Preventative treatment?
Hello everyone,
In my 50/55 gallon planted boesemani rainbowfish tank, one of the larger males has a few missing scales, no doubt due to a dominance-related standoff with the other similarly sized male. He is doing well, eating well, behaving normally. He has been like this for a couple of weeks with no sign of any infection or other problem developing. I used my trusty API test kits last night and this is what I found: Ammonia–zero; Nitrite–zero; Nitrate–lowest measurable reading (I don’t have the color chart in front of me but the amount was well within the acceptable range). Thanks in part to my plant lights, the water temperature stays pretty steadily at about 82 degrees F. My water is hard and pH is around 7.4. There have been no stressful events, no neglect of water changes, none of the typical ‘bad stuff’ going on. About the only thing happening is that over the last two weeks I’ve thinned out the floating frogbit plants but still they cover about 85% of the surface. I doubt that would hurt the rainbows’ health.
Last night I noticed that one of my females (same species) has a dark uneven spot on her dorsal surface, between her eye and her nose, approximately. Today she was doing fine (eating, swimming in the open, etc.) and it seems like the dark spot is less noticeable and colored more like the surrounding area. I’m not sure what would cause this unless she rubbed against something too hard. I have not seen any aggression involving any of the females.
This is my question: to play it safe should I dose the water with some sort of medication just to be more certain that an infection or other problem will not develop with these two fish or the others in the tank? I have Pimafix on hand, also some stronger stuff like Quick Cure which I have never actually used. Also resident in the tank are corys, otos, a pair of green swordtails and 5 of their fry, plus 1-4 glass shrimp who cleverly hide themselves when I’m looking for them (so I don’t know how many I actually have).
There are no other signs of problems and I don’t want any. That is why I am considering a prophylactic round of Pimafix or something else, I don’t want to risk losing any fish over this.
Ideas?
Thanks, Beverly
Peace, please!
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Category: UniQuaria
