I feel so bad. It has got to be such a shocker seeing him not alive. SOO sad, I can't imagine. I won't even let myself think about Joey passing so I know if he does it's going to be that much harder for me to take on.

Robby was so unexpected too, you would think they would give us a big warning sign before they left Poor Robby, he's no longer in any pain atleast and in fishie heaven.

I think it is really hard to dispose too, you just hope that somehow they are going to come back to life

Good Luck with Johnny, I have faith he'll pull through for you and your children.

January 19

Scoped in the main tank and found a chilo dancing around.

Bummer.


What to do?

I'm gonna slowly take out the salt; right now he's at ~.4%. Get it down to 0 for a couple weeks. I think there's just been too much salt for too long in there. See how Johnny behaves. I'll probably have to get him in a QT tank and increase the salt levels again, while sterilizing the main tank w/PP and recycling. I am NOT looking forward to that......

Wish us luck, again!!

These fish are a lot of work, huh? My friend thinks I am the only person she knows whose fish are more work than a dog. Ruff, ruff . . .. .

How is Johnny doing?

It certainly has been a long time since I've last posted on this epic! Not to bore everyone, but to inform, I'd like to give a somewhat brief summary of where we're at.

We are treating for chilo. Prior high salt levels (up to .8%) were employed to rid the tank/fish of chilo. However, the high levels were not tolerated very well by my fish. As such, the levels were brought down, and chilo was still found.

Chilo infested tank was replaced with brand spanking new tank, new filter, new gravel, new everything. I am trying to do a fishless cycle at the moment with BioSpira. However, I believe a bad batch has been received as my #s are getting nowhere fast. (You can read the post in the water chemistry section if you so wish.)

In the meantime, Johnny is in a 10g qt tank in the kitchen, getting 100% daily water changes. I tried to increase his salt levels again, hoping to reach .5%, however at a mere .3% he started to show signs of pop eye again. He is now salt free.

What I am currently doing is every other day giving him a 1-2 minute salt dip at 1.5%, letting him rest for 15-20 minutes, them placing him in a 2ppm PP bath for 2-3 hours. The first bath he lasted 1 hour 40 minutes; 2nd bath was 1 hour; 3rd bath he lasted a great 2 hours 30 minutes. I am hoping for his 4th bath he can last a whopping 3 hours! While Johnny is "bathing" in his PP, I clean out the qt tank w/ a PP paste and scalding hot water.

After the 4th bath, I will again scope the debris off the bottom of the qt tank in search of the nasty critter.

Johnny is handling this quite well. Let's just hope this gets rid of the culprit, once and for all!

Thanks for everyone's support throughout this process. Especially to Toothy, LaurieP, daryl, and last but not least, fantailfan1.

You are going to get them this time, Laura!!

Hope the next PP bath goes as well as the last one!!

Good luck and please keep us posted.

Still have chilo. I found one little bugger swimming around some gook tonight. Johnny is still in his qt tank, getting his daily 100% water changes.


Is one chilo enough to start treatment again? (kind of a rhetorical question - just talking out loud)

My guy can not handle constant high levels of salt. So increasing the salt to say .5% is not an option.


I can do 1.5% salt dips, and this time longer than the 2 minutes. I can also do the PP treatment again, and hopefully top out at 3 hours. The last few treatments Johnny did quite well, up to 2 3/4 hours.


So....I guess tomorrow I'll start the treatment again, as I am also starting to cycle his "home".

5 minute salt dip at 1.5% and 4 hours in a 2ppm PP bath.


All is well!!!

Holy cow!! Johnny is one tough little fish!!

Ya know what I find interesting? Johnny does fine with salt dips yet increasing the salt slowly over a number of days brings on popeye. On the other hand, my fish (D in particular) cannot handle salt dips much beyond 2 minutes, yet when I brought him to 0.5% for a couple of weeks he did jsut fine.

Just an observation . . . .

Well good luck with round 2! (I have a feeling I'll be there sometime this week. D is not looking very chilo-free. )

Yeah - I really wonder why that is........quite interesting. Toothy, daryl, LaurieP - any thoughts?


Well, again we did a 5 minute 1.5% salt dip, 25 mins rest, followed by 4 hours in a 2ppm PP bath. This is the 2nd treatment in the 2nd round.


Just a little redness in the fins. Otherwise it's as if nothing happened! Eating like a champ as usual.


As he was in the bath, I scoured out the tank and let it dry outside - we had a bit of sun today. I did NOT put the hood back on. I am leary of leaving it off, especially in the evening since our house gets pretty chilly (60F), but I think the heater should be able to handle it....I've been told that the hood is a great place for the chilo to hang out. So, off it comes!

