Sick Fish & Treatment

Fish do get sick. Diseases are often caused by poor water quality, water imbalance or fish stress. It is much easier to prevent diseases than it is to try and cure a sick fish. As a fish owner it is important to not only recognise diseases but understand their causes, or you may suffer more outbreaks. Some diseases are actually secondary conditions and you will need to treat both the cause of the first problem and the disease itself to get your tank back to a healthy condition.

Isolation tank-Many serious aquarium owners like to use an isolation tank. When they bring new fish home they place them in a separate tank rather than introducing them directly into their main tank. This gives them the opportunity to watch the fish for a week or two to ensure that they do not have any diseases or infections that may infect their main tank. This is a particularly good idea if you have a lot of expensive or rare fish.

Quarantine or Hospital Tank-These are a great idea if you have the room and the extra equipment. They do not have to be large or elaborate, in fact a bare minimum of decorations in the tank is preferable. This will help to reduce the amount of cleaning and bacteria in the tank. It does need to be properly cycled before putting any fish in it. There is no point in putting a sick fish into an uncycled tank and exposing it to toxic levels of ammonia or nitrites.

Set up- The hospital tank only needs to be large enough to keep one or two of the largest fish in your main tank. If you do not want to have it running all the time consider keeping a small sponge filter in your main tank. This can be quickly moved to the hospital tank when it is needed. This will ensure that the filter has a good build up of healthy bacteria growth before going into the isolation tank. If the disease you are trying to cure is contagious do not bother moving the filter to the hospital tank because you will only be spreading the disease. Treat the entire main tank.

A hospital tank is only needed if the condition that your fish has is not contagious. In many cases of fish disease you are going to need to treat the entire population of the tank. Even if other fish are not showing signs of the disease they may be infected. If the disease is caused by poor water quality or an imbalance you may want to remove the sick fish and medicate it, while you balance or correct any problems in the main tank.

Fish medication can be expensive. Treating just one fish in a small tank is far less expensive than trying to medicate an entire aquarium. If the disease itself is not contagious and was caused by fish aggression or injury there is no need to treat the entire main tank.

There are many tropical fish medicines on the market, which are highly effective. But, in order for any medication to be effective you have to be able to properly diagnose the fish. You not only have to recognise the disease but ascertain whether or not the disease is contagious or is an isolated incident. You should also know if the disease is a result of some other primary factor which should also be corrected.

List of common diseases and problems:

Red Pest
Mouth Fungus
Dropsy
Tail and Fin Rot
Scale Protrusion
Velvet
Ich
Flukes
Fungus
Injuries
Costia
Eye Pop