bleeding botia striata in QT

[ulthipster]

Hi everyone,
I've searched the archives etc. but can't find anything about my situation... I've been qt'ing 6 botia striatas and treated with levamisole. I then treated with prazi which was prob. a mistake, since this is when the one loach shows blood on his belly and skin looks torn. Very strange.... not sure what to do now. Ph is 7.2, using cycled sponge.... just did a 3 gallon h20 change..... Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks
-Tracey

[Diana]

Is this an external injury, for example did the fish scrape himself on something in the tank? Did one of the other fish attack this one?

Is this an internal bleeding? See if you can find some pictures of internal bacterial infection. The redness is under the skin.

[ulthipster]

I would say it's an internal bacterial infection though one of the two now seems to have "flaking" bloody skin near the bloody red area/belly. God, it's awful, they are so cute and look horrendous. I thought prazi was super safe and didn't think deworming would be so harsh if they were infected. Didn't run into anything like this before when I dewormed. Like I said, I did 2 rounds of levamisole and just a few days ago, one round of prazi.

The ph in the qt is a little high...maybe I need to use amquel plus daily to make sure no ammonia is getting to them? I hate lowering my ph since we have such a high buffering in our water....

Don't believe it's any kind of external injury from anything or another loach.... no sharp edges in the qt and both loaches that have the ailment have it on their bellies. Having trouble with the 6 eating consistently as well.

Anyone have suggestions on staple foods for botia striatas? My three healthy ones in my 55 for 6 months now are still picky too. I have tried of course blood worms, which they eat somewhat but do leave some, kensfish.com color bits they seem to like, some flakes but not many, daphnia, and small amounts of shrimp pellets... Luckily they are eating the kanamycin flake from angelsplus.com.

I have read so many different treatment choices for septicemia hemmoraghing(sp) my head spins, but had triple sulfa so used it... Also feeding kanamycin flakes, prob. dangerous doing both .... right?

What does everyone recommend as med of choice these days for this?

Thanks so much for any input.

[wasserscheu]

I personally think, PH 7.2 will most likely not create any trouble. There may be other opinions, for my personal use it´s better to leave ph at 7.2, rather than taking risks of changing ph too much. Sideeffects that may occur during manipulating the water too much. I believe, it´s more important to avoid sudden changes.

Of course I´d prefere water a bit below pH 6.9 myself, but the risk of me fooling around with the water too much is too high. I did that in my youth, tried with all kinds of things to stay below 7. Was not worth the money and the effort (for the needs of the fish I had that time). The manipulation of the water, made the water unstable. I did lowere the hardness, added certain things (at times even phosphoric acic and/or HCL). There was no real benefit, rather backfired. The past years, I successfully just added a little CO2 (20mg/Liter) - and was having nice results. Any manipulation causes other values to change too (electric conductance value, ...).

P.S.: In regards to bacterial infections, hmmm... I was in a similar situation and could not define what problem I´m exactly dealing with. I got some medicine, and after a lot of thinking - and back and forth, I finally did not apply it. The 4 Striatas I lost, I think, I would have lost anyway, as they were already too worn out to recover when I got them. My price for my descission, was loosing all my (striped) kuhli (and there were 18 of them) - I still have the black ones though.
I studied a lot, like you did, and came to the conclusion that bacteria need to be identified and treatet with the right medicine. I had the problem, that my outbreak happened in the main tank. In Quarantine you have much more options, but proceed as strategic as possible avoiding a mix of all kinds of medicines. Non appropriate medication may just weaken the fish even more.

I know, that does not really help you a lot, the diagnose is always the difficult part ...

Good luck.

[wasserscheu]

Here a very nice link, that I got from "Chefkeith" here...

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/h ... ctin.shtml

[Diana]

I would not mix meds. Run one full course per label directions, then clear it out with large water changes and activated carbon before trying another medicine.
If both meds are labeled for use with each other, then it is OK to use a combination.
Even salt should be considered a medicine for these purposes; if a package is not labeled for use in a brackish tank, then do not use it with salt added to the water.

At this point I would stop the anti parasite treatment. Generally parasites will kill fish slower than bacterial issues. Treat this other issue, it may be Septicemia, but is sounds like the fish are pretty far gone.
If they pull through, you can return to parasite treatments if needed.

[ulthipster]

Well, it's been a while since I posted here so wanted to followup... Very strange, I stopped the prazi treatment for my 6 new botias and did water change and added carbon. After 2 days with salt and kanamycin flakes they are all better. It's so weird that the bloody streaks and such went away that quick.... Treatment with the flakes finished and they are in their permanent home of 55 gallons, with my 3 original striatas. I plan to do another deworming treatment in this tank as it has been 6 months...

I'm concerned though, the more I research levamisole online the more I read about serious side effects relating to a fish's nervous system and anorexia like symptoms..

Has anyone on here done levamisole and run into any of this?

Thanks.
=Tracey