Gills Inflamed?

[bethyMT]

Hi All. I'm sorry to write this here, but I don't have a lot of time to do research right now, and I was hoping somebody could point me in the right direction.

My older female rainbowfish, has been with me for over a year. I noticed a slight irregularily to her breathing (seemingly gulping) last night, but she ate fine. This morning, she is still doing it, and her gills are "sticking out" or inflamed. Her color is darker and she is less active...I can tell she is struggling. No going to the top of the tank, however, and ammonia and nitrite are both zero. Nitrates are roughly 10-15. All other fish are acting fine, even otos.

I removed her to QT bucket with aeration and put aquarium salt in the water, approx. 1t. per gal.

Some recent events in the tank: old (9years) australian rainbowfish died on Thursday...removed promptly, no sign of disease. water change of 45% on Friday. Two new boseman rainbows (juvies) added on Saturday night, both are healthy AFAIK. Water params tested just now, and listed above.

Thanks for helping me if you can...my two year old daughter has noticed my distraction and is now screaming/crawling all over me, and my older daughter needs to picked up from preschool and has a play date thing later. I am trying to juggle all of this. TIA.

[bethyMT]

Well, whatever it is killed her, and the dominant male rainbow is also exhibiting some off color and slightly red gills. Darn it (because I know swearing is not condoned on this forum). I did a little autopsy on the female...looks to be gill disease, but it's hard to know for sure. This disease works very very fast...from eating dinner to dead in about 14 hours.

I have no idea how this got in here...I guess any number of ways. I am treating the whole tank with tetracycline. This is terrible...when it's over we will see who is left and then the joys of fish-in cycling.

[Stlouisfish]

Sorry to hear about your fish - that's a tough break - and dealing with little kids on top of it.

Strange about the red gills although you have no ammonia - why do you say "see who is left and then the joys of fish-in cycling"? Based upon your water parameters, your tank is cycled.

[Cliff]

If you do not have any ammonia in your tank, then I would guess your fish might have gill flukes.

If it is gill flukes, I would remove the tetracycline from the water (with carbon and waterchanges) and treat with Prazi-pro or Paraguard.

[bethyMT]

Andrea, I didn't mean to confuse anyone...doesn't tetracycline often kill off your biological filter? I personally hate antibiotics because the side effects they have are sometimes just as bad as the disease they are treating. I am also scared that the otos won't make it through this.

I am going to google gill flukes ASAP. It didn't look like there was anything amiss with the female rainbow's lungs aside from redness and slight swelling. But I'll figure that out. It really seemed like she "aspirated" something and her respiration system wasn't working right...she was struggling to breathe, with her gill plates wide open, so you could see the lungs.

She has acted wierd in the past in similar ways, now that I think about it...well off to research, and get more tetracycline and some prazipro.

[Cliff]

Keep us posted

[bethyMT]

Cliff, you may well be right on this. Gill flukes may have been a problem on these guys for a long time, and didn't show up as long as they weren't stressed. That may explain why nobody else in the tank is having problems, as they haven't had any major upheaval like the bows have.

Apparently the flukes themselves rarely cause death, but secondary infections do. So I'm continuing to treat with the tetracycline and added the parasite guard (praziquantel/diflubenzuron/metronidazole/acriflavane mix) yesterday. I will be doing a second treatment of the parasite stuff in 48 hrs.

I am watching the tank closely right now for signs of stress. So far everybody looks good, and Big Guy (the male with symptoms) looks quite improved. The water is an ugly orange color. I also have to watch the plants, because the acriflavane is supposedly toxic to plants, but I don't know the concentration required to do that. I will happily let my plants go if it saves my fish.

[bethyMT]

Ugh.I haven't lost any more fish,but the tank water is disgusting.The abx are foamy and the parasite cure turned the water orange-red. I will be happy when the treatment is over. It's hard to observe the fish because the water is so dark!

I certainly hope this is doing some good,because it's gross.

[bethyMT]

Well, treatments are done today. Huge water change and charcoal out the waz are forthcoming.

No more larger fish fatalities, thankfully. I think I may have lost two otos in the process though; one was already ailing before this and I *may* have sucked one up in the siphon when doing a water change on Wednesday. The water was so so red that I couldn't see if I had done it or not. I saw an oto-shaped figure in the gross water as I dumped it. I checked where I dumped the water (outside) but couldn't see anything.

Hope I'm wrong on that one. Otherwise, I'm happy this is over and hopefully my tank is healthy.