NarakuAulonocar
New member
Hi
I really need help figuring out why I can't keep them alive!
The first one (2inch) I ever owned did fine for about a year and then died suddenly when I was doing a water change. During that time I don't know if I saw any scratching. When it died, it was in shock, it suddenly jolted and twitched and was then lifeless. I did not do anything different from my previous water change. Alkalinity, PH etc measured fine.
During the time I kept it, it did great, was always active and ate and even grew huge. Just as an FYI, there was also a blue tang and minor ich issues that wouldn't resolve but all fish were actively eating.
My second one (1.5 in) from the same source died the same way in around 5 month.
For the above 2 fish, they were thrown in the display directly because I didn't know about quarantine at that time.
My third one (2 in) from a different source was given a freshwater dip and and put in hypo quarantine. It died an hour later. I noticed that it couldn't keep balance after the dip but I brushed it off as internal parasites as it did swell up.
My fourth one was a huge fish (3.5 inch) from yet a different source. This one had cloudy fins but it survived the dip OK. It lived for a week in hypo but it never ate and died of what seemed like bacteria/protozoan infection in addition to cloudy fins which never resolved. I tried paraguard, cleaner goby and prazi and nothing worked.
My fifth fish lived for 2 weeks. For my fifth one (from the same source as the original two), I decided to do tank transfer (every 3 day) without hypo nor dips. Keep in mind this is a quarintine tank with subdued light and cover. The fish did fine and ate well but it scratched its gills sometimes towards the end of the first week. But died of uronema after a week later. This was very sudden as it had been eating fine up the the morning of that day. The heater did malfunction during my tank transfer and I feel that this weakened its immune system allowing the uronema to attack. In fact, the fish ate nls pellets soaked in gel tek and I saw stringy poop followed by regular chunky poop. FYI gel tek has prazi, flubendazole and metro covering most internal parasites: nematodes, tape worms, protozoans.
The sixth one is from the same source 2 weeks apart. I did the same treatment as above. When I saw scratching and spitting food out,I added Furan2 and quinine sulfate to cover uronema. This time it went smoothly and the fish stopped scratching and ate but I was soo stupid. The fish ate well and looked fine except it looked like it had some slight glossy area on one side of its body. Basically, one side of its body was perfectly smooth and the other side was not as smooth. You could only barely see it if it turned its body at an angel. Since this was barely noticeable, I was doubting if I was just too nervous. Reading on XXXXX(well known contributor's) recommendation for freshwater dip to deal with uronema in addition to meds, I dipped the fish for 10 minutes and it died almost immediately after the dip. I did see some white stuff come out of his gills but I don't know if its the buffer I added, a parasite or just mucus. During the dip, it tried to jump and when it loss balance, I immediately scooped it back. Needless to say it died in short order following the dip. It turned out that the issue with the scales seemed like minor injury or perhaps recovery from uronema and not a open red infection. :facepalm:
If it were not for the dip, I know it would still have been with me!:facepalm::facepalm::headwallblue:::headwallblue::headwallblue::headwallblue: I was this close! I was debating the dip based on my past experience, and I should of gone with my gut instinct. I'm pretty sure if I left quinine in for another week and finished the transfer he would be cured as I saw improvements every day. I fattened him up from being very skinny and his appetite improved every day. Damn I miss him.. Durring the week I had him, every morning, he would be waiting for me to throw in his pellets. Why did I do something soo stupid!!
Are Starcki's intolerant of hypo and dips or is it the parasites causing issues with dips? What the hell is going wrong here?
I thought damsels are hardy! Is it collection issue? Parasites biting the gills? Distrubitor issues? Or is it my method? I've covered ich (transfer), internal parasite/fluke (gel tek) , uronema (quinine and nitrofurazone).
I want these bastard parasites out of my life!
I don't know what to do. If I do dips or hypo, I stress it out. But if I let it be it can get uronema, ich or die suddenly months latter. If I do tank transfer, uronema comes in to complicate things. UUGH this blows so much.
Someone please help me figure what I'm doing wrong! This is my dream fish.
Any help is greatly and sincerely appreciated!
If I succeed someday, I will :celeb3::celeb3::celeb3:: and THANK YOU SOO MUCH!
I'm thinking of finding one on LA's diver's den as they have already observed/treated them. I'm pretty sure this will eliminate uronema risk.
The approach for ich would be to do tank transfer 5 times with or without quinine.
To deal with internal parasites, I will feed NLS soaked in gel tek for a week again.
Please any suggestions, advice?
