Blood Parrots- PoP eye & Not eating at all - Help please

[Love for BP's]

Hello,
post looking at the information available on this forum, i am fairly confident and feeling lucky that valuable advise would be given for my fish problem/s. I looked at the list of Treatments and is such a valuable information for the people with the hobby. Coming to the tank details and background of the problem-
Tank -190 Lts with 2 pumps(power heads?) one is of 1600LpH which came with the tank, Sponge pads as filter media.and the second one installed is of with internal filter 800 LpH capacity. Colored pebbles of avg 1cm size as gravel. 200 Watt heater which can go up to 32 d Celsius temperature - generally maintained @28-30.Not sure of the light/LED capacity which came with the tank, but the schedule ON is 8 AM-9PM, with little or no direct sun light.
prior to this there's a 80Lt tank which was over populated, so moved on to the current 190 Lts.
Maintenance: Weekly water changes of 40-60% with gravel vacuum and sponge filter cleaning - either same or next day. On every water change, Anti-Chlorine & paracidol (locally available).
Fish: USED to have 2 of 4-5 Inch Blood Parrots (BPs), 3 of 2 Inch BPs, 2 of 3Inch Bala Sharks and One angel of 2-3 Inch.
Current stock : 2 of 4-5" BPS, 1 of 2" BP, 1 Angel.
Food: Froxen Blood Worms / Pellets - twice a day
Tank has been setup for 2 months and no causalities for first 2 weeks. Couldn't get the liquid test kit, so settled with Seachem Alert Combo of PH & Ammonia meter.
Ph is always between 7-7.5
Ammonia is between 0.04-0.07
Since the new tank setup, moved from earlier used brands(aquatic remedies) to Seachem Safe and paraguard during water changes.
Since 6 weeks one of BP started hiding behind the pump head and stopped eating. tried with salt, Epsom salt for the tank. Since 5 weeks another BP stopped eating. during 3rd week of tank setup-lost 2 Bala Sharks, next morning of water change. During 4th week of tank setup - lost 2 small BPs the same way-Next morning of water change. At this time, Observed eyes of both BPs aren't normal and the frame is kind of brownish. Since they aren't eating and suspected cloudy eye-based on reviews/recommendations on other forums, used the prescribed dose of Seachem Kanaplex + 1 portion of dose post water change with no improvement in situation - Not worsen though. Stopped medicine for a week and on Paraguard and Salt @ 30 dC through out. Tried switching off one of pumps on & off as some reviews on other forums say more of oxygen might help bad bacteria to grow quickly. But with no luck.
Post this week water change (Since Yesterday) - Moved the 2 big BPs to a 15-20Lt bucket with heater & Aeration (air stone) and started with API General cure. Today is second day of treatment... using half sachet daily Vs alternate day as prescribed (again based on suggestion on other forum).
Local vet suggested to try regain the nitrogen cycle by using Microlife S2 / Seachem stability.

btw, these are months old in the tank and never faced an issue of any serious nature. Except the white spots twice and been treated in couple of days with salt and anti-ich local medication. tried holding the fish and feed but failed in both cases of Blood Worms, pellets and green piece. they swallow but throw out in couple of seconds. Same case for a week at least.

Today i got on to this wonderful forum to find lots of information. I found under list of treatments and of the opinion that Maracyn Plus or Penicillin could come to rescue if API General Cure fails to help.

I was told that tablets that are made for humans can be used for aquarium too but with specified dosage. is this ture? If so..it might come handy as i couldn't find most of aqua medicines like Maracyn Plus, Pencillin, etc.. here in india.
I would be happy to provide any additional information required.
Any help/suggestions to save these BP's..

 

[Rocksor]

What are the current nitrite readings using a liquid test?

 

[kno4te]

Please get a water test kit and do some water tests. Usually eye issues can be due to poor water quality.

 

[Love for BP's]

Rocksor & Kno4te, Thank you both for the response. No liquid test kit at the moment, so can't test nitrite, nitrate & other parameters. Will try get one, hopefully quickly. Tried with 3-4 LFS with no luck. Otherwise, how do you suggest on current medication & plan B - penicillin / Maracyn plus, if API GC doesn't work ?
Can I continue to use Epsom salt with API GC? Few members say that, some medications aren't effective with salt.

 

[TheLastKon]

From experience if you get the right medication then the problem should go away. But I don’t have much experience with medication because I normally just use salt and good water.

From what I’ve read the fish have been in the tank for months and have had a couple of outbreaks of ich and “nothing serious”. In my experience a “couple outbreaks” in a year is a sign something is wrong. Ich won’t normally effect a healthy unstressed fish. I have over 200 Fish and haven’t had an ich problem in over 2 years.

My suggestion is daily small water changes to make sure water is clean and add some salt. Medication will be useless unless the water is clean. And sometimes just throwing in a bunch of meds will just put stress on the Fish. For the Fish to heal you gotta give it a stress free environment. A small bucket with an air stone is very stressful and moving it from one tank to another is also very stressful.

Most likely your tank is cycling. 2 months isn’t enough to cycle a tank sometimes. Lots of casualties and sick fish. Best thing is probably go buy some beneficial bacteria and hope you can get the cycle under control then the fish should start healing correctly

 

[Rocksor]

Without know what the ammonia and nitrite parameters are, medications are useless if the water is not good.

 

[Love for BP's]

With you both. Ordered the test kit online.
Not outbreaks really but white spots observed been treated with salt and anti-ich liquid (paracidol which is used during weekly water changes). Not sure if it considered as outbreak.
T TheLastKon : Not trying to defend on keeping BPs in small capacity bucket but is an effort to save them with immediately available resources.
Relieving news to an extent is that, Blood worms that I put were eaten ( I believe so as they can't go any where). But I still do not thing they regained even a partial sight as they have been hitting heater and the container.

 

[TheLastKon]

I know you’re using the bucket because you think it’s the best situation. But with less water volume it means the water chemistry will change a lot faster. A larger water volume will allow the water to be more stable leading to the fish being less stress and will heal quicker. What fish are left in the tank? If there aren’t many fish left and mostly bp then I would just treat the whole tank. And focus on cycling the tank. If you can’t put him back in the tank I would get a bucket at least 20 gallons of water for him.

 

[Love for BP's]

Sure T TheLastKon , Only 1 2"BP @ 2-3" Angel left in main tank. I would be getting stability in 2-3 days for treating tank cycle. Btw, Angel has been doing fine through out.
Do you suggest to move the sick ones back to main tank and continue the medication? Or to wait for tank to be cycled ?

 

[TheLastKon]

If it were me and I wanted to lose 0 fish I would put the angels in a seperate container. And put the stones and heater for them. Then I would have the fish in the main tank and Do some water changes with extra salt. And as soon as possible get something to test your water. And I doubt this will fix itself in a day or two. Maybe a week minimum before the eye starts to clear up.