iodized salt in aquaria is an old wife's tale, and almost impossible to exterminate.
It relies on the confusion between the element Iodine (highly toxic, at room temperature it is purple crystals) and its ion, Iodide (harmless, added to salt in many countries where the local soil is low in iodine - lack of iodide in the diet causes thyroid problems). The cause for this confusion is probably at least in part caused by salt packaging has "Added Iodine" on the label, where it would be correct to say "Added Iodide".

It would be similar to saying that Chlorine (toxic and corrosive gas) and its ion Chloride (essential compound and one half of the content in table-salt)

In summary, it doesn't matter if the salt has iodide or not in it - if anything, it may actually do some GOOD to have iodide in the salt.

No matter how many times we try to kill this myth, it crops back up again

(And hey, Viktor, I thought you worked in chemistry and would know the difference )

There is a long post two down on ferrycyanide [confusion probably stems from the fact that it's got "cyanide" in its name, which under some circumstances is extremely toxic], which is the most harmful of the ones used as anti-caking agents. I'm just going to go over the summary:
Tabel Salt contains approximately 8 ppm ferrocyanide dry weight. If you add 50g salt to a 100 liter tank, the salt content is 0.5 ppt (0.05%). Lethal dose (LD50) of ferrocyanide is 19 ppm for fish. The amount of ferrocyanide is 0.5 * 0.000008ppt = 4 parts per billion, or roughly a fifth of one thousandth of the lethal dose.

Ferrocyanide does convert to cyanide when exposed to UV light, but unless you mistakenly put UV tubes instead of regular fluorescent tubes in your aquarium, this shouldn't be a problem either. Ferrocyanide also gets broken down to harmless compounds by the beneficial bacteria in the filter.

[I'm not sure, but I think Viktor's suggested salt dose is about 2ppt, or 2g per liter, which is higher than the above example of 50g/100liter (0.5g / liter), but only by four times, and it doesn't substantially alter the numbers above].

--
Mats

[redfan, posts: 169]

Right .. hmmm

This is all getting a bit confusing now lol.

Viktor - I know what your saying here as I am not really sure why I now have salt in the tank. There has been no visible Ich / Velvet for the past week. I cannot help feeling this is little more than the Jaguars having a bad reaction to the (supposedly) safe med I used to treat the tank when I suspected an outbreak. None of this happened until the med went in the tank.

As for where I go from here, see bottom of this post.

Racoll - Indeed as my reply to Viktor I'm at a loss with it all.

rmiller - Not sure it's anything that serious, at least I hope not anyway.

Mats - Very interesting information, but for the purposes of what I am trying to resolve I'm going to have to ignore it, sorry but it's just confusing me more (really not hard anymore lol)

Right then, An interesting question here .. The treatment I used 2 weeks ago now (Esha Exit) which seems to be at the root cause of the issues with the Jaguars has it now been removed from the system? I added carbon to the tank just after day 3 of the treatment which was in place for several days before embarking on this course of action.

It has been out of the tank for 3 days or so now, will the treatment still be going through the system (as the mechanical sponges in filter are still dyed with this product (obviously carbon cannot remove it until after mechanical filtration)?

At this point in time, and without any real visible sign of velvet and or ich on any of the fish (has not been for several days) I am going to start to dilute the salt from the tank (25% wc today) and am going to start bringing the temp down again.

I think there is a lot to be said for the perpetuation of these issues due to changing water parameters every few days (salt & temp). At this point, I have to believe what my gut is telling me, and that is to keep the water at a much more normal 25C and keep it nice and clean. Without any visible sign of illness I cannot see the purpose of treating.

As Grokefish stated they will either live or die .. whilst that did feel a little blasé there is some truth to it. They are not eating, they do not appear visibly sick (other than affects of not eating).

The last day, from what I can see 2 of them actually have flat stomachs and not so sunken. They are still not relishing food, but they must be eating. The other 1 has an extremly sunken belly, and it continues to concern me, but if he will not even hand feed anymore, I do not see what else I can do tbh.

Also, at this stage if I could find someone that could take them, I would be very tempted as I have had enough tbh. But I shall continue as I always do because I do love them so dearly ... I am really trying here.

Many thanks for all the replies, I will update as this goes and am sure I will need advice going forward. Cheers again
Mark

[wrasse, posts: 729]

Mark, you are right to go with your instincts.
The reason why I said repeat the treatment was bcs I felt you didn't give it long enough first time around. In your video, the rapid gill movement of the jags suggested either they were still infected or irritated. Also as they were not eating well added to thinking something was wrong. These symptoms are often followed by visible evidence of the disease and by that point, with woodcats particularly, it's 50/50 whether they will survive.
Temperature, strong oxygenation and salt are 3 good weapons for treating and also your spot treatment apparently did some good, it helped the plec.
It may well be that with a good water change, things will settle and I hope they do for you.
I understand your hesitation to re-treat the tank, but at you need to consider that these diseases can act swiftly and wipe-out the occupants of a tank.

[redfan, posts: 169]

Wrasse, I fully understand your reply and thank you for it

Temperature, strong oxygenation and salt are 3 good weapons for treating and also your spot treatment apparently did some good, it helped the plec.
It may well be that with a good water change, things will settle and I hope they do for you.
I understand your hesitation to re-treat the tank, but at you need to consider that these diseases can act swiftly and wipe-out the occupants of a tank.

