Is your fish showing signs that they are sick? Or does something just not seem right in your fish? Fish too can get sick. The most common reason that your fish could be sick is due to parasites. Your fish can have both internal and external parasites, causing them to have issues. They can also be afflicted with fungal, bacterial, or viral infections.
What do I do if my fish gets sick?
No matter how clean you keep your tank, you are likely to deal with some kind of illness at one time or another. The first thing you should do when one of your fish gets sick is to quarantine that fish in a hospital tank to prevent the disease from spreading to your other tank inhabitants. A hospital tank is simply an extra tank set up to mimic the parameters in your main tank but it should be sparsely decorated to make cleaning easier. After you have quarantined the sick fish you will need to observe it for symptoms so you can identify the illness and then follow the recommended treatment protocol. Depending on the disease, it could take several days to several weeks for your fish to recover and you should wait until it is fully recovered to return it to the main tank. To avoid illness in the future, make sure you quarantine all new fish before adding them to your tank, and do your best to keep the water quality in your tank high.
How Do You Identify A Fish Disease?
The most obvious way to identify a fish disease are external signs. You may notice odd behavior in the fish (such as flashing, scratching), cloudy eyes, or a whitish coatings on its body. Another obvious sign is a skinny fish that is eating, a common sign for a fish inflicted with an internal parasite. Identifying a fish disease is critical to treating them in time.
How Do I Know If My Fish Has Internal Parasites?
The most obvious way to know if your fish has an internal parasite is weight loss. If your fish is eating and says skinny it likely has an internal parasite. The other is the shape and color of the fish poop. If you see stringy white poop, your fish has an internal parasite. Most internal parasites can be treated with Metroplex.
Are my fish suffering from a bacterial infection?
Bacteria are ever present in both ponds and aquaria. These are mostly harmless unless the fish are stressed in some way, as stressed fish fall victim to all kinds of infections more easily than they normally would. Any of the following could be an indication of a bacterial infection: open sores, ulcers, sudden unexplained deaths, frayed or blood streaked fins, areas of raised scales, cloudy eyes, pop eye and wasting.
What are common fish diseases?
The most common fish diseases are Ich, internal parasites. Dropsy is common in fancy goldfish. Hole in the Head disease is common with Discus fish, and Fin Rot is problematic with Betta fish.
A fish has died unexpectedly, does this mean there is a disease in my tank?
Even the best kept fish can fall victim to ill health. It doesn't necessarily mean that there is anything wrong with the aquarium when this happens and one of the worst things that you could do in this situation is subject a tank full of fishes to a whole battery of inappropriate medications. Some medication is toxic to some fish and to some invertebrates, adding these medications could easily make things worse.
It could be that a fish has died from an age related illness or trauma (injury) in which case there is absolutely no need to treat the aquarium at all since neither condition is contagious and the only victim is already dead.
Before using any medication in an aquarium or pond, the first thing to do is to try to diagnose exactly what the problem is. This can be done by carefully observing the fish and then listing all the symptoms.