Also, I forgot to write it here earlier but I want to still record what's going on in the tank - I found an oto dead 2 days ago. I had noticed one of my biggest otos for the past few days that seemed to be bent with a kinda hunchback and it was actually in the front and more active than usual (usually otos hide on the back and only move about a bit in the evening). I think it is probably the same one, I didn't kill it because it was still active and didn't have any obvious skin problems. So that's whatever the tank has in a different species of fish. It is quite different across the species whatever it is.
-
You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up
The Nymph's Spring (EA900)
- Thread starter shangman
- Start date
MirandaB
Member
Quarantining for Mycobacteria is an almost impossible task as really you're looking at anything up to 6 months before it shows itself but quarantining for a few weeks is good practice and should sort any immediate problems that arise.
I usually just worm as a matter of course in QT unless they're wild caught then I usually follow up with something to treat flagellates.
Bottom dwelling fish and those which graze on algae/aufwuchs will likely be more susceptible to infection as they're grazing the biofilm where there's probably a higher concentration of bacteria.
I usually just worm as a matter of course in QT unless they're wild caught then I usually follow up with something to treat flagellates.
Bottom dwelling fish and those which graze on algae/aufwuchs will likely be more susceptible to infection as they're grazing the biofilm where there's probably a higher concentration of bacteria.
KirstyF
Member
I think recording and describing any ongoing issues/losses/symptoms will be helpful to the community if you are willing.
IMO, I also think that what you’re going through right now @shangman could easily describe any number of us and in the case of this particular disease, even a regular quarantine might not have caught it, so try not to feel too bad. (Easier said than done, I know)
It is, however, a good highlight that quarantine is best practice for a reason and, as someone who has not quarantined the fish in her current tank, it strikes a bell.
I’ll have a second tank within the next couple of weeks and will be quarantining any future additions!!
Just to confirm, will either yourself or @Hufsa be setting up a PM conversation for those who are happy to contribute to TB testing, if you decide to proceed with that?
IMO, I also think that what you’re going through right now @shangman could easily describe any number of us and in the case of this particular disease, even a regular quarantine might not have caught it, so try not to feel too bad. (Easier said than done, I know)
It is, however, a good highlight that quarantine is best practice for a reason and, as someone who has not quarantined the fish in her current tank, it strikes a bell.
I’ll have a second tank within the next couple of weeks and will be quarantining any future additions!!
Just to confirm, will either yourself or @Hufsa be setting up a PM conversation for those who are happy to contribute to TB testing, if you decide to proceed with that?
I did think that about the oto and the first oxyropsis that died earlier this week - if it is fish TB, and mycobacteria is in the biofilm of the tank then it makes sense for them to get it and suffer from it sooner rather than later.
What do you use to worm and for the flagellates?
I have been recording everything (since I realised something was off, didn't photograph all fish that died sadly) in bits and pieces, hopefully at some point this ordeal will be over and I can put everything together into a mega post that's just all good info.
I'm glad you will be quarantining all your fish in the big tank, it's so much effort to make a beautiful big tank, it's definitely worth this extra bit to help ensure its longevity.
The extremely lovely @Hufsa had organised things for me. Thank you all so much to everyone who has already sent me something to help!!! It is honestly so touching ❤️ I feel so loved 🥰
MirandaB
Member
As a lot of my fish are sensitive to some medications it's usually esha NDX for worms and Manaus Aquariums Octocil for the flagellates.
KirstyF
Member
I think that’s a good plan. I’m sure this has been horribly traumatic for you and it would be good to think that something positive may come from it 😊
I’ve had most of my fishies from a supplier that quarantine’s (in separate tanks) for a minimum of 2 weeks but…most, is not all….and two weeks is only two weeks…..so ur right, it is still worth it! 👍
sparkyweasel
Member
- Joined
- 30 Jun 2011
- Messages
- 2,874
For those who didn't know; you can send payments through Paypal without opening an account with them.
hth
The Miniaturist
Member
That would be me then, thank you @sparkyweasel! I had been trying to find out, but being somewhat of a luddite with just phone data, I'm afraid these things take a little longer to discover.
Sorry for sounding so useless, I still don't know what all the icon thingies mean on the screen but I'll get there in the end....
I suppose the next thing I need is the relevant PayPal account number?
Sorry for sounding so useless, I still don't know what all the icon thingies mean on the screen but I'll get there in the end....
I suppose the next thing I need is the relevant PayPal account number?
Ive sent you a PM
Wookii
Member
In my ignorance, I have to admit that 'flagellates' was a new term to me so I had to 'Google-research' it! Would a praziquantel based treatment such as Flukesolve deal with those as well, or conversely does the Octocil treat flukes and tape worms also, or would you need to use all three (NDX, Flukesolve, Octocil) to cover all bases?
