what kind of sickness is this???

[captaintubby12]

Alright.......

I'm having a problem diagnosing what bacteria is in my tank. So far I have lost a cherub angel after having her for 2 weeks. She was completely fine until one day I noticed her losing a little color, she never exhibited any abnormal behavior prior to this. All in the matter of one day she began breathing hard and losing color, yet, she would eat. The next morning she was no more. I waited about 4 weeks.....bought a clown and have had her for about a week. She immediately paired with my BTA, everything has been great. Now, today she has been breathing hard.....eating a little.....buy doesn't look like she is going to make it.

She doesn't have any visible dots....nothing is swollen....she is just breathing fast and showing a little bit of lost color. She still hangs out in the BTA. One thing I noticed was she did seem to rub herself on the substrate.

I have a long fin watchman goby who has been doing wonderful the entire time.

All my water tests have been completely normal (phosphate, nitrite, nitrate or amonia), salinity is around .26. I keep up with weekly water changes as well.
Thanks for any info

 

[badazztealcobra]

Do you mean .026 ??? If youre at 1.26 thats your problem... Just seeing if its a typo or not...

Do you have alot of surface movement in the tank as well to make more oxygen for the fish ??

 

[Sk8r]

Oxygen is suspect. Do you have a skimmer? You may be overloading that 14g. Open the lid. What's your temperature during the day? Hot water doesn't carry as much oxygen.

Outside of that, a bacterial infection or ich in the gills is suspect---but check out the oxygen theory first.

 

[captaintubby12]

Yes, I mean .026 (typo). Also, the filter pump is facing towards the surface providing the surface movement. I do not have a skimmer. I didn't see it necessary with just two fish, but I have been researching since the bio-cube skimmer is supposedly crap.

The temp is around 79 to 80 degrees at all times. Although for a day it had fluctuated a bit because I turned my AC up to high when I left for work, it might have hit 82 then returned back later that night once I corrected the issue.

Yes I am also thinking some sort of bacterial infection in the gills. I just can't put a finger on the culprit or cause since the environment has been relatively stable. I thought maybe it could be a diet problem. I feed the tank a brine shrimp and occasionally mices shrimp......and she had eatn a lot over the past few days.....pretty much all of the chunks.....then had some white strings poo.

Anyways I'll look into a skimmer some more, and work on the oxygen bit. Thanks for your comments, really needed some advice on this one.

 

[LargeAngels]

I would look for parasitic attacks such as flukes, velvet or ich. Rubbing against a surface is a sure indicator. I didn't see anything about these being placed in QT first. Remove all fish and place in QT. Do a FW dip and see if flukes (jelly like things) or velvet (dust/powder) falls off in the container, as ich does not fall off in FW dips.

My guess would be velvet and your watchman goby has built up a natural immunity to it which is why he appears fine while others are affected. If it is velvet all fish must be treated in seperate QT with copper and main tank left fishless for 4-6 weeks.