3 fish with completely swollen bodies. Please help

G

glennhornibrook

New member
I started treating a yellow tang ,regal tang and a goby 3 weeks ago for ich.
I am using the hyposalinity method.
I dropped the salinity very slowley over a week period down to 1.009 . I noticed today that their bodies are very swollen and not just their abdoman. The upper body is just as bad if not worse.
I would realy appreciate some help on this one if anyone has any ideas or suggestions.
 
I checked out the link and i'm not sure what to think about it.
I need to read more about gas bubble disease to get a better understanding. I do have a skimmer in the QT which would produce some small bubbles but not excessive.
The replacement water I use is about 50deg f but it has been like that for years without a problem. Maybe the hyposalinity changes the way fish react. I perform small but regular water changes. Saying that as the QT is newly set up my ammonia level is high at about .25mg/l
The fish do not have localised bubbling, their whole bodies are swollen.
The yellow tang looks like you tied an elastic band around his latteral line and then you pumped him full of air.
At present I simply don't know what steps to take.
 
Sorry, no - it isn't GBD.

It is edema caused by the hyposalinity.

The first thing you need to do is verify the accuracy of your hydrometer. While it may read 1.009, if it is off by just a small amount, your actual S.G. could be 1.008 or even lower. Even if it is accurate, 1.009 can cause edema in some fish under certain conditions, that's why I don't advocate for it to be that low. I personally never go below 1.010 and the original paper on this treatment method used 1.012.

If the fish have a compromised kidney system, they cannot manage the hypo and fluids flood their tissues. The same thing can happen in reverse when taking fish out of hypo - the water floods out of their bodies and they become paper thin and can die.

Jay
 
Jay,
I also suspected this and have started to slowley increase the salinity.
I plan on bringing it back to normal over two weeks.

Do you think I will be able to reverse this problem?

The yellow tang is eating but very little. The other two dont seem to be effected besides looking like body builders.

The symptom I describe is called dropsy according to sites I have been reading which can also be caused by a bacterial infection which effects the renal system. For now I will assume it is caused by the hyposalinity.
 
JHemdal said:
Sorry, no - it isn't GBD.

It is edema caused by the hyposalinity.

The first thing you need to do is verify the accuracy of your hydrometer. While it may read 1.009, if it is off by just a small amount, your actual S.G. could be 1.008 or even lower. Even if it is accurate, 1.009 can cause edema in some fish under certain conditions, that's why I don't advocate for it to be that low. I personally never go below 1.010 and the original paper on this treatment method used 1.012.

If the fish have a compromised kidney system, they cannot manage the hypo and fluids flood their tissues. The same thing can happen in reverse when taking fish out of hypo - the water floods out of their bodies and they become paper thin and can die.

Jay
Click to expand...

Jay is right. This happened to a Kole tank I had in hypo a few years ago.

Here is a pic of what mine looked like when it happened

p1850144.gif


Mine did not survive and from what I have heard from others the survival rate is not good.
 
Took me 2 weeks to drop the salinity to 1.009 and calibrated my refractometer every other day to keep on top of the salinity levels. They sat at the 1.009 level a week before I had the bloat issue with the kole tang. So I was at the end of 3rd week of hypo and it was time to raise it back up to its normal level. Lost the Kole less then 48 hrs after I saw the bloat and took 2 weeks to get the rest of the fish back to 1.025.

One day after I finished the whole round of hypo the damn ich was back in the QT tank.
So I took 5 weeks to slowly do the whole process and not stress the fish and it failed utterly.

Was such a bad strain even my black saddleback clown got it.

I had to finally leave my display tank fallow for 12 weeks to get rid of the ich bug. I spent more time without fish in my tank that year then with fish in it.


Was not a good year for my tank.
 
Ynotme4886,
I just wanted to mention for future referance that due to the life cycle of the ich parasite, the fish should be left at low salinity for four weeks at least and then slowley braught back to normal levels. left for less than this time the parasite can survive to re-infect. I am not an expert but this is my understanding.





"""Took me 2 weeks to drop the salinity to 1.009 and calibrated my refractometer every other day to keep on top of the salinity levels. They sat at the 1.009 level a week before I had the bloat issue with the kole tang. So I was at the end of 3rd week of hypo and it was time to raise it back up to its normal level. Lost the Kole less then 48 hrs after I saw the bloat and took 2 weeks to get the rest of the fish back to 1.025.

One day after I finished the whole round of hypo the damn ich was back in the QT tank.
So I took 5 weeks to slowly do the whole process and not stress the fish and it failed utterly.""""
 
I havent done hypo in 2 years but am gonna double check the calender cause I had it all written down in there and recount my weeks. I may have my week count off.

I know it took 2 weeks to drop and another two raise it back up.

Now I gotta go digging to see exactly what I did
 
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