Clamped Fins and Tail

[verejacob]

Can someone please help identify correctly what’s wrong with my apistogramma cacatouides pair.

Until a couple of days ago, this guy (along with a female Apisto) was perfectly fine. Both were in fact starting to show breeding/mating behavior and the female was coloring into a bright yellow.

The past couple of days, however, he went into hiding and today he emerged like this (see photos of after and before). Same for my female apistogramma. They’re housed in a 40G breeder tank with a few guppies, loaches, corys, and cardinal tetras. Only these two apistogramma have clamped fins/tails and keep darting in and out of their various hidings/caves. The rest are all behaving normally.

I tested the water and the parameters seem fine. High range pH 7.4, Ammonia 0.50, Nitrite 0.25, and Nitrate 5.0-10.0. Temp is 79F.

Out of abundant caution, I dosed the tank with API General Cure yesterday and today I’ve started API Pimafix and Malafix treatments.

Not sure if I’m doing the right thing though. There are lots of mixed suggestions/opinions (ranging from precursor to Ich, to fin and tail rot, to aging) all over the Internet and the more I read/watch I get confused. I’m getting desperate. I'm praying someone can help me identify the problem correctly and suggest the right treatment/solution.

TIA!

 

[Apistoguy52]

I don’t have the slightest idea what the exact problem is, but with ammonia and nitrite reading anything higher than 0 I’d be inclined to change a bunch of water right now, change a bunch of water tomorrow, and probably do the same on Monday before throwing random meds/fixes at the tank.

 

[MacZ]

Out of abundant caution, I dosed the tank with API General Cure yesterday and today I’ve started API Pimafix and Malafix treatments.

This is more likely to kill the fish than anything else. As Mike correctly pointed out in another thread, your two Apistos might be quite old. They were recently moved to a tank with conditions a bit removed from ideal. It looks like a opportunistic bacterial infection, which is typical for this situation. Even if the meds might work (I doubt it) the fish will relapse again and again because the stress factors are not removed.

I don’t have the slightest idea what the exact problem is, but with ammonia and nitrite reading anything higher than 0 I’d be inclined to change a bunch of water right now, change a bunch of water tomorrow, and probably do the same on Monday before throwing random meds/fixes at the tank.

Fully agree.

 

[Eddy. E.]

This is more likely to kill the fish than anything else.

Absolutely correct.

I seriously wonder why you are using such medication WITHOUT even knowing what the problem is. On top of that metronidazole and praziquantel and then a day later the second medication hammer. True to the motto, a lot helps a lot? I very much doubt that the cacatouides will survive this treatment. If they did, it would simply be luck. Any further treatment suggestion would most likely be doomed to failure because you already have a massive amount of medication in the water. Regardless of possible interactions. Don't forget, your medication doesn't disappear with two or three water changes.
I would be interested to know what you fed days before. Because I have a suspicion.

 

[MacZ]

Eddy, it's quite a common thing in North America to just do the shotgun approach. Either something will help or the fish is dead anyway. That's a cultural thing and many on the other side of the pond take offence if criticised for it. Thankfully not everyone and especially not the really experienced people, but a majority just puts in whatever fix-in-a-bottle they are told could possibly help. Often resulting in the user not coming back or going berserk immediately. Or first the one then the other.

 

[Eddy. E.]

Well,
what can you say? When you stir the s_hit, it stinks. LMAO.
All joking aside. If you ask, you shall be helped. But what else can you do in such cases? I don't care whether it's North America or Timbuktu, criticism must and should be allowed. Those who can't handle it can just simply follow the pattern of trial and error, treat your fish, and see what happens. By the way, what you call culturally conditioned, I call different. But it doesn't matter in the context, because it doesn't help the questioner and the fish even less. Criticism must be allowed, because if it were not so, it would be difficult to change in a positive sense. I always ask myself whether the cultural background then also has to be used for my own illness, and whether I then swallow all kinds of medication before I see a doctor and have myself examined. So far, nothing more has come from the questioner. It's probably done?

 

[Apistonaut]

You're in a bit of a bind. The ammonia and nitrite are not fine. The nitrogen cycle, once established, should never read ammonia and nitrite above 0. Any value is deadly to fish, at the very least encourages stress induced illness.

You may add some Fritz Turbo Start 700, it's basically nitrifying bacteria cultured into what resembles sewage water for a lack of more appropriate terms. This is probably the only chemical free approach you can take that will help.

I wouldn't use any antibiotics at this point because it already appears that your nitrifying bacteria are not able to keep up with your livestock.

The problem is you have to hope that they become more resilient to whichever secondary issue might be occurring once you remove the ammonia.


For now, starting today, do a 25%+ WC daily. If you have other established filters from other tanks, give one a good squeeze into your filter uptake. This is probably the most important part to get the colonies of bacteria enough bandwidth to handle your nitrogen compounds. The Fritz Turbo Start is an option if you are unable.

I see no visual indication of external parasite, like ich.

 

[MacZ]

You're in a bit of a bind. The ammonia and nitrite are not fine. The nitrogen cycle, once established, should never read ammonia and nitrite above 0. Any value is deadly to fish, at the very least encourages stress induced illness.