Hmmm, well, I can only make an educated guess. I would think that it has to do with the process of osmosis at the kidney level. Since a brief exposure to high salinity really only affects the fish topically (breaks down heavy slime deposits and parasites and bacters along with it), The kidey/s are barely affected. If exposed to longer durations of salinity, the movement of sodium and/or chloride ions affect the internal structures. So, since pop-eye is linked to the kidney/s and the kidneys are located internally, one could only assume that longer durations of salinity allow the process of ionic flow between the water and the tissues of the fish to be equalized throughout the fishes body.

In freshwater fish, the kidney saves ions and excretes water. In saltwater fish, the kidney excretes ions and conserves water. Conserves water is the KEY word there. Conserves water...... the eyeballs swelling..... coincidence?? In your case, I believe that the trauma of contracting pop-eye (from unstable temps and/or chemistries ALONG with the high salinity) is proof of damage done to the kidneys. Now, it seems to only take small amounts of stress to the kidney/s to trigger a relapse.

Remember, I am only giving you my understanding of it. Perhaps someone else has some ideas?



Thats great hes taking the dips well. I beleive youll be seeing that strain of chilo go bye-bye if he keeps handling the PP well........ For your sake and sanity, I TRuly hope so!

Another update......


5 minutes in a 1.5% salt dip.

3 hours 40 minutes in a 2ppm PP bath.

Scoured the qt tank w/pp and 130F water. Should have killed everything and anything in the tank.


I was not happy with the way Johnny was looking this time in the bath. I noticed that his lips were colored - either brown from the PP or red from stress. I couldn't tell b/c my lighting is so poor. I took him out of the bath, put him into his QT tank, and he just sat at the bottom. That was very unusual. His "breathing" was also quite labored. Another unusual activity. This took place for about 3 minutes. Then all was back to normal.

The discoloration has gone from his lips. But I want to say I have noticed an increase in his darting, flashing activities. He swims suuuuupppper fast from one end of the tank to the other. Then he goes up to the top and dives down into the bubbles. This "activity" has started in earnest ever since I took the hood off the tank. Even my husband has noticed Johnny has been swimming around like a crazy man. So.....I am not quite sure what the reason is for this "crazy-like" swimming. Is it hood-related, chilo related, gill irritation related......the list could go on and on.

Today's treatment was the 3rd treatment (second round). Do I go for a 4th? Not sure....(kinda talking to myself here). I guess I could scope a ton tomorrow and see if I find anything....

Laura--

I forgot to mention in my PM to you that my dear Shoomey (who is white around the mouth area) also had brown around her mouth after PP dip #3. Like Johnny, it went away after a while. Perhaps it's just the PP working it's magic around all the "stuff" around the mouth?

I sure hope this works for ya!! *crosses fingers and fishy fins*

I remember Shoomey experiencing the same thing....so I'm not too concerned about it at the moment.


I got about every appendage crossed at the moment....and then some!

Strange, or maybe not.


Does the "crazy swimming" look like flashing or scratching? Are you see fin flicking or irritated gill flaring or pumping (coughing)?

I wonder if your just seeing him beginning to be active once again. Or was he acting normally before the baths started?

I think my fish has fin rot but I'm not sure. It looks like she is biting herself. She has this white goo in between the spots were her fin is torn apart. Please tell me if she has fin rot or not. 1 of my other guppies died last night she was as hard as a rock so i knew that she was dead. she was in a fake plant. i have 3 sick gupies and there tank has been medicated. if the other guppy (she was orange and white ) if she was in the plant i would have never found her . even if i thought she was in the plant. okay well now there are 2 :sickARE THEY SICK IF SO PLEASE HELP

Hi ,sorry to hear about your probs.You need to have your own thread though so that we can get all your info and such to better help you.
Size of tank/How long it's been running
Type of filter
WHat kind of fish/How many
Ph/Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate level
Symptoms of fish behavior
How often/how much for water changes
As soon as we get more info,we can start trying to help you.
Put it in the Tropical Disease section.

Johnny had his last pp bath and salt dip on Saturday.


5 minute salt dip at 1.5%.

2 hour bath in 2ppm PP. He was just acting too weird for me to keep him in there for another 2 hours. Seemed to be having a real hard time breathing.


I did scope last night, 4 samples, and found nothing. I will keep scoping for at least another week since I still have to get his real home cycled.

We've got our fingers and fins crossed for ya, hun.

Good luck!!