Please help me, my loach is sick (pictures!)

This forum is for all health-related questions on Loaches and other freshwater fish.

Moderator: LoachForumModerators

Post Reply
Kim
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jun 27, 2015 8:55 am
Location: Croatia

Please help me, my loach is sick (pictures!)

Post by Kim » Sun Jul 12, 2015 10:58 am

Hi everyone, first of all I'd like to apologize because I don't know some proper terms, english is not my mother tongue.
I would really appreciate if someone would give my advice, my loach is letargic and has white "smears" on his back. The disease seems to also have attacked his gills because he's breathing is worse than it used to be.
Firstly, I thought it may be some sort of fungus (it looked like silky layer on his back and he was letargic, few times a day he would have a sudden outburst of energy, and started to jump on the surface like he was lacking oxygen), but then I've read about culminaris, "the saddleback disease", and those white "smears" after few days kind of started to form "a saddle" on his back. I bought Furanol plus 250 (http://www.garnelenbaron.at/bilder/prod ... Export.png) and after 5 days (as it says in the instructions) I repeated the treatment because he still had white "smears", but definitely smaller and much much thinner.
He was getting slightly better but I'm not sure if it's ok to repeat the procedure the third time (since he's about 8yo and could be vunerable from a lot of medication). Maybe I was wrong because if this was culminaris, it would probably go away after 2 treatments. What do you think this desease could be? I am worried because today he's again started to breathe heavily, as he used to do before the treatment.

HERE ARE THE PICTURES, you can clearly see the phases of the disease, so if someone knows what disease this is, I would greatly appreciate your help!!! (last pic is after the last treatment) Image

User avatar
mikev
Posts: 3103
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 6:06 pm
Location: NY

Re: Please help me, my loach is sick (pictures!)

Post by mikev » Sun Jul 12, 2015 4:41 pm

Flex (columnaris) are the most likely guess.

Your problem is that the more effective medication is Furan2 (or bi-Furan, another manufacturer of the same med) has two antibiotics in it and they work nicely together, yours has only one of them... so you are seeing partial results. You may be able to fully kill the bug with another five days... or not. So, can you obtain either of these two?

Additionally, if the infection continues unstopped for a while it may get inside the fish, at with point Furan2 becomes almost ineffective and one should use Kanamycin. This is another option for you to consider, Kanamycin alone or together with Furan. In the US, one of the sources of Kanamycin is Seachem's Kanaplex.

Notice that Furan does not usually have any ill effects on fish but extended treatment with Kanamycin (more than 10 days) may lead to kidney damage; either med and especially both together may damage the biofilter, so check ammonia and nitrites daily.

Good luck!

Kim
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jun 27, 2015 8:55 am
Location: Croatia

Re: Please help me, my loach is sick (pictures!)

Post by Kim » Sun Jul 12, 2015 5:10 pm

Would this be ok? I don't think Furan2 is available in my country http://www.jbl.de/en/pond-products/deta ... apond#info
:/

User avatar
mikev
Posts: 3103
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 6:06 pm
Location: NY

Re: Please help me, my loach is sick (pictures!)

Post by mikev » Sun Jul 12, 2015 6:47 pm

Don't know, sorry. It is yet another furan* variation and I've never used it.

Can you get kanamycin? (if not, what about doxycycline or minocycline)? -- and use it while continuing treatment with your 1st med.

Kim
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jun 27, 2015 8:55 am
Location: Croatia

Re: Please help me, my loach is sick (pictures!)

Post by Kim » Sun Jul 12, 2015 9:07 pm

Thank you very much!! I will contact a vet/aquarist tomorrow and see do they know if there are any of these antibiotics available in our country. I'll let you know if I manage to get those antibiotics, maybe I'll need some advice about how to properly combine them. I don't want to mess something up ya know :?

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 52 guests