Weird Fish

Hello ...

i need your expert advice ... i have a bent fish .. seriously !!!

its got this like curve in its body and looks like its been bent and swims about with a point to its body ???

any ideas ??? ie : any diseases which resemble this at all ???

please help

thanks in advance

thats odd, did you buy it like that? or did this happen over night? if not, its probably a deformity if the fish is acting normal

nope the fish was perfectly fine when we bought it ... its been like this for a couple of weeks now ???
at first i thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me .. but it really does look odd !

i have no idea than.. but its starting to creep me out..

lol !!!!

i cant believe i have a disabled fish !!!

poor thing lmao

lmao i saw those in fish stores
they look like they've been clamped by something

i dont know .......oh well i will keep checking back on this forum to see if anyone does know what it is ...

thanks x

I've seen a few fish like that before, some that were born like that (from genetic defects, I suppose?), and some that became like that over time. One of my friends has one that's pretty badly bent from apparently running into the tank wall while zipping around, and a lot of times the danios and other faster/slimmer fish that are stocked can be a bit bent perhaps from banging into stuff as well.
However, I've never seen one that bent, heh. ^^"

Some fish gradually straighten out, but with him being so bent, I can't see that happening enough to make him straight, sorry. They also seem to have slightly shorter life spans, probably because of not being able to swim/eat/whatever properly anymore.
Hehe, he's kinda cute anyhow. ^^

Erm...
Fish Tuberculosis/mycobacteriosis often leads to a bent spine, try an antibacterial medication that treats gram negative and gram positive bacteria infections.
Or Sporozoa, a parasite which is untreatable from what little i've heard of it.
I'd assume its not a genetical disorder and while possibly caused by environmental damage i'd get a suitable antibac in advance of further symptoms.
Remember to oxygenate the water as much as possible when medicating. If you can, on the off chance it is TB i'd quarantine him a.s.a.p.
Good Luck.

-germ- said:

Erm...
Fish Tuberculosis/mycobacteriosis often leads to a bent spine,

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yes germ it does but as I have said time and time again, when it comes to ZD the most likely cause id inbreeding
and the second most likely cause is poor diet.

Ah.
I've never read any of your posts relating to this;

The inbreeding is obviously untreatable. Would you expect there to be a number of the fish purchased (if from the same batch) to show defects as a result....

Also, for my own benefit, what do you recommend feeding zebra danios?

-germ- said:

Ah.
I've never read any of your posts relating to this;

The inbreeding is obviously untreatable. Would you expect there to be a number of the fish purchased (if from the same batch) to show defects as a result....

Also, for my own benefit, what do you recommend feeding zebra danios?

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sorry, wasn't meant to be a dig at you personally, just at the generalisation that all fish with bent spines have
piscine TB. TB in aquarium fish is rarer than having a spontaneous lutino birth.

yes genetic deformities are untreatable but with a good water quality and diet the fish should live a relatively normal lifespan.
(I must get some pics of my deformed glass cat and flying fox.)

a good diet for any cyprinid is one that will mimic its natural diet, at least in some ways.
my smaller danios are fed a base diet of tetramin flake but i supplement that with 2 days of live/frozen foods such as
mysis, daphnia, bloodworm, glassworms, blackworms and any flying ant I can catch (lol).
my larger danios [giant, moustached etc] have live waxworms and maggots in their diet too.
I also only feed my fish for 6 days and starve them for a day.

Mine seem fairly healthy, although their diet can't compete with that....
A general q, can you feed normal fruit flies to fish or does this risk introducing illness, i read a few recommendations toward it a while back but didn't want to take the risk, any advice?
I do tend to jump toward TB with bent spines as some of my minnows died, when i first got into fish, showing bent spines one day, dead the next. After speaking to a few people, it did appear to be TB.

On this q;

Would you expect there to be a number of the fish purchased (if from the same batch) to show defects as a result....

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In order to provide decent info when the same question next arises would you expect a fair portion to be affected?

Have you any pics or links to fish suffering from nutrition related deformity?
Love to see the pics of your deformed fish (phrased badly perhaps) cheers Wolfy

i've on occasion fed house flys but I'd be concerned about fruit flys as I now nothing about them.

-germ- said:

On this q;

Would you expect there to be a number of the fish purchased (if from the same batch) to show defects as a result....

Click to expand...

In order to provide decent info when the same question next arises would you expect a fair portion to be affected?

Click to expand...

if it was dietary then yes, genetics a few but most would've died earlier or not have been viable at all.

-germ- said:

Have you any pics or links to fish suffering from nutrition related deformity?
Love to see the pics of your deformed fish (phrased badly perhaps) cheers Wolfy

Click to expand...

no links, just personal experience mostly gained from the trade side of the hobby.

I see no problem calling a fish deformed it is by definition exactly that
(badly formed or out of shape).
I'm off this weekend and my camera batteries are fully charged, so perhaps I will get some good shots
in the next few days.

That would be fish tuberculosis. A cyst from the TB bacteria burst from within the fishes spine and deformed it. I would reccomend euthanizing him because this is permanent. It is common in danios. If it happened over night it is definately TB unlike what Wold proposed and like what germ said. Genetic defects do not appear suddenly over the span of one day. Something in his spine shattered and restructured his spine. Which has to be some sort of virus, or bacteria, and the most common that causes this is fish TB which is a bacteria. There are multiple strains, some that are highly contagious and some that are not and lay dormant for long periods of time. THe most common is the dormant one which can multiply due to a favorable environment. Fish can live with this form for years, all the while infecting other fish slowly over time, fish that eat it's feices. If the fish is healthy enough it can live nearly a full and seemingly healthy life, but suddenly dies for no apparent reason if the cysts burst in it's brain, or suddenly have bent spines if they burst in it's spine, or suddenly develop dropsy if the cyst burst destroying internal organs.