fat lips and breathing fast

[glenna]

Okay, so I JUST did a major reaarange in my 75 gallon tank - took out a bunch of rocks and a piece of driftwood. The whole reason for doing that was that I was moving fish from a 29 gallon tank ( three yoyos) into the 75 gallon where there are three angels who are pretty feisty. The hope was to mix up territories so that the loaches could settle in while the angels. I was also adding the columbian tetras from another well established tank, so did not quarantine them.

Both tanks have been very stable for months, but the yoyo's were tiny when I got them, and had grown so much they needed to be moved.

With removing a lot of the rock and wood from the 75g, I opened up a big area in the middle and was able to move the yoyo's favorite piece of hollow driftwood along with them. There was a lot of GUNK under one of the rocks as I cleared out that space in the 75g(I am afraid this is the problem...)

Four days later: the SAEs and the loaches are breathing fast, and their lips look swollen. NOT fluffy or like something is growing on them, just big. The gills are looking okay, from what I can see and there are no body surface abnormalities like spots or streaks.

Their activity has dropped quite a bit. The other tank inhabitants look okay and include 7 columbian tetras, 4 medium angels, 5 pepper corys and a few stray ottos. There are also two rubberlip plecos in there.

Lighting is a 54 watt one bulb T5HO Hagan glo fixture
filter is a Rena filstar XP4
subsrate is gravel over fluorite
T 78, pH 6.8, KH 40, GH 25 or less (not sure why), nitrites 0, nitrates <10.
live plants, the piece of driftwood I moved, and a pile or rocks from the original tank setup in the 75 gallon.

I do 50% water changes weekly nad have for months. I use tap water.

I am afraid I released some terrible nastiness from under that big rock that has made the fish sick.
I started treating for bacterial infection tonight with maracyn. I also have maracyn II, but hate to use both at the same time. This crashed my biological fliter on a different tank in the past. Just wondering if anyone has seen this sort of thing before and had advise to give.

[chefkeith]

I would of skipped the antibiotic treatment and done daily water changes instead. IMO, antibiotics don't belong in a main tank where it takes many months to establish a good balance of microbial diversity.

IMO, the problem can be from several things. Since the yoyo's just moved to a larger tank and only their lips are visibly swollen, perhaps they were just scouting out the bigger tank, digging, and searching for goodies. If they found something good, like a snail, they were probably fighting over it. Some of my loaches get lip sores when they start digging and move gravel around or try to reach something that is beyond their reach, like when an algae pellet gets stuck in deep crack or crevasse in some driftwood. They keep reaching for it and use their lips as if they were hands. Fat sore lips is the consequence.

Other questions-
Is the TDS the same in the both the 29 gallon tank and the 75 gallon tank? Do you use flourite in both tanks?

[Hokum]

If you have moved items and kicked up some sediment then it could be an ammonia spike, do an ammonia test and as above some water changes. If it is, antibiotics are the last thing you want...

[glenna]

interesting that you bring up TDS. Is definitely on my "need to learn more" list ( I have used it, but sometimes do not know what to do with the results on a practical basis). I have a TDS meter, and the 29 G read 172 ppm, the 75 G read 184. I do not know if this is a significant difference. The meter came with calibration solution to check its accuracy (NaCl which is supposed to read 342 ppm, mine read 333, but the solution is about a year old).
I am not sure how to interpret those results.

However, the difference within twelve hours of abx is AMAZING!
The loaches are much improved, only a little swelling at the lips which I would not even notice if it were not for knowing how they had looked before. Also, their breathing rate is totally normal as is the activity level. Searching around and nosing into the gravel for food.
since it was both the yoyos (new to the tank) as well as the SAEs (had been in that tank about nine months) that were affected, I do not think it is a sore barbels situation, but could be wrong.
I plan to continue with just the maracyn, and do daily water parameter checks to get a sense of how the biological filter is being affected. So far, very little change: no nitrites, and nitrates are under 10, other paramters unchanged. I have a couple of bottles of tetra safestart that I can use to re-juice the tank if necessary. I have heard that Maracyn does not affect the biological filter, but I do not trust.
Thanks for the advice! I know I am not out of the woods yet, but feel encouraged by the improvement I am seeing.

[glenna]

Oh and fluorite under gravel in both tanks, but MUCH more gravel to fluorite in the 75 g as compared to the 29 g (fluorite is expensive!!)

Also, the ammonia reading is zero still, although I had a panicking feeling when you brought that up!!!!