Yoyo's flashing

[starsplitter7]

Thanks. I am only gathering info for others. I am relatively new. Please don't feel like we are or I am questioning your fish keeping abilities. Just gathering info. Sounds like you have done everything right.

I just lost two large loaches, and I have no idea what happened. Very sad. The rest of my tank is fine and the readings are fine.

At least two other members are from Finland, so maybe they will be able to help.

I have used Aquasafe and Stress Coat with no bad results. Just was expensive. Everyone has their favorite products.

Good luck. Tanja

[aegolius]

Thanks. I am only gathering info for others. I am relatively new. Please don't feel like we are or I am questioning your fish keeping abilities. Just gathering info. Sounds like you have done everything right.

I just lost two large loaches, and I have no idea what happened. Very sad. The rest of my tank is fine and the readings are fine.

At least two other members are from Finland, so maybe they will be able to help.

I have used Aquasafe and Stress Coat with no bad results. Just was expensive. Everyone has their favorite products.

Good luck. Tanja

Questions/opinions/anything is fine! I just wish this problem will be solved with no fatalities/major injury. I love my fishies.

Yes, Aquasafe is very expensive but I'm a bit afraid to try others as I don't know which are good and which are not.

[starsplitter7]

I understand. I have used StressCoat for 4 years, and switching to Prime was hard.

It is the absolute worst to lose fish, so hopefully all the info we have gathered will help someone to help you.

[Ashleigh]

Hi aegolius,

Welcome to LOL Those are some really good photos

I wouldn't be adding water w/o water conditioner to your tank. The conditioner you add breaks down chlorine/chloramines amongst other chemicals etc that has been added to your tapwater. It is possible that chlorine/chloramines contained in the untreated tapwater will have a negative effect on your fish, it can cause problems regarding the gills of the fish. The benefical bacterial housed in your filter will also be negatively affected-it would be possible to send your tank into a mini-cycle by adding untreated tapwater as the chlorine can kill off your benefical bacteria (hense never rinsing your filter pads in tap water).

How long has it been since you added untreated water to the tank in question??

Do you have any of the numbers from testing your water?

You mentioned that when the new 'ones' arrived the flashing started. Did you quarantine the fish before you added them to your main tank?



Ashleigh

I didn't add water conditioner only when medication was on or when I was just about to put it in as water conditioner can also make medication useless.

Where exactly did you hear this? I have never heard of this, nor has it said anything on any of the dechlorinator bottles I use.
As far as I understood, tapwater should always be treated.

Has anyone else heard of this?


Anyhow, when the fish were moved, did they experience any great temp flux's?

Obviously the fish are irritated, by what I don't know. Looking at your water readings, my next guess would be a parasite of some sort or another, but thats only a guess.

Have you considered velvet? I know I didn't, I assumed it was a case of pretty bad ich, funny thing is, nothing was added to the tank. I did treatment after treatment;raising temp, salt, ich clear, interpet amongst others and lost 4/5 fish in the process. Eventually I did a week treatment of protozan I think it called, its by Waterlife anyway. Fish very slowly started to recover. Fish looked fine physically few weeks on, but constant flashing, and I mean constant another 1.5weeks or so of treatment and it was gone.

Not saying in anyway that you should try the above, but sometimes its hard to treat something your not 110% on eventhough the fish are clearly upset.

Hope you somehow get it sorted, but Im not to sure what to suggest


Ashleigh

[aegolius]

Where exactly did you hear this? I have never heard of this, nor has it said anything on any of the dechlorinator bottles I use.
As far as I understood, tapwater should always be treated.

Has anyone else heard of this?


Anyhow, when the fish were moved, did they experience any great temp flux's?

Obviously the fish are irritated, by what I don't know. Looking at your water readings, my next guess would be a parasite of some sort or another, but thats only a guess.

Have you considered velvet? I know I didn't, I assumed it was a case of pretty bad ich, funny thing is, nothing was added to the tank. I did treatment after treatment;raising temp, salt, ich clear, interpet amongst others and lost 4/5 fish in the process. Eventually I did a week treatment of protozan I think it called, its by Waterlife anyway. Fish very slowly started to recover. Fish looked fine physically few weeks on, but constant flashing, and I mean constant another 1.5weeks or so of treatment and it was gone.

Not saying in anyway that you should try the above, but sometimes its hard to treat something your not 110% on eventhough the fish are clearly upset.

Hope you somehow get it sorted, but Im not to sure what to suggest


Ashleigh

It's all over the web, Finnish web at least, but I don't know if it's the same for all meds or just some. I also got the same advice from a pet shop.

Temperature was the same in both tanks so there was hardly any change while moving the fish.

I did consider velvet but the fish don't have any sort of 'dots' visible and hardly any grey skin (except those couple fish and I don't know if it actually is the normal fish colour). All photos I've seen of velvet have been fish full of dots. Waterlife Protozin was the treatment I used for ich. Continued it for two whole weeks, with half a dosage though so could it be that for example velvet has survived it? Should I try it again?

[edit]
In your case did Protozin help right away by decreasing flashing little by little every day, or did it first take two weeks with constant flashing + meds and then *poof* suddenly it was gone?

Now that I think about it all of the symptoms match velvet. How big grains of dust usually velvet has (did the flashlight test but couldn't see any sort of golden dust)? Could the grains be so small you can't necessarily see them? Flashing has been continuing for a couple months already so whatever it is it obviously isn't very fatal. Another thing I have noticed is that when feeding the fish with their favourite food (which makes everyone go crazy and attack the same piece) flashing increases if the fish touch each other. Is velvet something that transfers from fish to fish by touch very easily?

