Geophagus parasite

[Athomedad]

I have a Geophagus that 2 days ago was perfectly normal, than he darkened like he was stressed. I upped the temp & added salt. Parameters are good except hardness is low (2).

Yesterday I noticed his forehead was sunken. He seems to be deteriorating quickly. I added Paraguard today. He's still eating but he looks terrible.

I read that it could be a parasite. Any idea specifically what it could be? I don't know if I can save this guy but I'm hoping to prevent losing anyone else. Everyone else in the tank is looking & acting normal.

It's a 22 super long with a bristlenose, striped Rapheal, and a 5" Nicaraguan. (I was planning on moving the Geo & Nicaraguan to a 135 shortly).

[Athomedad]

As a side note I owe BC Aquaria a thanks as I have a Surnamisis that was sick as well. He had a chunk taken out of his forehead & I was treating with Pimafix. He got worse & developed pop eye. I switched to Melafix after reading the 'one eyed fish' thread & he is healing nicely after 2 days of treatment.

Any thoughts on the sunken forehead for the geo? He eats really well so it's not malnutrition.

He stopped deteriorating after adding Paraguard but I'm still worried about him.

Rasputas, you have a stake in this as both of these were going to the 135 I was thinking of buying off you.

[Athomedad]

Oops, make that Rastapus not Rasputas. Doh!

[DBam]

Good luck, I posted a parasite question concerning geos over a week ago and got no response. Is it's feces normal or clear and stringy? How are your water parameters and w/c schedule? Any worms hanging out of the anal vent? That's a lot of bioload for a 22. Most parasitic infections with no outwards signs (except for that skinniness) sound like either bacteria or nematodes. What species of geo is this? I treated mine with metronidazole because I had sick daemons and I figured I could reduce the chance of secondary infection of hexamita causing hole in the head.

[Athomedad]

Geo is 3-4 inches. 50% water change twice a week. Feces probably normal (I don't see him pooh but nothing out of the ordinary when I siphon).

Buying a 135 gallon this weekend for the cichlids. I will be replacing them with a nice Betta in the 22 long.

My Geo is getting his colour back & his head is starting to look better. It appears the Paraguard is working whatever the cause was.

[DBam]

Good to hear

[turtlez]

Oh man. I'm having a huge issue with my geo's at the moment too. Mine turned dark, but that usually isnt an issue, it just depends where they are hiding or the temp or if they have food at the time

One of my large Geophagus Red Heads was swimming sideways, slowly and heavily breathing when I got home from class today.
I noticed a few days ago he had a scratch on his eye, which grew into a clear bubble, which then broke and then he ended up with big white bubbles on the eye which spread to his body.

So I flushed him because I didn't want him to spread it to the other fish and he was pretty much dead. Then I started looking for white spots on my other fish, surprisingly enough, there were none on the white cloud minnows (which I thought would be the first to catch it), nothing in the fins, etc but, one of my other geo red heads that often scrapes the spikes on his spine had 2 large white bubbles hanging on part of his spinal spike/fin.

I don't know what to do at this point.

They are in a 110gallon with my turtle, who they all have been growing up with for around 3 years now. Never had a health issue or anything till now, infact, the one that died had layed eggs in the past few months. So they went from thriving to dead in a few days.

I want to make sure my other 3 Geo Red heads and the 1 Surinamensis (all around 6 inches) dont die too.

Help?

[Athomedad]

I raised the temp to 84, added salt, and Seachem paraguard and he has healed nicely. He's not 100% yet but his head is back to normal shape. He's still a little dark.

My Geo also had some sort of eye issue but I thought it was excess slime coat. There is still a little white on 1 eye but it's coming.

[Athomedad]

A little update is that the Paraguard, salt, & higher temp worked and my Geo is back to normal. I also treated with Melafix for a couple of days when he was almost recovered.

Also, no one else in the tank got sick. I'm wondering if he picked up a parasite when he ate the mountain fan shrimp a few days before that? Guess I'll never really know.

It did leave him with an enlarged heart though as he will only eat the adult feeders and not the juvies. He is now sharing his tank with some juvie feeder guppies.

[DBam]

@ turtles, first line of defense is frequent, large volume water changes. You could also raise the temperature along with adding aquarium safe salt. Keeping that up for a few days to a week should leave you with a clear indication of how things are going. Spending that daily time on maintenance should also help show you any change, be it positive or negative. If problems continue, open a new thread for it under this subforum and you may get faster responses.

@ Athomedad, glad it's recovered. Also a humble suggestion that offering feeders might contribute to parasite infection, not to mention that a feeder diet leads to a deficiency of vitamins (vitamin B primarily, due to enzymatic reaction if my memory serves me right).