Goodbye bowfront/Chunk's sick

[DMD123]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Went to Petsmart and looked at the Nat. Geo stuff. They called it Pebble Beach Sand. The store I went to had two bags with one being a small and the other being quite large but called the same stuff. So different batches for sure. I think as much as I want to change out the substrate I will just use the lapis Lustre and call it done. I just am not in the mood to spend $40 on sand at the moment. Especially since I spent a fortune in meds recently to deal with my Oscar's issues, which are still not quite done.

 

[DMD123]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Tired, got the tank moved tonight. I decided to use the Lapis Lustre I already have to save some money since Im going on vacation on two weeks. The Bowfront was an impressive show tank but the standard 75g set up is 6" lower and will be so much easier to maintain. Will try and get some pics tomorrow.

 

[lloyd378]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

It's tomorrow.....

 

[DMD123]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Okay here we go.

So a bit of comparison during set up. You can see the difference in height and the width issue that made me get the Oscar a new tank.

New tank set up:

Still a work in progress, but very happy with the new set up. Much easier to maintain already.

 

[Betty]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Looks good. How is Chunk doing?

 

[DMD123]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Chunk is still the same not seeming to improve...

Spotting that looks like Ich but more fuzzy like fungus but not responding to fungus meds or antibiotics. Responded to triple sulfa but then flared back up.

 

[lloyd378]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Be careful with whatever it is.... I lost ( tonight) a 9" black umbee....... It had what appeared to be a bite mark on its side two days ago and it somehow got infected and grew like crazy! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that chunks little illness doesn't get worse

 

[DMD123]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

I have been at this for two months now with it slowly progressing to where her entire body is covered. Im getting to the point where I am going to treat like I did for the duck lips and force feed a medicine food mix into her. Just need to try a different treatment... leaning toward metro. There was a little bit of a raise scale look about the belly area almost dropsy looking but not very prominent. Just think at this point I have nothing to lose.

 

[anthony]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

It's hard to fight diseases when you don't know what it is. Maybe if you have been using gram positive antibiotics try using gram negative or vise versa. I know there is a lot of bacterial infections that look like fungus. I know that fish means a lot to you . I have been there once or twice myself and its always hard when your playing the guessing game. Good luck

 

[DMD123]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Thanks for the kind words Anthony!

I am looking at this in a whole new way. I dont think this is bacterial or anything that will respond to a typical antibiotic since Ive went down that road already. It did respond to the Seachem paragard which makes me think this is a type of parasite. Talking with another fish geek we are leaning toward a type of velvet. At this point it cant hurt, and I have a medicine on hand to try and see what happens. I will treat with a round of Tetra Parasite Guard since it has Acriflavin which is used on velvet. I also have lights off and a blanket over the tank since this particular parasite needs a host and light to thrive. I have some coppersafe coming so that I can add that to the tank while I am gone on vacation.

 

[anthony]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Good luck! I have never seen the velvet so I couldn't tell you. But you know with the coppersafe your pretty much covering all you bases when it comes to parasites!

 

[DMD123]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Ive never seen velvet before, just pictures and mine looks a bit different but Im leaning toward that at the moment. I was happy that the coppersafe stays active for so long since I will treat the tank with that before I go on vacation and it should treat the water while I am away and I hopefully do not have to worry about it getting any worse.

 

[Betty]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

I've read that a lot of fish diseases are resistant to antibiotics now. I hope you can get this figured out and cured.
Was she ever flashing? Are the tankmates affected?

 

[DMD123]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

That is the crazy thing she has shown zero symptoms throughout this two month time frame. Has not been flashing at all, no rubbing up against anything. Eats great, no stringy poo, no clamped fins, breathes normal, no signs of any distress. The tankmates are three large Australian rainbows and an L114 pleco who all are healthy with no signs of what Chunk has.

There is some debate on the treatment of velvet with keeping fish in the dark and with salt since it can tolerate salinity at much higher doses than ich. I had the tank completely blanketed yesterday and did the Tetra Parasite Guard and covered it up again. Chunk does not like this because I found she had scraped her head on the driftwood in the tank. It just is too dark and she must have some sort of sensory deprivation. I am going to remove the blanket tomorrow (48hrs in the dark) and just leave her lights off so that she has a little ambient light and does not completely freak out. This one really has me stumped.

 

[lloyd378]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

And can we get an updated full body shot? I would like to see how big the infection is

 

[DMD123]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

I will see what I can do about getting a good picture. Difficult to try and get a detailed enough picture of the scope of this. Feels like I am spinning my wheels with treatment. the Parasite meds were an avenue I had not pursued yet but from talking with madness, seems like I may still be on the wrong track. I will check up on the fish tonight after work and see if I can snap off a hundred shots or so to try and get one that shows anything.

 

[JimmyZ]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Might be a stupid question, but how old is the fish and can it be just an age thing? Some mojo sent your way.

 

[DMD123]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Age likely not an issue at this point. Was purchased on a group buy at the end of August 2014 from Jeff Rapp's. It is an F2 Bumblebee Oscar and came in about 7" and as of now I would place it at 11 3/4" - 12" (only because I just caught it for the tank move and it was curled up in an 11" wide bucket)

 

[DMD123]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Okay Lloyd, here we go.

Chunk's thought on the picture taking... not happy

I turned off the flash and shot at high speed. Might be some bubbles from the filters in a couple shots, so when they are frozen in place may give the impression there are more spots than really are.

Let me know if you see anything different.

 

[lloyd378]

Re: Goodbye bowfront...

Looks like ich to me..... If it's fungus, it's so small that I can't make out the cottony look..... Have you tried ich meds?