Help...

[neha]

Hii
I have a friend of mine who is having a red cap fish.she bought it 2 months ago and a month ago her fish had anchor worm .She was successful to cure her fish and removed the worms .The fish was then absolutely fine and was eating normally.
Then suddeny yesterday my friend saw the fish being dashed against her aquarium 's wall.
I actually forgot to ask about her tanks size but i know that it is quite good in size for a red cap fish.(she has kept only 1 fish in the tank ) and nor did i asked her about water parameters.
Now yersterday she had shifted the fish into another big container and had put some aquarium salt in it.But the fish even today is just breathing but not able to swim properly...she is turning upside and down and is flowing with the water flow...but her gills are moving and the fish is moving her mouth to breath.
My friend unable to see her little friend in pain came to me for seeking help..she even asked me to keep her fish with my guppies in my tank but i disagreed and with disappointment she went home.

My friend told me that her fished stopped eating food and she can observe some red patches on the scales on belly area of the fish...she is really very sad to see her fish in pain ..turning up side down and not eating food...just breathing very slowly and flowing with water flow.

Is there anything she can do to help her poor little fish..?

 

[Tara]

Hello. As bad as you feel for your friend you made the right choice, putting a sick fish in with your guppies is a bad idea. It is good that she treating her fish but there is not a lot of information to work with. Hopefully the salt treatment helps the fish, and if your friend did not cycle her tank, perhaps you can offer her some of your tank water with a little filter media as a jumpstart in her own tank. If it is a goldfish, they require a very good filtering and regular water changes. Good luck.

 

[JamieB]

If I recall, anchor worms have a stage where they infect the gills, the red patches she is seeing is from anchor worms. At this point, I don’t think the fish can be saved. She will need to decontaminate the tank, plants, decorations, and find out where they came from, in order to have fish again later. When I had them, in addition to treating my fish, I let my pond dry out over a month, in full sun, no water, treated my plants, scrubbed the tank with vinager and salt when I shifted the fish back to the pond.

 

[neha]

Hello. As bad as you feel for your friend you made the right choice, putting a sick fish in with your guppies is a bad idea. It is good that she treating her fish but there is not a lot of information to work with. Hopefully the salt treatment helps the fish, and if your friend did not cycle her tank, perhaps you can offer her some of your tank water with a little filter media as a jumpstart in her own tank. If it is a goldfish, they require a very good filtering and regular water changes. Good luck.

Thanks a lot ..but unfortunately the fish had died that day itself.
she had her tank cycled but then also anchor worms infected her goldfish[ she had two goldfish -one died a month ago due to anchor worms].

 

[neha]

If I recall, anchor worms have a stage where they infect the gills, the red patches she is seeing is from anchor worms. At this point, I don’t think the fish can be saved. She will need to decontaminate the tank, plants, decorations, and find out where they came from, in order to have fish again later. When I had them, in addition to treating my fish, I let my pond dry out over a month, in full sun, no water, treated my plants, scrubbed the tank with vinager and salt when I shifted the fish back to the pond.

Thank you so much
Now she had cleaned her tank and decorations along with pebbles .she was very sad so she had decided to recycle her tank and then start again with small fishes like mine .

 

[JamieB]

Thank you so much
Now she had cleaned her tank and decorations along with pebbles .she was very sad so she had decided to recycle her tank and then start again with small fishes like mine .

She needs to let the tank sit dry at least a week if she does not have a good way to ensure the anchor worms are all gone.