Omg you guys have raised enough for the fish TB test already!! 😍 I know I keep saying it but honestly what a fabulous lovely community, thank you all for contributing 🥰 I've been feeling very low about it all and this has given me a real lift.
I've got my eye on some slightly dodgy pencilfish who I think have the illness, who I will send off for testing next week.
But it is great to be doing the test with the vet, being able to do something makes it feel much better. And it feels like I'm part of a team with all you guys behind me, makes it much less depressing. We will get through this!!
I think if you quarantined for a few weeks on top that would be fabulous. I will also be buying from a shop that properly quarantines everything as well, so it's as thorough as possible!
I've got my eye on some slightly dodgy pencilfish who I think have the illness, who I will send off for testing next week.
Great thank you, I'll invest in these when I do finally buy some new fish.
It has been quite awful tbh, and just such a drain to know that things will get worse before they get better. I look in the tank with a bit of dread every day atm.
But it is great to be doing the test with the vet, being able to do something makes it feel much better. And it feels like I'm part of a team with all you guys behind me, makes it much less depressing. We will get through this!!
I think if you quarantined for a few weeks on top that would be fabulous. I will also be buying from a shop that properly quarantines everything as well, so it's as thorough as possible!
Well gang, enough was raised that I decided to first talk to the vet and get her opinion, thinking knowledge is power.
So her opinion is it isn't fish TB in the tank, because fish TB classically kills very slowly over months/years, not so quickly like here. She said we can still do the test, but that also she expects it would be positive because almost all fish and all tanks have it, but at a low level that wouldn't hurt the fish. I think she doesn't want me to be disappointed given that it is expensive, but I think it's good to try. So even if it is positive, we may still not know if that is the problem I guess. I'm not completely convinced, and I still want to do the FishTB test, but I will try her suggestions first anyway in case it does help. From what I've read fishTB can become more nasty, as it did with Diana Walstad. Maybe it is the case that fishTB scares online are all something else, and the fishTB people see as the most obvious problem even when it isn't. She also said that fish get fishTB from eating infected dead fish, which is possible in my tank, as I seem to have less tetra and pencils than I used to, I don't think I have found or euthanised all the sick fish even though I've tried to prevent this. I gave the fish so many hiding places thinking it would make them less stressed, but it also means there are places that they could die without me knowing.
I do suspect some secondary infections are going on and that's influencing the variety of symptoms though, such as the ich. The ich affected almost the whole tank very quickly, but it went away with a treatment of EshaExit. It came back a little, with 1 or 2 dots on maybe 3 fish that already had other symptoms and this was a sign for me to euthanise. I treated it again when I saw this as well and it hasn't come back in 2 weeks. Interestingly she confirmed to me that ich can come from adding new plants from infected tanks, which is one of my theories as to why my tank showed no ich for 5 weeks after adding new fish. I did add lots of new plants at that time. I personally am not 100% convinced that what is wrong with the tank came with the pencils+dicrossus, I think it's very possible other fish already had it in the tank as I have had a death here or there every month or two for the whole of the tanks duration, the pencils & dicrossus could've caught it while in the tank and are just extra sensitive to it.
So she's suggested I again treat with a higher dose of EshaExit, Esha2000, plus add EshaOptima to help the fish's immunity this week. And then once I've treat that then treat with FlukeSolve again to try and hit all the potential pathogens in the tank. She suspects some sort of protazoa primarily.
The vet's theory essentially isthat the fish are stressed for some reason in my tank and that's what has caused a lowering in the immunity in the fish and a few things to take over. After I described the tank and everything I do with it, she thinks that it could be because when I waterchange and add water back in - I just add Prime straight to the tank first - rather than pretreating the water (I don't have space to pretreat the water sadly, no bathtub). Another option she thought is that the fish could have been used to the higher pH of water at the London shop I bought them from (pencils & dicrossus), and that they were acclimating badly to the lower pH of my water. But then whatever they had has clearly spread to tetra and otos who have been in my water for a long time so idk. I think that overstocking is the most obvious potential cause of stress, but tbh it is puzzling to me that the pencils would show it as they were in a much smaller more stocked tank at the shop, and they have shown nothing but confident bold behaviour - it's not like they were hiding with off colours. Then again, I probably just don't understand fish stress well enough. Also she said that pencils are particularly sensitive too. The whole time my waterquality has looked good, no obvious problems there.
