Well a couple of weeks ago we took our fish out of the pond and moved them to the 75 gallon aquarium which we have set up in our basement. One of the fish acted like he was in shock. He swam funny like he had no balance, kept his mouth open constantly, and had scratches on both sides of his gills. We took him out and we could manually close his mouth and looked closely but couldn't see anything in his throat caught, but we pressed gently on his throat to see if we could loosen anything that might be caught.
I put him in salt water and for a week watched him and hoped he would snap out of it. I also treated him and all the fish for external parasites but I saw none on any of the fish that were in the pond. Well after a week he still wouldn't eat but at the beginning of the second week I noticed white stuff coming out of his left gill!
I have no idea what it was so I decided to add Melafix to his water. It didn't look fuzzy like a fungus but more fleshy or maybe like puss? (I know, how gross!
) After being on the Melifix treatment for 4 days he perked up, no more discharge from the left gill, and his swimming became more stable. I was so happy that he made an improvement but he still wouldn't eat anything. The 7th day I did a water change and decided to treat with the big guns. What did I have to lose? After 2 weeks of being ill and not eating I thought this fish is a goner if I don't at least try.
So I treated with RID ICH + and after the first day of treatment he started eating the morning of the second day!!YAY! So I think he is on the mend.
I still have no idea what was wrong. None of my books had any of the symptons for diseases that my fish had.
I hope he lives. He has one more day of treatment with the RID ICH meds. Then I will do a water change the next day and probably now that he is eating, I will start him on antibiotic fish food.
Anyone have any ideas of what could have ailed my fish???
Thanx!
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