sick d50 - treat or ignore ?

[anewbie]

My D50 has recently shown sign of being ill. His eyes are enlarged/bug-eye. I've had him about 1 year and his total age is around 2 years. I did a 50% water change friday (which is my normal procedure). Should I just double the water changes (2 50% a week instead of 1) or should i treat him with some medicine or just ignore him:

The tank is a 29 with 5 pangio (1 meyersi, 3 shefforid (sp), and 2 random (likely 1 kuhli and 1 semantica); the water condition is tds 120 kh 3 gh 5-6 nitrate less than 10 - they (it is a pair of d50) used to be in a community 40B with lots of other critters but they were moved into the smaller but less populated 29 around sept 12th when i moved.

would like to save him if possible but not sure if he is just getting old or if i can actually do something to help him. the female is not showing any sign of illness and is lively and trying to talk him into fooling around with her.

 

[MacZ]

It's a decision only you can make. We all know dwarf cichlids are not very long-lived. The conditions you keep them in are barely improvable.
Now on the one hand a therapy with meds might push it over the edge, giving it a quicker death. It could turn things around as well. But it's almost impossible to predict at this point.
Only thing I can tell you: Whether you treat or not, both ways have a point of no return. For meds that point is once you dose antibiotics, and for the no-treatment-route... You know how it looks when a fish is in critical condition.

 

[anewbie]

It's a decision only you can make. We all know dwarf cichlids are not very long-lived. The conditions you keep them in are barely improvable.
Now on the one hand a therapy with meds might push it over the edge, giving it a quicker death. It could turn things around as well. But it's almost impossible to predict at this point.
Only thing I can tell you: Whether you treat or not, both ways have a point of no return. For meds that point is once you dose antibiotics, and for the no-treatment-route... You know how it looks when a fish is in critical condition.

I guess my question is what would i treat it with - also this is a wc fish so i presume it could potentially live 4 or 5 years.

 

[MacZ]

Considering the symptoms it's obviously bacterial. You could go the route of more clean water, lowered EC and humic substances (probably not going to cut it in this case, tbh), you could go for glorified disinfectants like methylene blue (never found that helpful) or the hard stuff like antibiotics (risky business).

 

[anewbie]

Considering the symptoms it's obviously bacterial. You could go the route of more clean water, lowered EC and humic substances (probably not going to cut it in this case, tbh), you could go for glorified disinfectants like methylene blue (never found that helpful) or the hard stuff like antibiotics (risky business).

Sounds like your #1 recommendation is more water changes (the water change last week i used ro water to reduce the ec) and i'll boil some cappa leaves - er not boil but pour hot water over - also will double the water changes to 2 50% a week.

 

[MacZ]

Usually it is my No. 1, this time I doubt it will still do much. But it has the least harsh side effects. That's why I gave you all three options to choose.

 

[anewbie]

Well he died today so i guess it is official i am a crappy fish keeper. Probably should have kept them in the community 40 with a bunch of guppies rather than give them a dedicated 29.

 

[MacZ]

Sorry, but that's total BS! We all know a dwarf cichlid can drop dead quicker than we all wish.

You have no idea how many really excellent fishkeepers are confronted with that although have been here on the site reading tons of reports on the phenomenon and still blame yourself? Come on, you can't be serious.