I agree that those 3 things are great lines of defence against possible issues .. But tbh the rapid gill movement has remained irrespective of temp and salt. It seems to me something going on, but without any clear visible sign of illness other than the lack of wanting to eat I feel it just as detrimental to up the temp and add the salt.

I did do this 3 days ago and no sign of any improvement so at this stage I see little option than to get the tank to ideal Jaguar conditions and keep the water nice & clean and see what happens tbh.

Will update over the next few days as to how its all going.

Many thanks again

[Marc van Arc]

I did do this 3 days ago and no sign of any improvement so at this stage I see little option than to get the tank to ideal Jaguar conditions and keep the water nice & clean and see what happens tbh.

I think you're doing the right thing. And again, don't get too worried if they won't eat in the beginning. They will, eventually. Same goes for behaviour.

[redfan, posts: 169]

Thanks Marc,

I have done 25% wc today so 25% of salt has been diluted, temp down from 30C to 28C (doing it over 2 days as 30C to 25-26C seems a bit too much).

What I wanted to point out, as can be seen in this video taken tonight that maybe of use to other Jaguar Catfish owners in the future, since adding the salt and raising the temp this particular Jaguar shows what looks like burns along it's middle seam (they appear white marks on video but to naked eye are white/fleshy coloured).

This is new tonight and only since the salt has been added and the temp raised .. on the plus side you may notice this Jaguiar has a fairly normal looking stomach. He was found laying against wood when I started the video, so obviously all not right atm.

Anyway, hope it helps you guys see there current state . many thanks

[Marc van Arc]

What I wanted to point out, as can be seen in this video taken tonight that maybe of use to other Jaguar Catfish owners in the future, since adding the salt and raising the temp this particular Jaguar shows what looks like burns along it's middle seam (they appear white marks on video but to naked eye are white/fleshy coloured).
This is new tonight and only since the salt has been added and the temp raised .. on the plus side you may notice this Jaguiar has a fairly normal looking stomach. He was found laying against wood when I started the video, so obviously all not right atm.

Is there a slight possibility that the white areas are healing wounds - for that's what they look to me. Mind you, I'm sitting pretty far away, so I'm not questioning your judgement.

Also, pls bear in mind that you're not some test person and neither are your fishes. What I want to say is that I've been there too (alas) and mine reacted differently/better to adding salt and raising temperature wrt a resistant Ich strain. I would never recommend any treatment if I hadn't tried it myself. And while at it: although still for sale, I wouldn't use Exit/Esha anymore. These are medicins of the past and have little use nowadays ime.
To give you another example: in the old days we used Halamid (against all kinds of diseases). It still exists, but is now used to sterilize hospital floors.....you definitely don't want to put that in your tank.

[redfan, posts: 169]

An update -

Just to let you guys know, I have now changed (since Friday) 60% of the water, the temp I managed to drop to 24-25C On early hours Sat.

Within an hour of that happening 2 of the Jaguars started doing what they have always done, swim around my hand when food was added Not by any means counting my chickens but they seem to be eating again now. That is all but the 1 I have remained concerned about, he did not even venture out of his hiding spot last night

So as it stands things seem to be getting back to normal except for this 1 Jaguar, Whom I do feel given the state of his stomach on last sight maybe too late for him. I shall persevere with him too and see what happens, but as it stands at least things are improving

Many thanks for all your help. I shall update in a day or two.

Marc - You maybe right, it could be a healing wound as not sure myself, but whatever it is it's getting better. I agree with your comments regarding Esha Exit btw.

Cheers again chaps

[grokefish, posts: 1531]

But, I am not sure what we are treating with salt here

I would maybe second that. The jags could just be reacting badly to a combination of the meds and the swinging temp/salt content of the water.

I guess without observing them it is hard to say. Both ich and velvet do have a habit of not going away if you don't kill them off completely.

This.

Edit: I am very tempted to put 'I told you so' here.

Anyway enough gloating, I personally think you have panicked a bit here. From my experience of keeping /jags and False Jags is that they really hate meds, they are very hardy, they can really stress each other out, they are sensitive to water chemistry change but not temperature change particularly and they hate Nitrates and I mean hate them.
They stop eating completely.
Also in your Vids as I said before I could see thre was nothing particularly wrong with them other than they hadn't eaten for a while.
Keep the water stable and clear from chems (including nitrate) and they will be happy as larry.
I would personally check the amonia/nitrite/nitrate as well because your filter bacteria has probably had a right kicking with all the water spec changes.
Again, my opinion feel free tp poo poo it

[redfan, posts: 169]

Hey Grokefish

I think it has all been due to the changes they have faced recently. you can tell me "told you so" lots, I don't mind

Am observing the water quality every other day atm, I have moved them into the 30G on their own which also seems to have helped! I intend to keep them in there for 2 - 3 months then move them to a new 5ft tank. In the 30G on their own is way easier to be able to feed and then check what has been eaten the next morning instead of me staying up till the wee hours to observe what they or other fish are eating.

Guessing the problem with things like this is that things can become quite difficult for both the person posting and those responding to truly identify what is going on. I have fully appreciated all the advice I have received and it has all gone into my memory

They are currently doing well, none of them seem particularly starving and they remain as healthy looking as they did in that video.

Cheers