Rope Fish got Swollen Gills, breathing Heavily.

Hello

I wonder if you can help?

My one ropefish has swollen gills and breathing heavily.
The fish is pretty lifeless and just lying at the bottom of the tank.
His mate is active, and she is all around him, yet has red gills.


They are fairly new additions to my tank.

The tank is about 3 weeks old, and the ammonia and nitrates are all under control.

I thought it may be ammonia as they live under some driftwood, which is always a place where you cant access to clean.
They are also not eating yet. Both of them.







Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

Hi Gilbert,

If your tank has been running for only three weeks, then the biological filtration is highly unlikely to be fully established and although the ammonia levels may by now be under control, the nitrite levels are most likely not at normal low levels as they should be. Nitrite is taken up via the gills of the fish then causes the hemoglobin, the component of red blood cells that carry the oxygen, to be oxidized to what we call methemoglobin. This methemoglobin cannot carry oxygen any more, so that is why fishes that suffer from nitrite toxicity have to breathe harder. In plain terms nitrite toxicity knocks out a lot of the hemoglobin, whereby the poor fish is suffering from an oxygen shortage. Even if you aerate the water strongly, you will not be able to overcome this problem in this way.

If your rope fish, which is quite a sensitive fish, is showing these symptoms of swollen gills and they do not want to eat, then I think this is exactly the problem that you do have.

One can improve this through some water changes with conditioned water, so I would suggest that you do a 20-30% water change for starters. However the problem does not go away in this way. I would also suggest that you add salt to the tank, one heaped tablespoon per 100 litres. You should feed the other fishes in the tank with LESS food, as the eating of food by the fishes causes them to produce more waste, and therefore more ammonia and the ammonia is converted to nitrite.

It will take a week or to ten days for this situation to improve up until such time as the filter is then fully established.

I would not suggest that you move the fish out of this tank because you will stress him even more and he may die as a result.

Finally, I would suggest that you feed the ropefish specifically with some frozen bloodworm to get them to start feeding. Do not feed a lot and try to get a block of the frozen BW close to their log.

Hope things improve, but it is clearly a case of a new tank syndrome.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thanks Dirk

Will do so.

Will it have made much difference, if I used biological bacteria such as Aquaclear?

 

Whats this Aquaclear? tell me more.....

 

Its a packet of bacteria and a liquid you chick into your tank.
You dont have to wait for the bacteria to build up.

Apparantly.....


I dont seem to get any reading for Amonnia, Nitrats and Nitrites.

Thats with fish in the tank

 

dont know it - the only one i know is Organic Aqua....

 

Sorry thats the one.

 

ah yes - fantastic products. works like a charm

 

do you refill monthly?

 

no i just use it to setup new tanks

 

I think the Aquaclear would have helped, but still think that this problem with this fish is related to new tank syndrome. Has the treatment helped at all?

If you used the nitrite test kits that are sold in the aquarium trade they would give you a result saying that the nitrite levels are very low or not measurable at all. In sensitive fishes such as discus, they could still be suffering from nitrite toxicity because the low levels are still too high, and this is a common cause of discus problems. Rope fish are also sensitive as far as I know and it is also for this reason that I pointed out this problem to you earlier.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Morning Dirk

Yes the treatment has helped the female, she is active.
The male is stlill inactive, but the swelling seems to have resided slightly.

I hear what you saying about the Nitrite tests. I use the Hagen liquid product, and it shows up clear. Should not replace common sense though.