Ghost lying on side.

[dadzilla50]

Folks: My BGK has been fighting an illness for almost 4 weeks now. He's still hanging in there and started to eat again about a week ago. Eats some plankton and bloodworms again.

He had a gray/white area around his mouth. We treated it with Melafix/Pimafix (did nothing), then triple sulfa (seemed to stabilize him), and recently 5 days of Maracyn/Maracyn2. He started eating again and moving around a little better during the Maracyn regimen.

He still stays in his tube more than usual and occasionally lies curled on his side (which I don't remember him doing much before).

Water parameters are pretty good (ammonia 0, nitrites 0 and nitrates 8-10) and I've done a 50% water change following the maracyn regimen plus I put the charcoal back in the filter.

During the Maracyn regimen I lost one other fish and today I lost an angelfish. Both showed no lumps, spots, fungus, frayed fins, etc. but they went off their feed, became listless and died.

Any ideas? We're still newbies and I feel so guilty when I lose fish because of our ignorance. I'd sure like to save the ghost.

[bryce2003]

Mate I don't think ignorance has anything to do with it. From the sounds of it you have tried pretty much everything you could. I was going to suggest that it could be internal parasites etc but the pimafix should have sorted that out. As far as Maracyn goes I couldn't say as I have never heard of it let alone used it. The only other thing I could suggest is that maybe 1 of the other fish in your tank could be causing hassles , that being stressing out the other fish. What other fish have you got in the tank as this may be able to help people out in trying to pin the problem down.
Cheers,
Bryce.

[ineverdrinkwater]

right this is a resonalby good cure. Obviously without a photo its hard to tell but i guess it could be a fungus. Unless this is not good with ABGK and i havent heard it isnt (although I'm sure someone will say if this is the case) quarentine the fish (if you can - if not you'll just have to do it in the tank) - doesnt have to be a very big tank its not going to be for long. In the quarentine tank (or normal tank depending on if you can do it) put the heater temperature up to about 86 - this wont kill your fish and to be really sure make sure your wacking loads of oxygen in by either making the filter hit the surface and cause bubbles or a bubble rock etc. Now put in the correct dosage of aquarium salt and wait and see.


Its a pretty good cure that solves alot of problems. Good luck boss and tell us how it gets on.