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Pygmy Cory infected.

Actualy all this tends me to think What the hell am i doing? Why dont i just leave these lovely tiny creatures where they belong? In South America!.. :( And just stick with the plants.. I'll guess thats what i''ll do for the future.. For the same reason i stoped angling as a sport years ago, because their is nothing sportive about it when you don't do it to catch food. I guess wisdom only comes with the years and some sorrows..

Since i have now what i got.. I only can be the best father i can be...
 
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No it's not that :) i had pets dying before (of old age) it's just the ignorance of the majority that makes other people think they are dealing with commercial products instead of living creatures with feelings. I didn't fish them out of south America, i ask somebody uncappable to fish them out of a tank for me so i can take them home, don't know what happend before that.. And this probably happend to them several times before they ended up in my tank. Hence they are stressed, i would be too. And all the big boys, i mean those large multinational petshops wallmarts etc. taking over the market and distroying all small enthousiastic and specialized small shops, they almost all are gone because they cant compete with the big boys.And there we are being served by cheap labor with some affinities. At least that is how it works around here, only can speak for that.. Sera doesnt give a flying figure as long as they sell they sell you crap only to make you buy more crap.. Thats why i'm building so far as i can everything myself around my tank. They get ZIP from me if i can do it myself.. It's a pitty i can't make the fish myself. :)

Take for example the gold fish, that's the most misunderstood animal in the world.. Millions and millions go down the drain each year, just like that. Like it is fun to do..

I was just thinking out loud and sharing a thought and a feeling.. And can't help feeling little responsable as well.. The authorities should do that, but nobody seems to be able to make them understand, they also are to bussy counting money. I hope our children do a better job and that is again our job. Teaching them not to be ignorant and above all do not lie to yourself. That's the most distructive thing you can do. :)

Signed Donkey jote. :)

BTW im proud to be a UKAPS member, you guys are OK!!
 
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Another one died yesterday :( this one


Here you clearly see the eratic swim movements like its capsizing all the time.. It swims like it's laying around, on its side. Makes strange loops and gasps for air all the time. Healthy corys also like to lay around being lazy, but you wont see the gills move and always lay straight with there little fins standing proud.
If you look realy closely, you can see the bite marks of the trichodina like very light neon like blueish spots on their side. Even if they apair healthy i guess thats an early sign.
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Latter also the belly will look slightly swollen and gets the same blueish color shine it can be most likely only one side is infected. This you will see much clearer in dimmed light. When the infection already has affected the eye, so it becomes grey like in the picture above, there is litlle hope of recovery.

For a Pygmea Cory those Trichodina's are realy dangerous vampires, they cant survive them for long.. Please be very carefull with them.. And if you ever see them in a shop packed in a small tank with other nerveous fish, so they get stressed and suscaptible for infection because of that.. Kick the managers bottoms, call the WSPA walk out and never look back.
 
Poor corys.
Are they being medicated now with prazi or are you waiting for the fluke solve?

If you think any of them are dying, you could still try dipping it in a tank water dosed malachite green/formalin combo as a last resort for a minute or two only, to get the parasites off. I am not sure what the dosage and duration would be. Or in a stronger solution of praziquantel as per the scientific article. That may either kill the cory faster from the stress or possibly help. The prazi may not be fast enough for heavily infested fish with weak immune system.

Other then that, the corys do die like that, losing balance at the end, laying on their sides regardless of what's causing it. That cory certainly seems in distress, probably breathing issues as a consequence. .It must be really horrible watching them drop off like flies like that.
 
Yup they are on a long term prazi bath, just as Dr. Fiona advised it looks like its helping.. Still waiting on the fluke solve to arive.. I did bring that Colombo stuff back and told the seller Colombo can stick it where the sun doesn't shine. I told him to take a look at Dr. Fiona's products, but as i expected again i ran into ignorance, he said that Colombo stuff is also developed by a fish Dr. So and So. And the warning in the instructions is nothing but jurisprudence and was certain that if Fluke Solve was on the Dutch market it would need about the same content in the user manual as Colombos stuff. Blablabla he using that Colombo stuff for ages on his ponds and never had a negative review from his customers. Unbelievable, hes a nice knowledgable guy but still ignorant and feeling pinched in the bottoms ofcourse by my findings against his advice, like he and his costumers have ponds full of corys and tetras. Never mind!! Have a nice day, todeloo!!! Lots of people cant make the difference anymore between positive feedback and critics and instantly feel and act like they have to defend.

I'll stick with that for now and not going to fiddle around with them, they are just to easily stressed. In this state they are in, chasing them around and dipping them in all kind of stuf will only make it worse then better.. I'm trying things, like Daphnia, White Moscito, Arthemia and blood worm, They ignore the first three but i finaly got them to eat good on blood worms, the whole tank seems to like it and goes frenzy on it, that kinda triggers them to come to the party as well. I see no more pinched fins and only one of them still breathing a bit heavy but kinda holding on and also joining and eating .

