Dwarf Hatchets

[Myrkk]

Here are two of the others. The one with the "growth" is looking happy'ish enough at the moment. Did a 50% water change today. Will have to just see how things go.
Have noticed the other hatchets chasing the ill one away when it gets close but today not so much so ?? maybe it's improving?

 

[Colin_T]

Looks like a Microsporidian infection. Probably best to put it down unless you want to try and find a cure from the info on the net but it's not normally curable

Do a 90% water change and complete gravel clean each day for a week and clean the filter each day as well. this will hopefully dilute any spores that might be in the water.

 

[Myrkk]

damn, that's not good.

Now I'm thinking back I inherited some celestial danios in that tank, they died, but thought it was due to their morphology. They had a curved spine. I caught all bar one and it disappeared when my husband was looking after the tank while I was away. Looking up microsporidia on the web it could have been that.

totally kicking myself now, never taking on reject fish again.

 

[Colin_T]

This is not your fault. The organism that causes it is common in wild caught fishes, and in certain areas of the world. Fish can carry it for months and never show symptoms, then one day a fish will start to go a funny white colour. You can try to keep it but the only success I had treating some fish with it was using high levels of salt. But wild caught hatchet fish from soft acid water probably wouldn't take that too well

There is quite a bit of info on this disease in shrimp (from shrimp farming) and you might find some treatments for them that can be moved into an aquarium for fish.

 

[Myrkk]

If that's the only one that was showing signs, what's the chance I've got away with it and the rest will be fine? Anyone had this before?
Poor fish is an ex fish now, I so hate doing that but it was back to hanging around in the back of the tank looking listless. Didn't want it to suffer a long drawn out death and potentially infect the rest of the tank.

Thanks for all your help, much appreciated.

 

[Colin_T]

I have had it appear in freshwater and marine tanks and only affect one or two fish or shrimp. And when I have been out collecting and had 1000s of shrimp in tubs, one or two might have it and all the others are fine. So chances are that was the only fish that was infected. However, doing some big water changes and gravel cleans will help to dilute anything that might be in the tank.