So hmm.. should I do another dose of praziquantel just in case before moving to another treatment, or start with Protozin right away?

[andre]

I wonder whether it is actually the praziquantel which cause the flashing. Its side effects include:

Sensitivity reactions: Urticaria, rash, pruritus and eosinophilia in White Blood Counts.

[aegolius]

I wonder whether it is actually the praziquantel which cause the flashing. Its side effects include:

Sensitivity reactions: Urticaria, rash, pruritus and eosinophilia in White Blood Counts.

Don't know. Flashing was there long before I tried prazi + prazi should now be gone and flashing continues.

[aegolius]

I now have started Protozin again. Any suggestions what would be a good dosage? Obviously half a dose because of loaches but do I put half a dose on days 1,2,3,6 once each day or twice a day (as I've seen mentioned here somewhere)? Would it be better to keep lights off while treatment or at least reduce lighting to lets say 4+4 hours a day? How soon can I expect some improvement if this stuff is working at all? Should I feed the fish normally? Should I vacuum the bottom a bit each day or will it make treatment less effective? Sorry to bother you with all these questions.

[Teacakesin]

Hello,

Following moving house I've had a lot of trouble with my yoyos and clowns flashing. Seems they are very sensitive to the water here-nothing else has drastically chnaged in my system other than that- the pH is 7.4 and it is fairly hard here. As they prefer soft acidic water it is obvious they wouldn't be too happy with those perameters... Have been using peat extract and a buffer and they seem much happier now and no flashing! PH down to 6.5 and medium soft now.

Don't know if your new loaches might have been used to different perameters?

Hope this might help....

Also (probably obvious ) if you do decide to chnage any perameters do it very slowly so you don't stress your fish!

Good luck!

[aegolius]

Hello,

Following moving house I've had a lot of trouble with my yoyos and clowns flashing. Seems they are very sensitive to the water here-nothing else has drastically chnaged in my system other than that- the pH is 7.4 and it is fairly hard here. As they prefer soft acidic water it is obvious they wouldn't be too happy with those perameters... Have been using peat extract and a buffer and they seem much happier now and no flashing! PH down to 6.5 and medium soft now.

Don't know if your new loaches might have been used to different perameters?

Hope this might help....

Also (probably obvious ) if you do decide to chnage any perameters do it very slowly so you don't stress your fish!

Good luck!

Hey there. The new ones might have had different parameters but introducing them to the tank would also make the old ones flash? Our water has always been very soft, pH from the tap is 8 but it goes down to 7 when in tank. I don't think I'm going to try changing any parameters as the old ones have had the same parameters for about 10 years already. I don't really want to take a risk. With my luck something bad would definately happen.

I am now treating the tank as if the fishies have velvet (it seems most obvious right now) and hope it's going to work. As no one answered my previous post I am now giving half a dose 12 hours apart (which equals to full strenght dosage a day). Scream now if I should reduce it! Also the lights are on only 4+2 hours a day.

[Ashleigh]

Hey there. The new ones might have had different parameters but introducing them to the tank would also make the old ones flash? Our water has always been very soft, pH from the tap is 8 but it goes down to 7 when in tank. I don't think I'm going to try changing any parameters as the old ones have had the same parameters for about 10 years already. I don't really want to take a risk. With my luck something bad would definately happen.

I am now treating the tank as if the fishies have velvet (it seems most obvious right now) and hope it's going to work. As no one answered my previous post I am now giving half a dose 12 hours apart (which equals to full strenght dosage a day). Scream now if I should reduce it! Also the lights are on only 4+2 hours a day.

Sorry I missed this post! When I was treating mine, I did a half dose every 24hrs like the treatment stated. A water change was done prior to each treatment, during which one third of the substrate was cleaned, on days I didnt dose, I didn't do water changes. Lights were off for the entire duration, fish fed every other day. Water level was dropped to increase o2 levels as much as possible.

Everyone is different with regards to how they treat their fish, the above worked for me, and was a last option after everything failed, I went through treatment after treatment, and to be honest I half expected to come down to half a tank of dead fish each morning.

Just treat how you think is best, try not to differ to much on how much you dose; ideally you should start to see some sort of improvement within a week-well thats what I would expect, again depends what your treating its difficult when you dont know.


Hope the little guys start to get better soon

Ashleigh

[tender]

Aquasafe is not harmfull in any way. It might not help anything, but its a harmless product. I`m from Norway and we probably have the same kind of water-quality.

[aegolius]

Sorry I missed this post! When I was treating mine, I did a half dose every 24hrs like the treatment stated. A water change was done prior to each treatment, during which one third of the substrate was cleaned, on days I didnt dose, I didn't do water changes. Lights were off for the entire duration, fish fed every other day. Water level was dropped to increase o2 levels as much as possible.

Everyone is different with regards to how they treat their fish, the above worked for me, and was a last option after everything failed, I went through treatment after treatment, and to be honest I half expected to come down to half a tank of dead fish each morning.

Just treat how you think is best, try not to differ to much on how much you dose; ideally you should start to see some sort of improvement within a week-well thats what I would expect, again depends what your treating its difficult when you dont know.


Hope the little guys start to get better soon

Ashleigh

Thanks for helping out. If I understood right you treated the tank for 2.5 weeks? After the first week on which days did you give a dose?

From now on I think I'm going with the same water changes you did and feed the fish only every other day. Don't know yet if I should put the lights off completely.