6 replies to this topic

[Toad Drool]

Hi,

 

I have 4 largish?? Southern Longear Sunfish in a 55 gallon tank.  A few weeks ago I left on vacation and ended up leaving them on their own for 14 days.  This is when I first noticed problems.  The room they were in was really warm and so was the water temperature.  I keep these with some goldfish (all fish have been together since Sept 2018).  As soon as I came back I noticed that some of the goldfish were missing scales and some of the Sunfish seemed to have peeled skin.  Almost everyone recovered in the last 3 weeks.  I have though noticed that 1 of my Sunfish has gotten worse in terms of peeling.  I'm not even sure that that is what it is.  I will attach a picture and those little white strips coming off the skin are now almost all over the body.  I see the fish is mostly acting normally but it will violently shake often and scratch/rub itself on a rock.  I've been keeping the tank at around 70 degrees for the last 3 weeks with the use of AC in the room that it is in.  

 

My question is, could this be a parasite?  If so, why present itself now?  I have not added anything at all to the tank since I put the fish in excepts some oak leaves, the branches they were attached to and a few sweetgum fruit many months ago.  All were steamed using a water bath for more than 30 minutes before adding to the tank.  The leaves and tannins are now gone, should I reintroduce them?  

 

Thanks.

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[Matt DeLaVega]

Could be gill flukes causing scratching and these scrapes are just a result.

[Toad Drool]

THanks, I will look into these.

[sbtgrfan]

Add salt to the tank, Id take it to 5 ppm. Parasites and diseases can pop up out of nowhere sometimes regardless of how long youve had them without adding anything.
Sounds like there mightve been some aggression if you have scale loss and torn fins, which can lead to secondary infections.

[Toad Drool]

Thanks.  I have noted aggression in the tank from the sunnies.

[Toad Drool]

So I had taken out two "runts" of this group of Sunfishes about a month and a half ago and placed them in a ten gallon with some goldfish.  The goldfish had been in the tank without problems since November of 2018.   I notice aggression right away, the sunnies kept chasing the goldfish.  After 1 week though one of the runts died.  Not sure what happened.  Then I started noticing cloudy water and I began doing frequent water changes.  I keep the tank bare, no decorations or anything else, just two ferns floating around.  Fish seemed healthy, I added a second filter thinking the water quality should recover, and kept up with the water changes.  

 

Yesterday I was feeding them some wax worms (really only the sunfish eats them) and I keep the tank next to my office desk.  I noticed nothing out the ordinary.  I came to the office today and its a disaster.  I am having a hard time figuring out what this is.  I am thinking its much the same of what is happening with the big guys but magnified.

 

The last picture shows the sunfish, he is the least affected but still has much the same symptoms.  Could this be Columnaris??

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Edited by Toad Drool, 08 August 2019 - 11:14 AM.

[Matt DeLaVega]

My $.02 diagnosis would be a fungal fin rot. DYODD.  If there is a fin rot treatment with both an antibiotic and antifungal, I would try that. Good luck.