what is wrong with my fish? help!

[wtfitzphat]

I'm not sure where this thread belongs so please move it if you must, mods.

Well so this is my uncle's flowerhorn fish. He's leaving town and he wants me to take care of it. It has these little lesions on his fins....and also where the fins attach to the body. i could somewhat see his meat? i guess you can say meat? lol I'll try and take better pictures.

so far what I have done was put the fish in a 10 gallon tank with water used from my 55gal tank that has puffers so yes it has all that good micros stuff and I put some rocks in the 10gallon that also originated from my 55 gallon. i put some ick droplets and some 1/4 of a fungus tab in the 10 gallon tank as well.

Any help/suggestions; I would be very grateful. Thanks

[stephclay]

make sure there is a sponge filter in the 10 gal.
thats not ick, looks like a fungus and has been opened. was he scratchig?

try Melafix, works well for freshwater

[ManTis]

add salt to water...just enough...
raise temp to 85 or so...
add melafix and primafix...

pm me i can u a run out there for a charge....
flowerhorns and arowanas are my specialty....
i maintain FW tanks and Koi ponds as a side job...

thanks
michael

[wtfitzphat]

raise temp to 85? is that a lil too high? how much salt....the 10 gallon is only filled 2/5 of the tank.....it needs a filter really? damn't should i just throw him in my 55 gallon along with my 2 small puffers and shrimps? hahah this is my uncles fish man i'm just tryin to help the fish so it wont die im not rich hahaha

[wtfitzphat]

and no he doesn't scratch. he just lays there all day.

so raise temp, add how much salt? and should i feed him? i have thrown in 3 shrimps in there hoping he would eat it. ill check later today and see. its 4:04am right now. hahahah

[iVgOnMaD]

add two table spoons of aquarium salt to the 10g, raise temp to 85 but make sure you fill the 10g to the top first and if he doesn't eat the live try some flakes or something that wont be too hard for him to catch

[pako73]

Before I got in to SW reefs I used to do FW for a few years and housed Flower Horns in my tank. With that said, from the looks of your fish I'm sorry to say that it looks like its a goner. Flower Horns IMHO are hard to take care of and that's why I converted my tanks to salt.

Good luck!!!

[wtfitzphat]

okay so he's dead. hahaahhah those 3 shrimps i put in there.......i washed them and put it back into my 55gal tank. hahahaha i'll use the flowerhorn as fish fertilizer

[Haeun]

Your uncle mad?

[greyhoundfan]

Your uncle mad?

Yeah.. he shouldn't be..after he left the fish in that condition. drastic measures like that should call for a potassiaum permanganate dip.

[Skywalker71]

Sorry for your loss puto.

[wtfitzphat]

well i'm not sure. i have only had the fish for a week since he left to asia. he's coming back mid january hahahah its gon' be funny when i tell him, "it died a couple of days after u gave it to me". hahahahhaha oh well. man its fun having a ton of shrimps in your tank watch them glide around and stuff is pretty dope. and my pea size puffers won't even touch or eat the shrimp...they'll just glare at it ....and either they are afraid to attack it...or maybe they can't see the shrimp anymore? hence they are ghost shrimps. hahahahah

[wtfitzphat]

and what is potassiaum permanganate dip?

[greyhoundfan]

and what is potassiaum permanganate dip?

PP is a cleaning agent that oxidizes organic matter. It will basically wipe out anything in your tank. So it should be used sparingly and carefully.

PP comes in a powder form and can be found at pool supply stores, Sears in the water heater section or pond supply stores. When I tried to find it locally people just look at me as if I was speaking martian. So I found it on ebay from a koi vendor. A little bit goes a long way.

I fill up a drinking plastic water bottle and put about 1/8th TSP or less of the PP powder in there and mix it. The water will turn DARK, DARK purple.

Others will profess to use exact measurements and percentages, but I'm not that smart and don't have an electric scale to measure it.

I apply a few drops at a time to my tank till the water becomes medium shade of purple.. about the exact color of this smiley emoticon.

Let it stay in your tank until the tank water turns into a copperish color. This means it has completely oxidized and will have lost its effectiveness. DO NOT leave your tank for a moment, this will stress your fish for a bit as it will burn and irritate their gills if you put too much. Make sure you have heavy aeration. If you see your fish getting too stressed from the treatment, splash in a TBS of Hydrogen Peroxide, this will immediately neutralize the PP.

After your treatment is done, drain your water and replace. You'll need to do more WCs in the next few days b/c your bio-filter will take a hit. Repeat this at least twice, with a 24 hr break in between. I've been given this advice from various discus breeders. I even did this with my own discus, to rid them of pesky body fungus that salt couldn't thwart. It totally cleared their body and they don't come back so long as you keep up with your WC and quality.

This will work for external problems not recommended for internal problems.