Tropical Fish Forums

melissaann · Regulars Joined: 27 Dec 2005 Location: Texas, USA

I have a 37 gallon community tank with cherry barbs, white clouds, red eye tetras, a betta, cories, kuhlis and otos. I had a cherry barb get skinny and die. Now I have 2 more that are becoming less fat, they were quite round and healthy. They appear to try to eat but spit the food back out. All of the other fish are fine and eating well. Is there a specific diesase that would only bother the barbs? If I can catch them and put them in a Q tank, what's the best medicine for this?

bumper

What type of foods are you feeding? I would consider trying some frozen brineshrimp or bloodworms to beef your fish up. They rarely turn the frozen food away. If frozen isnt an option, go freeze dried. As for a disease, if there are no visible signs of anything out of the ordinary, I would label it a stress problem. Try adding some tall plants (plastic or live). This should allow them to hide if they need to. Cherry barbs are great fish, if you happen to lose the two you have left, you should try the cherry barbs again in the future. Good luck.

melissaann · Regulars Joined: 27 Dec 2005 Location: Texas, USA

I've had the barbs for almost a year and they've always done well. I alternately feed them hikari micropellets, tropical flake, freeze dried bloodworms and freeze dried tubifex. Just recently these two have been getting thin when they've always eaten before. The tank has a lot of tall plants and quite a bit of cover. They were previously like little fat torpedos, like the other two. They are getting noticeably concave right behind the head. Could they have neon tetra disease? Their colors are fine but they seem listless like they will just waste away. I put them in a quarantine tank last night so that they don't infect my other fish if they are sick.

Ciklido · Regulars Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada

Yeah I think you have a good chance its some bacterial infection thats causing it. You should treat the quarantine with internal-parasite guard and feed them very good digestyve foods suhc as squished peas or green matter.
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melissaann · Regulars Joined: 27 Dec 2005 Location: Texas, USA

This is still going on, I'm down to two barbs and one is in quarantine. I'm pretty sure its fish TB. They seem to want to eat but spit the food back out. The fish get pale and concave, finally dying. I guess I will euthanize the last sick one and hope my last one is OK. How should I disinfect my equipment for the quarantine tank? Is tapwater rinse and air drying sufficient?