# A little help



## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

My curvicept is not looking well. He's been sick for a week now and I am not sure what is going on. I have used Melafix for the allotted 7 days and tonight I do the water change. 

Curvi is fairly still and his fins are clamped. He will come out and act normal to eat, but otherwise he spends about 90% of the remaining time sitting on the floor of the tank in one of 3 spots has deemed appropriate for this situation. 2 are very hidden, and this one I caught him at is out in the open. 

He has a red area below his gill plate that appears to only be on one side. There does not appear to be anything on his gills themselves. His fins are fine. He does not have any ich. I put in 2 new Von Rios about 2 weeks before he stared acting like this. Those fish appear very healthy so if they brought it in, they are just the ones passing it on and not suffering the disease itself. 

Here is a picture of him- My camera has a very hard time with close up pictures and I have no idea why. I am fairly certain that the red is just because that is where his fin meets his body, but it seems more red than usual. I don't stare at him much in that way so it could just be totally normal. 



















He is only a little clamped in these pics. He has been much more clamped at times. Also he never sits still and now he has been sitting still long enough for me to take 14 pictures.

Any idea on what it could be and if so the best treatment? I do have a little bit of Aquarisol but I only want to use that if it's going to work, because of how little I have left.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

What else is in the tank, it could be hiding from a more aggressive fish or it could just be feeling unwell. Are the tetra at all nippy? I don't see any obvious disease sign, so I don't know what to recommend. Any other changes, is the tank cold?


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

Tank is not cold- I increased temp from 76 to 80 when he first got sick in case it was an onset of ich. 

He has been in this same tank with these same fish for over 2 years now. I put in 2 new von rio tetras 3 weeks ago. None of the fish are aggressive really. They chase each other for short periods of time but that's about it. I got the 2 new Rio's because I had a loner in there and wanted to get him some friends. 

This is the tank that crashed a bit ago and so he might be more susceptible to disease. I lost 2 fish out of that fiasco over the course of about a month later. 

I did not test the water just yet- I just put lotion on my hand before I thought to get the most recent readings. I will have those later today. 

Tank inhabitants are in my signature.


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## lohachata (Jan 27, 2006)

obs.....if you need more aquari sol let me know..


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

Good plan John, thanks. I am going to do a WC tomorrow, can't do it tonight, then I am going to start Aquarisol treatment. He continues to eat, and is still less clamped than original. Originally it looked like he had a line for a tail rather than a tail. Hopefully the Aquarisol will finish the trick. I'd hate to loose him, him and my rubberlipped pleco that refuses to grow are my favorites.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Only red on one side, eh? hmmm.. infection or blood vessel damage are typical causes. I'm going with infection due to the other symptoms. Is he bloated? Looks kinda fat.


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## C. King (Dec 14, 2012)

some parasites mess with the gills, too.


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

He won't sit still facing the other direction long enough for me to look at that fin connection LOL. So it might be red there too. 

He has always been big, but I thought it might be bloat so I started feeding only Spirulina for the last several days. That might be helping. He seems to slowly be coming out of whatever it is. I am going to continue to feed just the Spirulina for the next few days then let everyone go back to having a varied diet. I figure for a short period of time just the one kind of food won't cause any harm. 

He continues to rest in one of 3 places at any given time, but is getting around the tank a bit more, and he is not all that clamped anymore. His caudal fin is at full ray now, even when rested. His dorsal is still somewhat clamped but it's better. The furthest back portion is not clamped much at all. So he seems to be on the mend. 

I'm not going to use the Aquarisol unless things go downhill again.


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