[url]http://www.fish-disease.com/fish-disease.htm[/url]

A website for Fish Disease Diagnosis.

Basic info:
Temperature 70 to 80 degrees ?

check pump & tubing to increase aeration

Filtration systems
clean filter, tubing

Ammonia/nitrite
measure for unsafe levels, perform water change or treat with chemical neutralizer

Water clarity and cleanliness
Do not over feed, check for dead animals, check filters


Sounds like either one of these:

[b]Ich (a.k.a. White Spot)[/b]
Symptoms:

Fish infected with Ich will have pure white, salt-like spots approximately 1 millimeter in size on their body and fins. Fins are most often affected first. If their gills become infected, the fish will show increased gill movements. These white spots, or cysts, may join together to form irregular white patches. If left untreated, the spots will slowly advance to cover the whole body and fins (6-24 hours). Fish with Ich may rub or scrape on rocks or gravel in an attempt to relieve irritation. Redness and blood streaks will appear on both the body and fins as the condition worsens. Its fins will deteriorate as the parasites burrow into the flesh destroying it. Fishes that are infected do not show early sickliness, and may even continue feeding lightly.

Treatment:

Carry out a 25%-40% partial water change and treat immediately with either Quick Cure (which is highly effective), or Rid-Ich, Rid-Ick+, Ick Guard, Ick Guard II, Clout and Super Ick Cure. In very hard water the treatment should be performed two times a day, in the early morning and late at night. Since the protozoan, while attached to the host is immune to treatment, this has to be aimed against the free swimming stages. Slowly raising the water temperature to 90 degrees (if the fish can tolerate it) for a few hours every 2 or 3 days may be effective.

Ich is highly contagious, therefore, the entire aquarium and not just a single fish should be treated.

[b]Proliferative Gill Disease[/b]

Treatments

Right from the start I should stress that prevention is better than cure and with good water management practices, most gill disease is avoidable.

If there is the suspicion of a gill problem, is it just one fish or are several affected? The latter will probably indicate an environmental cause.  

Check the water for ammonia, nitrite pH and when was the last time the system was cleaned? If several fish are affected, the system should be cleaned and a substantial water change made, somewhere between 50 -75%. Such is the seriousness of this type of disease.

In minor cases simply providing optimum environmental conditions may be enough. (Check out the water quality pages and see if you come up to the five point standard); Optimum conditions are mandatory if gill disease is to be successfully treated.

Examine the fish for parasites. At this stage a skin scrape from immediately behind the operculum will suffice.  

For individual fish a salt bath on two consecutive days is a good start. It won't exacerbate the problem and will help remove any excess mucus or parasites.

If the salt treatment fails to work the next stage is probably a gill biopsy to see what is going on. If this shows a parasite problem then these will need to be treated. With regard to treating gill disease, a  combination of chloramine-T and benzalkonium as separate treatments in a treatment tank - not the pond - will help resolve gill problems provided that they are not too advanced. See the treatment pages for details.

Potassium permanganate can be used, but it is often a kill or cure treatment. It will rapidly reduce the parasite and bacterial levels as well as reducing dissolved organics. The draw back is that it will push the really sick fish over the top - mainly I suspect because the permanganate forms a temporary precipitate of  manganese dioxide in the gills, affecting fish with severe respiratory problems.

The outlook for more advanced cases where there is severe hyperplasia and/or bacterial / fungal infection is not good. I have had some success - not a lot - with intensive treatment of chloramine-T and benzalkonium chloride together with antibiotic treatment.  

[url]http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/gill%20disease.htm[/url]

I have several fish tanks and have had them since
I was in Jr. High. I'm 35 now.
Right now I raise Frontosa's.
Its very important to make sure you have a good
filter system with your tank setup.
The more fish you have, the more critical this is.
Hope this helps.

Kigoma "seven stripe" variant. They are the hardest to find and raise.

I've had two groups of babies so far. I sold a bunch
wgen they were a year old. I made $400. Help pay
for my first pre ban last year.

Still have a bunch in the tank.