Hi everyone, remember my baby 1-inch fantail? It got worse over time, and from reading other posts I decided it is most likely backterial infection...besides showing (head down) SBD floating symptoms (where feeding peas + frozen worms improved its swimming a lot), its abdomen/chest area is expanded a bit such that the scales rise a bit. And when I put it in the light one day...I noticed white patches on the body I didn't think much about the latter before because I thought it was just being bullied by the other fish in the same QT...hence fungusy/whitish marks...but silly me. I guess it's better to treat as internal anyway cos it's been like that for 3 weeks now.

This week it has been floating sideways (after being head down more than usual)...this happened after a water change I've done (I admit I left the water a bit dirtier this iteration, after feeding frozen worms again). I decided it's bacterial and went to the only open fish store that evening. They recommended something new in the market called pimafix (so hope this is ok...it seems to be an all natural product, for internal & external bacteria). I have put a dose...(btw, before doing the dose my fishie was not floating when I came back from work...happily swimming but then again it usually becomes temporarily normal when looking for food...such a fighter...), and it seemed to behave as usual (floats sideways, then head down...then upside down...then swim normally for just a bit etc...). Later that night...it poops a long thin white poo (while it floats)!!!! Darn that is so bacterial isn't it! The weird thing is that throughout my peas session with it, it has only given me normal looking poo. Now I hope the weird white poo means the bacteria are dying in its body....

Today the last I saw it before coming to work is it was floated at the bottom of the tank, sideways...it cannot swim properly at all. When it tried swimming towards me, it ends up going in a spiral...looks like its body weight is all over the place..

Do you think I should go on with the medication? (This one is...1 tsp per 10 G daily for 7 days, repeat if necessary)....is there hope?

Sorry for the long email This all happened so quick this week

One more thing...i ended up putting the other oranda from the QT to the main tank (I do not have enough space unfortunately). I wanted to know if bacterial infections can spread that way....although the other fishes all seem normal at the moment. Should I treat or is the chances just too low now that I have isolated the ill fish at an early stage (kind of).

I would treat the other fish too, but I'm not sure. Maybe I can *bump your post. I'm sorry about your luck. My fishie probably had the same thing when he died, and it was difficult to diagnose.

Not good - the poor thing left us today The abdomen area was quite soft...does that definitely mean internal bacterial infection? My other fishies in their main tank look alright, so weird...perhaps it's a bacteria that only affects weak fish? The death symptoms of my 3 fishies so far seem quite the same (although this fantail here has had floating SBD symptoms since new).

First they stay inactive at the bottom of the tank (head down in its case)
Then start laying over at the worsened state

I am starting to think it's impossible to diagnose diseases easily. Good to hear that there are some success stories in the board though.

I am not sure to use pimafix on the main tank...it smells terrible (and seems to be carcinogenic for humans!!!). From other posts I hear putting new chemicals in main tanks can kill everything if we're not careful.

Hi there. I copied some helpful items from a favorite site of mine for you:

HEAD STANDING
1. Intestinal worms
2. Toxic water, do water changes.
3. Females that are spawning will do this when they are tired. Head standing stops the males from driving them. Ryukins will also "tail stand" when worn out.
4. Frontal kidney damage
5. Gas from bacterial action on food

A mushy belly can be due to unreleased or infected eggs, or an internal parasite, or bacterial infection.

Thin white poop = usually a sign of an internal infection.

Courtesy of : http://puregold.aquaria.net/pg/disease/disease.htm

I hope this helps you. Oh and I hope that you visit that site, it's so helpful!

Sad to hear that....
I was a bout to give advise then suddenly this message come along.. I have seen this happening to many people very commonly.. should have fast the fish and feed very little or even soft food..

yes, soft tummy indicate internal bacteria attack and I bet u dun want to know what has happened internally...

well, the internal organ mostly have been deformed and destroyed by the bacteria that it is no longer giving back the bouncing feel.. anyway, there is little chance of survival when fish gets to this stage when their scale are opening up like a pine corn..

treatment shld start very early once u see sign of bad tummy.. anyway, I believe u have learnt a great deal during this period..

by the way, dun medicate the tank... jus change water for the next few days.. 30-40% each time and add salt to stablise the water.. first two change you might want to go for 50-60% or more and remove any ornaments and soak in boiled water.. it takes a while to clear up, anyway, take it as spring cleaning.. when is the last time since you clean your tank thoroughly??

cheer up.

Cool, thanks for the tips fi5hkiller. My main tank's fishies seem very normal. Just the occasional clear (greenish - when I feed peas) poo and, for one of them, occasional one or two bubbles in the poo. So u can imagine after this ordeal I wonder if it's a bad sign. But really, these poo has always been here as long as I've had these fishies (4 months) before the fantail.

So you recommend not using any medications. I suppose if the fishies are in good conditions, their bodies should be able to withstand general "bad" bacteria. With the fantail though, I thought it's SBD at first, since it seemed to only affect it and not the baby oranda when they were together for 3-4 weeks. It couldddd be possible that pimafix (as dangerous as it smells) caused this...it really smells potent...mind you, the fantail is only a 1-inch baby. I really appreciate it if anyone can let us know if they've had positive success with pimafix (it's a new product?). I bet if I soak my body in this chemical I might have a soft belly too LOL Just wondering...

Also, how come the white stringy poo only came out after pimafix? Throughout the 3-4 weeks I've had it, and fed peas/frozen worms etc, it only gave healthy looking dark poo. Same goes with the pine-coned effect - it got even more pined coned after pimafix...before it was just the chest area. It'll be great if there's actually an explanation for this?

Does anyone agree that chemicals are quite suspicious...if they smell so bad in air...I feel quite bad submerging out fishies in them...what do others think? Medigold might've helped in my case, but unfortunately, nothing like that here in Australia.

It might be worth seeing if you canfind a friendly American to take delivery and mail on some medigold for you. It's very good stuff. I think I will always keep a pot in just in case.

Does anybody know how long before Medigold expires? I know antibiotics expire in a matter of months so I didn't want to just purchase them unless I needed it.

Thanks.

With Australia's quarantine policies, I'm not sure if medigold can be sent here (assuming it does contain organic stuff right?). I've actually sent a query to godfishconnection about this, maybe they have positive news, perhaps. I've heard so many good news with medigold, most certainly like to keep in handy if I could