Another option for treatment is to do scrapes to test for parasites, and she said she could do it, or find a friend with a microscope and do it myself. This does intrigue me, anyone in London here have a microscope? I thought you would have to kill a fish to do this, but apparently it needs live fish and won't neccesarily hurt them so that could be good. My male apisto twice I have seen scratch his gills on wood since I got him, and I have seena fish or two over the past few months seem to itch (this is why I treated with FlukeSolve a while ago), it would be good to test him I think if it doesn't hurt him. Would be good to hear from people that do this, I know that koi people do, but has anyone done it with smaller fish?
On Friday I also made a video on my Instagram about my troubles (and that I thought it was probs fishTB). I got lots of lovely responses, and one that was particularly useful was an American guy who had a lot of experience at a fish shop and had dealt with confirmed fishTB before, and said his boss had dealt with it several times. They said they lost at least half the fish in their infected tanks. This is what is so confusing, that the vet doesn't think it's really a thing, but then other very experienced people do. Anyway, he said along with what I'm already doing, antiparasitic foods seem to help, they give frozen foods with Vita-chem, seamchem kanaplex, metroplex, focus & liquid garlic. Obviously can't do all of these because they aren't available here, but will try EshaOptima and garlic at least, and then maybe Seachem Vitality. And of course if it isn't TB, then all those things help. I have notices a few articles talk about vitamins as part of treating fish and getting them as healthy as possible to overcome disease.
I personally still have a hunch that it is TB, and that TB open a door to everything else that's lurking in a tank in small amounts to attack. But also LBR I have no previous experience with this stuff so what I think is not really reliable. I will try the above things and then do the test. I need 3 affected fish, and right now only one looks dodgy to me tbh.
So her opinion is it isn't fish TB in the tank, because fish TB classically kills very slowly over months/years, not so quickly like here. She said we can still do the test, but that also she expects it would be positive because almost all fish and all tanks have it, but at a low level that wouldn't hurt the fish. I think she doesn't want me to be disappointed given that it is expensive, but I think it's good to try. So even if it is positive, we may still not know if that is the problem I guess. I'm not completely convinced, and I still want to do the FishTB test, but I will try her suggestions first anyway in case it does help. From what I've read fishTB can become more nasty, as it did with Diana Walstad. Maybe it is the case that fishTB scares online are all something else, and the fishTB people see as the most obvious problem even when it isn't. She also said that fish get fishTB from eating infected dead fish, which is possible in my tank, as I seem to have less tetra and pencils than I used to, I don't think I have found or euthanised all the sick fish even though I've tried to prevent this. I gave the fish so many hiding places thinking it would make them less stressed, but it also means there are places that they could die without me knowing.
I do suspect some secondary infections are going on and that's influencing the variety of symptoms though, such as the ich. The ich affected almost the whole tank very quickly, but it went away with a treatment of EshaExit. It came back a little, with 1 or 2 dots on maybe 3 fish that already had other symptoms and this was a sign for me to euthanise. I treated it again when I saw this as well and it hasn't come back in 2 weeks. Interestingly she confirmed to me that ich can come from adding new plants from infected tanks, which is one of my theories as to why my tank showed no ich for 5 weeks after adding new fish. I did add lots of new plants at that time. I personally am not 100% convinced that what is wrong with the tank came with the pencils+dicrossus, I think it's very possible other fish already had it in the tank as I have had a death here or there every month or two for the whole of the tanks duration, the pencils & dicrossus could've caught it while in the tank and are just extra sensitive to it.
So she's suggested I again treat with a higher dose of EshaExit, Esha2000, plus add EshaOptima to help the fish's immunity this week. And then once I've treat that then treat with FlukeSolve again to try and hit all the potential pathogens in the tank. She suspects some sort of protazoa primarily.
The vet's theory essentially isthat the fish are stressed for some reason in my tank and that's what has caused a lowering in the immunity in the fish and a few things to take over. After I described the tank and everything I do with it, she thinks that it could be because when I waterchange and add water back in - I just add Prime straight to the tank first - rather than pretreating the water (I don't have space to pretreat the water sadly, no bathtub). Another option she thought is that the fish could have been used to the higher pH of water at the London shop I bought them from (pencils & dicrossus), and that they were acclimating badly to the lower pH of my water. But then whatever they had has clearly spread to tetra and otos who have been in my water for a long time so idk. I think that overstocking is the most obvious potential cause of stress, but tbh it is puzzling to me that the pencils would show it as they were in a much smaller more stocked tank at the shop, and they have shown nothing but confident bold behaviour - it's not like they were hiding with off colours. Then again, I probably just don't understand fish stress well enough. Also she said that pencils are particularly sensitive too. The whole time my waterquality has looked good, no obvious problems there.