It is indeed horrible to watch all the time and the thing is, this tank is so young i have to spend a few hours a day to help it mature and fight things off. If i walk away for a week just not to have to watch it.. The tank will be ruined. I did put some plants in there with hair algea on it, i knew wath i was doing and knew this is going to be a nice batlle, which i can win, but it will take work and dailly dedication hunting that stuff down to help the plants fight it off. So the down side now is, i see those little corys struglle all the time in front of my eyes, it sometimes just gets to me looking at it and can do much about it. The powerless rage, sometimes..

Seems like Sera is using alcohol to delute the prazi, when i administered the second dose of prazi i saw a huge bacterial bloom developing, That was crazy i saw patches of green algea on the wood, the ones that normaly give it a nice patina realy starting to shine flouresent green. I thought omg what is happening to me? This cant be true, its going to become a total disaster if it goes on like this. Did a 25% water change and luckily at all settled down again and is back to normal. Pfew.. Have to go trough some more WC before i can put the fluke solve in i guess ill get in a couple of days the tank will be ready for that by then.
 
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You know, some fish can be too long gone and can't recover always even with the right treatment.
When you got them they were already heavily infested and these things could have affected a number of places inside the fish depending on the progress of the disease.

Yes, most prazi meds use some sort of alcohol to help the prazi dissolve. There's a proper name but I can't remember. Fluke solve is friendlier stuff.
Water changes are good. They'll remove most parasites from the water column and filter and substrate when you do cleanings so the fish don't get an overload.
I'd do bigger than 25% water changes, 50% at a time if possible.
 
That's what i've seen with the first 2 dying, first they show improvement and died anyway during that... So still i see improvements by the other right now.. Better appetite even better skin, fins standing up. But i realy can not judge from that if they will make it.. I expect at least 2 more to go, since they have the eye infected, altough i see one even with slight improvent in its eye color, the black is starting to shine trough again.. All i can do is wait and see..
I choose for a more freqeunt 25% WC because i possibly need the prazi in there somewhat and need to have it out before i put the fluke solve in. If i would do 50% i probably have to add more prazi (+more alcohol - im afraid to get a green drunken sailor again you know.) after that and wait it out. Thats why i go for a 25% every 3 days thats about 12 days for a 100% and by than ill have the fluke solve.

I discussed this also with Fiona, she assured me the Fluke Solve is powder based and has no other ingredients with side effects. Its 50% Prazi and since it isn't pattented yet 50% secrets. Which i can understand, thrust here completely and don't have to know now. btw thanks for putting me in touch with here. She seems a very honest person and gives proper advise without giving the feeling that she does it by expedience, lovely woman. Asked here to merry me, but no go, i have the wrong fish probably.. lol
 
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See the problem is you need the concentration of prazi to be the recommended one all the time if you want it to be effective. Otherwise you could be creating resistant parasites and not helping the fish and thus prazi will render ineffective.
I honestly wouldn't worry about the algae right now but it's your tank of course. That can be sorted afterwards I would think.
Or if you don't want to treat the tank, setup a second tank where you can dose properly.
 
I know what you mean :) but i dont see it so drastic that those beasts get resistant in a few days. Fiona shipped the med last wednesday. I had a prazi threat about 2 days before that for 6 hours with a 50% wc after that, so there still was 50% prazi in the tank. When Fiona said do a long term bath i did put in to much because in all the fuz i didn't take the first dose in account. I guess the bloom was because of a slight overdose. There for i did a 25% wc straight after that.. Not for the darn algea, but still it was a scary look to see a bacto bloom so quick and heavily comming up in a few hours.

And since we have the tunnel now UK isn't the end of the world anymore. I'll guess its here by monday. I order sometimes from Banggood and they have a UK warehouse, this is always delivered in less than a week also. And i have to have the Prazi out as much as possible by than. Thats one WC today and one more 50% monday at least thuesday before the Fluke Solve goes in. Any other way all that drastic fiddling with and in the tank doesnt do the other fish no good as well, they will get stressed to and since infections like this are commenly stress related. I olso got 7 Otos which are known to be very easily stressed and die off it. And 11 skittish amber tetra's. Whit all i have done by now 2 corys died anyway.. I hope my head doesnt explode before i get that stuff..

And as you said it's quite commen to have inactive trichodina in lots of tanks, as long as the fish are strong and healthy they fight it off them selfs. The others still do very fine and show no signs of anything out of the ordenary.
 