That alone doesn't cause the problem at hand. If it was NH3 and NO2, other fish would also be affected, but they aren't. It is also not yet in the guaranteed death zone. They are a stress factor, true, but not the sole cause.
This is important to note when it comes to any kinds of suspected poisoning: If it doesn't affect at least 3/4 of the whole stock, it is not the problem.
The levels given by the OP are within tolerable range and definitley within the error margin of the typical test kits. So we can't be sure the readings are on point. In combination with the lack of other fish having problems this rules out a poisoning related problem. Additionally, the most important symptom of Ammonia/Nitrite poisoning is the fish hanging at the surface gasping. With ammonia also red blothces may appear, though that would mean a caustic concentration.
A waterchange of at least 50% would be advisable or whatever percentage would bring the levels down to tolerable if it was really that.

You may add some Fritz Turbo Start 700, it's basically nitrifying bacteria cultured into what resembles sewage water for a lack of more appropriate terms. This is probably the only chemical free approach you can take that will help.

Nitrifying bacteria in a bottle are not a solution to the problem here. Only to the problem of how to fill the manufacturer's pockets.
The only approach without anything bought and from a bottle would be a high percentage waterchange and the optional addition of leaf litter to add humic substances. Which would be in vain as judging by the pH the water is too hard and alkaline anyway for the stuff to really get to do its thing.

You have developed a nick for that all of a sudden, in the other thread (stressed A. borellii) that was also not a thing for you at first, then on the third page you come around with it. There the pH was also too low to warrant a problem with ammonia and the readings for all nitrogen compounds were zero.

 

[Apistonaut]

You have developed a nick for that all of a sudden, in the other thread (stressed A. borellii) that was also not a thing for you at first, then on the third page you come around with it. There the pH was also too low to warrant a problem with ammonia and the readings for all nitrogen compounds were zero.

I don’t understand, I’m sorry. What did I do? I don’t want to hurt anyone’s fish.

I suggested that since his tank was less than 3 weeks old and cycled his tank with a bottle nitrifying bacteria solution, he may have been having peaks of ammonia that he didn’t catch. Those products vary wildly, but the one I’ve used worked in a pinch when my filter failed on vacation. I’m not his physician and made it clear that surely there is a more accurate explanation.

Even a little bit of nitrite above a pH of 6 is toxic.

 

[Apistonaut]

Also, at a pH around 6.7, you will still have free ammonia. Much of it will already be ammonium, but it takes time, days. It’s not an instant and miraculous reaction. My wife and I are chemists.

Here the water is slightly alkaline. Free ammonia dominates and I’ve had problems with livestock at these levels early on.

 

[MacZ]

I don’t understand, I’m sorry. What did I do? I don’t want to hurt anyone’s fish

You are not hurting anyone's fish. I'm just bewildered that you recommend bottled bacteria all of a sudden, after already answering and not touching the topic. That's my main point.

 

[Apistonaut]

You are not hurting anyone's fish. I'm just bewildered that you recommend bottled bacteria all of a sudden, after already answering and not touching the topic. That's my main point.

Oh, I was concerned about the Borellii tank because, even with expensive and dilute bacteria in a bottle, the tank is still only 3 weeks old and the user presumably introduced all of the livestock at once. It works, but who knows if it's that fast or his manufacturer's claim is honest.

I truly recommended here that user just squeeze mature filter foam in or use the product that I've had tremendous success with. I would only recommend that If it's something I have used with in an already mature tank with results.

Presumably user's fish here is diseased, regardless of nitrogen values, like you said.
It came as a shock to me that a mature tank at 79f was producing any detectable nitrogen less nitrate.

I didn't suggest any specific disease, but anything is possible with old stressed fish with observable values of nitrogen.

 

[MacZ]

Oh, I was concerned about the Borellii tank because, even with expensive and dilute bacteria in a bottle, the tank is still only 3 weeks old and the user presumably introduced all of the livestock at once.

Then you missed the user's statement that they moved the filter media from the old tank over to the new one right away, in which case there is nothing to worry unless they had doubled the stock.

It came as a shock to me that a mature tank at 79f was producing any detectable nitrogen less nitrate.

Often a result of overcleaning, actually. But I also presume the test kit is not very accurate. As I said, the numbers given are within the error margin and might be fals positives, also if the water is chlorinated with chloramine a rest of ammonium usually shows on tests, to be exact it's almost always 0.5mg/l as given by the user in this thread here.

Hope the misunderstanding is resolved? From my point of view it is.

 

[Apistonaut]

Then you missed the user's statement that they moved the filter media from the old tank over to the new one right away, in which case there is nothing to worry unless they had doubled the stock.


Often a result of overcleaning, actually. But I also presume the test kit is not very accurate. As I said, the numbers given are within the error margin and might be fals positives, also if the water is chlorinated with chloramine a rest of ammonium usually shows on tests, to be exact it's almost always 0.5mg/l as given by the user in this thread here.

Hope the misunderstanding is resolved? From my point of view it is.

Everything is well. I came here for the sole purpose of observing, learning, and sharing.
My contribution towards the levels of nitrogen are necessary out of caution.