Another option for treatment is to do scrapes to test for parasites, and she said she could do it, or find a friend with a microscope and do it myself. This does intrigue me, anyone in London here have a microscope? I thought you would have to kill a fish to do this, but apparently it needs live fish and won't neccesarily hurt them so that could be good. My male apisto twice I have seen scratch his gills on wood since I got him, and I have seena fish or two over the past few months seem to itch (this is why I treated with FlukeSolve a while ago), it would be good to test him I think if it doesn't hurt him. Would be good to hear from people that do this, I know that koi people do, but has anyone done it with smaller fish?
On Friday I also made a video on my Instagram about my troubles (and that I thought it was probs fishTB). I got lots of lovely responses, and one that was particularly useful was an American guy who had a lot of experience at a fish shop and had dealt with confirmed fishTB before, and said his boss had dealt with it several times. They said they lost at least half the fish in their infected tanks. This is what is so confusing, that the vet doesn't think it's really a thing, but then other very experienced people do. Anyway, he said along with what I'm already doing, antiparasitic foods seem to help, they give frozen foods with Vita-chem, seamchem kanaplex, metroplex, focus & liquid garlic. Obviously can't do all of these because they aren't available here, but will try EshaOptima and garlic at least, and then maybe Seachem Vitality. And of course if it isn't TB, then all those things help. I have notices a few articles talk about vitamins as part of treating fish and getting them as healthy as possible to overcome disease.
I personally still have a hunch that it is TB, and that TB open a door to everything else that's lurking in a tank in small amounts to attack. But also LBR I have no previous experience with this stuff so what I think is not really reliable. I will try the above things and then do the test. I need 3 affected fish, and right now only one looks dodgy to me tbh.
I had an issue a while back with some of the issues you had, fish bloating, pine coming and developing red sores and eventually dying. I was at a loss and tried everything. In the end I thought I would try esha ndx which is used to treat camallanus worms and it worked. Apparently by the time these things actually show themselves the fish are already dead. I can imagine it would be a bigger issue with small fish as some these worms are pretty substantial and cause internal damage, hence the dropsy etc. now I could be completely wrong but it may be worth a go. The treatment was very effective. I think esha 2000 may be able to be used alongside it too.
Honestly I might as well throw everything esha has at them at this point, I'll get some of that too.
Today I found another sick pencilfish with another symptoms, this one seems to have an internal lump in the back-half of it's body that's making it a strange shape. I'll take a picture later. It's marked for testing at the vet as long as it survives a few more days. ATM I'm sort of hoping for 2 more fish with symptoms to have a good chance of learning what the problem is. Seems a bit gruesome but I better to know and treat sooner.
It seems to be taking over quite quickly whatever it is. It’s good that you can get a vet to take a further look into this.
It's odd in that it's always only 1, maybe 2 fish max with symptoms that come on quickly and unpleasantly. So one by one they go down, so it's fast but also slow as I have lots of small fish for this disease to get through. Generally 1 pencil, and 1 random other species of fish every week to keep it "interesting". I won't have any pencils left soon, I think once I get the results of the vet I will just put down the last of them rather than have them continue to suffer.
Strange, mine was always celestial pearl danios and occasionally other fish. I can’t remember if it was as frequent as your deaths but always seemed to be one every few weeks. I started with around 20 or so and was left with around 5 after the treatment. The remaining 5 lived long and healthy lives.
I guess we all have a fish that seems more prone to disease than others! Fingers crossed working with this vet I can identify the problem and fix it for the last few pencils. I feel like maybe I should euthanise, but if they stopped dying after one of the treatments I'm doing it would be a good indication of what's been going on.
Has anyone else performed a scrape on small tropical fish? The vet has said that this would be good to see if there are any parasites, and that the fish should be alive for it, but looking online I only see instructions for koi where it is much more obvious how to do it. The vet has said that she can come and do it, or I can do it myself if I have a microscope (I've got a friend with one luckily). I've been googling to find some instructions but I haven't found any yet. The histopathology test will test for FishTB, confirm symptoms and for signs of parasites/parasite damage, but can't actually test for parasites themselves as they leave as soon as a fish dies apparently, so a scrape is a great way to test directly for the parasites.
Also, has anyone seen JBL Spirohexol Plus 250 or Manaus Aquariums Octocil for sale? I can't seem to find them anywhere, and I think treating for flagellates would be another good one to try. I'm still in contact with the vet via email and she thinks my problems have been caused by some sort of a parasite, and recommended trying to kill every type out there with available meds while we wait for test results.
Also, has anyone seen JBL Spirohexol Plus 250 or Manaus Aquariums Octocil for sale? I can't seem to find them anywhere, and I think treating for flagellates would be another good one to try. I'm still in contact with the vet via email and she thinks my problems have been caused by some sort of a parasite, and recommended trying to kill every type out there with available meds while we wait for test results.
