Sick Eruptus, Need Help

[gnomemagi]

Hi guys,

My featherfin seems ill - this has gotten worse over the past day.

He has developed a few white marks on his body over the past month or so - I deemed these to be just him scraping into something or burning himself on the heater, and figured it would be more stressful for him to take him out and treat him rather than let him heal naturally. Some of these have come and gone.

This morning, he is swimming near the surface of the tank, upside down. I did a 50% water change which did not seem to help. He has developed more marks - his mouth area is red. His skin is seeming to be sloughing off in a few areas. His eyes are slightly glazed.

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 15 (planted - I try to keep it around this level, I dose nitrates)

He currently lives in a 90 gallon with several medium sized cichlids (5" Vieja Synspila, etc.). He is the largest and is a solid 6", and is probably 10 months old.

Any ideas? Fungal or virus? Treat with Maracyn?

[MatsP]

Doesn't seem particularly good, but a photo is much better than a lot of words.

As a general rule, these fish are very hardy, so it's quite likely that something is causing the fish to be stressed which in turn causes the health issues.

If you could also post what your water conditions are: Nitrate, nitrite and ammonia levels. Ideally a pH and hardness levels (GH/KH) would be good too.

--
Mats

[Birger]

Have any of your cichlids been spawning or showing traits of holding a territory, within the syno's preferred area?

[gnomemagi]

Doesn't seem particularly good, but a photo is much better than a lot of words.

As a general rule, these fish are very hardy, so it's quite likely that something is causing the fish to be stressed which in turn causes the health issues.

If you could also post what your water conditions are: Nitrate, nitrite and ammonia levels. Ideally a pH and hardness levels (GH/KH) would be good too.

--
Mats

Video: (excuse my Severums... they always think I'm going to feed them and love to beg. Lucky my Vieja did not come over to to do so as well).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-MQdqAiXDc

And no, my cichlids are quite calm at the moment.The syno is actually the 'boss' of the tank at the moment and keeps the cichlids away from his area. The severums/vieja are more open water swimmers - the sajica sticks to the lower end of the tank but is quite small at the moment. This tank is quite peaceful at the moment... I see more territorial issues with the syno chasing the cichlids than vise versa.

[Birger]

The syno looks to have frayed fins, especially the pectorals it can be seen. I suspect there has been competition somewhere, does not seem to be too much for caves, maybe they just can not be seen in the film.

How many of those barbs are in there? (In the film it almost looks like one swims in and nips a pectoral)

Most syno's are surprisingly resilient, but if you did have a tank to separate this fish into it looks like it could use some alone time.

[RickE]

That really looks bacterial to me

[MatsP]

I've seen Synos in much worse condition recover with clean water and "peace". They aren't quite indestructible, but they are definitely able to recover from whatever illness they have if the cause of the illness is removed - and in this case, I'm thinking along Birger's suggestion that there is some terrorizing going on. Your water conditions don't look bad, and again, they are fairly tolerant to bad water too...

--
Mats

[gnomemagi]

Last night I picked up a 10g quarantine and put him in there, along with a dose of Melafix.

Sadly, this AM he had very little gill movement. He passed very shortly after I had woken up.

I have no clue what could've brought about such a sudden change for the worst for this fish. Post mortem, he has a few small areas where they are red (eraser tip size, about four). In some areas, his skin has turned white. His fins are slightly frayed.

It seems as though something was causing him respiration issues. The quarantine had fresh tap water (treated) that I had let settle for an hour (to same temperature as main tank) so anything that might have developed in the main tank would not have been in there.

Quite sad - I rarely lose fish, and this was the first fish for me to lose in this tank since I moved here about 7 months ago. It is even harder to lose an adult that you have grown attached to.