The Fluke Solve arrived this morning and the Kanaplex arived yesterday :) administered already the first dose Fluke solve.. 7 of the 9 Cory's are still alive, 3 of them are not in the best shape and have the eyes infected, 1 is still looking the worst and pale. But all are still eating and holding on till now. The Fluke solve discription says at least a 24 hour treatment. It's a powder type medicine, it comes in a sachet of 10 grams with a 1 gram 2,5ml scoop, for 250 liter. With my 43 liters i need 1/5 the dose, used a 5ml laboratory measure cilinder to measure a tiny bit less then 0,5 ml. I leave it in there for a couple of weeks as adviced. And have to make a stock solution from 0.5 ml powder to level te dose back after the weekly 25% WC. After that i will give them a kanaplex treatment in case there are some internal or external bacterial infections because of the wounds. Good thing that still since it is prohibited to import antibiotics the customs didn't notice and i received the Kanaplex so fast from the states.

Nice to have it in my aquarium med case.. after this incident taking place after a fresh start it feld like a sudden dip in the deep, feels good to be prepared for the coming 3 years or to be able to help somebody in the same position. Lets hope not and i have to throw it away instead after the exp. date..

Thanks again Science Fiction for all the given good advice!!
 
Let's hope they recover completely with the prolonged treatment.
If you decide to treat with antibacterial afterwards, make sure all the prazi is gone out completely but not before the full course of treatment maintaining the recommended dosage. A bit extra of this particular med is better than a bit lower.
Carbon also should help with removal along with water changes to get it out faster.

Otherwise, I think it's recommended to wait at least a couple of weeks after a fluke solve treatment before treating with any other meds.
And whether you treat with antibacterial or not will all depend whether you see full recovery or not during the next few weeks with fluke solve. The cloudy eye could be a bacterial infection going on at the same time. If that stays the same and fish have gone fine through the fluke solve, then if it were me I'd probably give a shot to the kanaplex too eventually.

Also, hopefully it doesn't happen, but if a cory dies, I'd test under the microscope again, especially the affected areas. Some parasites are topical and won't be caught from all over the body. It's not uncommon for fish to have multiple parasite infections at the same time, especially those that come from who knows what environment...

But fingers crossed, it goes away with the fluke solve soon. It's not a bad sign that 7 are still going. I am sure that those that were still left in the shop are probably dead by now.
 
Already got a box of carbon standing ready :), as fiona recomended a longer term prazi bath which they now already had for then days i guess a 10 more days with fluke solve would be sufficient to kill all flukes and worms. She said that prazi will stay at least 3 weeks in the tank after stopping the threatment, so i have to wait that out anyway, before loading them with the Kana.

Till now they are holding on very good as far i can judge.. That's the hardest part, judging fish only by their behaivor, it's easy to say "Oh they are doing fine.." but can't realy know what's going on in there. If the treatment helps or only will prolonge their suffering. Only can wait and see.. 4 of them still look pretty healthy from the start, they are the strongest i hope they pull the other 3 trough with triggering them to join the dinner table as well and gather strenght again. I kinda see them pack together when it's feeding time. So thats looks like a good thing.

I'll keep you updated.. :)

I think also that the ones left in the shop are long gone by know, maybe he made a nice profit as well selling meds to unknowing customers.. I never set a foot in that shop again and tell everybody i know not to do so if they love their animals and want to spent money on them. Not to spent it on that criminal idiot...
 
If they are feeding, it's a good sign that they can still recover. Fish gone beyond treatment don't normally feed anymore. So there's still hope for these 3.

I'd keep the prazi as long as she suggested. You didn't maintain the higher dose for the previous period of time so I wouldn't count that period for much. You need to knock out that parasite for good this time to make sure. Then move on once you are sure the previous treatment is done as it should have.
It's not just about the duration, it's about the active dose at any given time. Any lowering the dose gave chance to the parasite to re-multiply and even get immune.
 
They are still holding on and i guess making progress, i see them more often. :). Yesterday i saw all 7 of them for the first time scholing together, that was nice to see, usealy they go around in pairs or trios and hiding a lot. And i have to search the whole tank and all tiny corners, don't want dead fish laying around. One of theme, remarkable enough the most active of them, feeding well and digging his head all the time in the soil, no hanging fins, has faded its colors, like its turning Albino.. Both eyes where like gone and the black stripe also nearly gone and looking rather almost transparant.. But this morning it seems getting a bit color back again even in it eyes. It's so active it's hard to get a good picture of it.
iMVIXsS.jpg

There is an other one with just one side of his body infected and also a grey eye, acting normal, feeding and all still does a little scratching some times, but not all the time.

Maybe it's like how it works whit us humans, being irrtated by the created antibodys when we are healing from sicknes ot wounds.. The fluke solve seems to solve something. Already more active in the 4th day of treatment..

Thanks for asking..
 
I know and the strange thing is, he doesn't act stressed at all, he's active, scholing with the tetra's, feeding, digging. like nothing is bothering him.. But looks more dead than alive..
We shall see if he will make it.. I hope so..
 
I guess so, i call him Quasy Cory if he stays like that.. :)
 
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