No hypo, no dips whatsoever.
I really need help figuring out why I can't keep them alive!
The first one (2inch) I ever owned did fine for about a year and then died suddenly when I was doing a water change. During that time I don't know if I saw any scratching. When it died, it was in shock, it suddenly jolted and twitched and was then lifeless. I did not do anything different from my previous water change. Alkalinity, PH etc measured fine.
During the time I kept it, it did great, was always active and ate and even grew huge. Just as an FYI, there was also a blue tang and minor ich issues that wouldn't resolve but all fish were actively eating.
My second one (1.5 in) from the same source died the same way in around 5 month.
For the above 2 fish, they were thrown in the display directly because I didn't know about quarantine at that time.
My third one (2 in) from a different source was given a freshwater dip and and put in hypo quarantine. It died an hour later. I noticed that it couldn't keep balance after the dip but I brushed it off as internal parasites as it did swell up.
My fourth one was a huge fish (3.5 inch) from yet a different source. This one had cloudy fins but it survived the dip OK. It lived for a week in hypo but it never ate and died of what seemed like bacteria/protozoan infection in addition to cloudy fins which never resolved. I tried paraguard, cleaner goby and prazi and nothing worked.
My fifth fish lived for 2 weeks. For my fifth one (from the same source as the original two), I decided to do tank transfer (every 3 day) without hypo nor dips. Keep in mind this is a quarintine tank with subdued light and cover. The fish did fine and ate well but it scratched its gills sometimes towards the end of the first week. But died of uronema after a week later. This was very sudden as it had been eating fine up the the morning of that day. The heater did malfunction during my tank transfer and I feel that this weakened its immune system allowing the uronema to attack. In fact, the fish ate nls pellets soaked in gel tek and I saw stringy poop followed by regular chunky poop. FYI gel tek has prazi, flubendazole and metro covering most internal parasites: nematodes, tape worms, protozoans.
The sixth one is from the same source 2 weeks apart. I did the same treatment as above. When I saw scratching and spitting food out,I added Furan2 and quinine sulfate to cover uronema. This time it went smoothly and the fish stopped scratching and ate but I was soo stupid. The fish ate well and looked fine except it looked like it had some slight glossy area on one side of its body. Basically, one side of its body was perfectly smooth and the other side was not as smooth. You could only barely see it if it turned its body at an angel. Since this was barely noticeable, I was doubting if I was just too nervous. Reading on XXXXX(well known contributor's) recommendation for freshwater dip to deal with uronema in addition to meds, I dipped the fish for 10 minutes and it died almost immediately after the dip. I did see some white stuff come out of his gills but I don't know if its the buffer I added, a parasite or just mucus. During the dip, it tried to jump and when it loss balance, I immediately scooped it back. Needless to say it died in short order following the dip. It turned out that the issue with the scales seemed like minor injury or perhaps recovery from uronema and not a open red infection. :facepalm:
If it were not for the dip, I know it would still have been with me!:facepalm::facepalm::headwallblue:::headwallblue::headwallblue::headwallblue: I was this close! I was debating the dip based on my past experience, and I should of gone with my gut instinct. I'm pretty sure if I left quinine in for another week and finished the transfer he would be cured as I saw improvements every day. I fattened him up from being very skinny and his appetite improved every day. Damn I miss him.. Durring the week I had him, every morning, he would be waiting for me to throw in his pellets. Why did I do something soo stupid!!
Are Starcki's intolerant of hypo and dips or is it the parasites causing issues with dips? What the hell is going wrong here?
I thought damsels are hardy! Is it collection issue? Parasites biting the gills? Distrubitor issues? Or is it my method? I've covered ich (transfer), internal parasite/fluke (gel tek) , uronema (quinine and nitrofurazone).
I want these bastard parasites out of my life!
I don't know what to do. If I do dips or hypo, I stress it out. But if I let it be it can get uronema, ich or die suddenly months latter. If I do tank transfer, uronema comes in to complicate things. UUGH this blows so much.
Someone please help me figure what I'm doing wrong! This is my dream fish.
Any help is greatly and sincerely appreciated!
If I succeed someday, I will :celeb3::celeb3::celeb3:: and THANK YOU SOO MUCH!
I'm thinking of finding one on LA's diver's den as they have already observed/treated them. I'm pretty sure this will eliminate uronema risk.
The approach for ich would be to do tank transfer 5 times with or without quinine.
To deal with internal parasites, I will feed NLS soaked in gel tek for a week again.
Please any suggestions, advice?
No hypo, no dips whatsoever.
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