Mental “wasting” disease???

[Magnum Man]

So I have had a Serbi Cory, for over or around a year, that is just not right… the other Cory’s don’t hang with it… it eats normally, but doesn’t swim with the same purpose as the rest do, sometimes it looks like it’s going to die, but keeps on going… this morning, at 1st. Light, I noticed one of my sibling pair of angels, that has also been here for around the same amount of time, acting similar, still eating and picking at things, but acting like it’s interested in something, and starts leaning over… maybe it was sleeping hard last night, and isn’t fully awake yet, but both these fish are in the same tank… everyone else seems normal, and there are no other outward signs… maybe a bacteria or brain worm or??? Maybe I’m just paranoid or have the brain worm???

 

[Colin_T]

LOL, Zombie fish says "brain worms, gimme brain worms. mmm yummy brain worms"

No brain worms in fish tanks.

Fish can develop protozoan, viral, bacterial or fungal infections in the brain (protozoan and bacterial are the most common) but these usually cause the fish to start spiraling through the water and die within a few days. They don't live with it for months.

It could be low level chemical poisoning or the fish have an underlying health issue. If you can post some pictures and video of them doing their thing, it might offer more information.

 

[FishyD]

So I have had a Serbi Cory, for over or around a year, that is just not right… the other Cory’s don’t hang with it… it eats normally, but doesn’t swim with the same purpose as the rest do, sometimes it looks like it’s going to die, but keeps on going… this morning, at 1st. Light, I noticed one of my sibling pair of angels, that has also been here for around the same amount of time, acting similar, still eating and picking at things, but acting like it’s interested in something, and starts leaning over… maybe it was sleeping hard last night, and isn’t fully awake yet, but both these fish are in the same tank… everyone else seems normal, and there are no other outward signs… maybe a bacteria or brain worm or??? Maybe I’m just paranoid or have the brain worm???

Perhaps you need to administer a mental acuity test to your fish?

 

[Magnum Man]

I would doubt it’s the water, as there are at least 36 tetras in the same tank, as well as dwarf cichlids everyone else looks normal

 

[Colin_T]

Looking back at this they might have a brain parasite. There are parasitic worms that get transferred around in bird poop and snails ingest the worm eggs. The worm goes into the brain and causes the snail to hang out in the open during the day so it gets eaten by another bird. There's a similar parasite that affects mice and rats and they stay out in the open during the day so they get eaten by predators and the parasite's lifecycle can continue. There's also a fungus that infects ants and gets them to climb up the highest bit of plant and die there so the fungus can shed spores over a larger area. It might be possible the fish have picked up something like this.

It could also be a slow growing tumour that is putting a bit of pressure on part of the brain and making the fish less responsive.

They could have a physical issue (maybe heart, kidney or liver problems) that is making them feel a bit off colour and they are less likely to go racing around with the others because they are tired.

 

[GaryE]

They aren't that different from us, in many many ways. How many things can cause us to list to one side, act vague, talk garbage, etc? The list is long. It is with fish too. We just simplify it because we don't have any way of really investigating what's up.

I don't know of anything communicable that would cause this. But that doesn't mean something doesn't exist...

 

[Back in the fold]

They aren't that different from us, in many many ways. How many things can cause us to list to one side, act vague, talk garbage, etc? The list is long. It is with fish too. We just simplify it because we don't have any way of really investigating what's up.

I don't know of anything communicable that would cause this. But that doesn't mean something doesn't exist...

I have a very strong opinion that’s what’s wrong with people is diet related and very probably the same is true of all the animal kingdom . Processed, chemically preserved food . That and the chemical soup and fog that we live in .

 

[GaryE]

I have a very strong opinion that’s what’s wrong with people is diet related and very probably the same is true of all the animal kingdom . Processed, chemically preserved food . That and the chemical soup and fog that we live in .

I'm sure that has a lot to do with what goes wrong in us, but things were going wrong and killing us on a regular basis before processed foods and chemical soups. I come from a long line of men who died young from factory related diseases, and of women whose exposure to manufacturing was much less and who lived much longer. I hope my having worked outside factories after the age of 24 buys me more time than the men got. But bodies are bodies, whatever we subject them to, and our ancestors in cleaner habitats died younger than we do, on average.

Our fish are trapped in small closed boxes. If we don't water change, they turn into industrial revolution slums really fast. Think of it - overcrowded, filthy... If we add meds without learning why, if we feed badly, if we do things we haven't figured out are bad yet...

We know water changes help. We know that if you live in a rural region, you are apt to have agricultural industry chemicals and nitrates in your tap water. If you draw water from a large river you will have human medications and micro-plastics. My water source seems wonderful for the fish and registers as very clean, but is less then 5 km from an oil refinery and a pulp mill.

As far as aquatic pathogens go, @Colin_T lives in a country where they're active all year, I would assume, with the warmer conditions. Where I live, they are at their height now, and the days are already shortening rapidly. In a few weeks, the water will freeze and that will bring changes. Indoor fish aren't as affected, but I wonder how the water is? How much does where we live, with its outdoor conditions, affect our indoor hobby?

These fish could be affected by many things, and unless it's so obvious we can't miss it, all we can do is work to prevent problems as much as we can, by taking good care of the conditions they live in.

 

[Back in the fold]

@GaryE All that is true but people today are koo-koo , nuts , whacked out and crazy . Not that I really know but I don’t think people have been quite so mental as today . The drugs and excess booze and STD’s in peoples brains have made this world and especially the USA a nuthouse . Tell me there’s precedence for that any time in human history .

 

[GaryE]

@GaryE All that is true but people today are koo-koo , nuts , whacked out and crazy . Not that I really know but I don’t think people have been quite so mental as today . The drugs and excess booze and STD’s in peoples brains have made this world and especially the USA a nuthouse . Tell me there’s precedence for that any time in human history .

Without sidetracking or getting too political, the 1920s and 30s got pretty nasty, and the 1860s got a bit divided in the US. I don't think we're any weirder than we were in the 1500s, 1400s, 1300s, the falling years of the Roman Empire, the Crusades, even the Malawi Cichlid craze of the 1990s. The Internet just makes it more obvious. Can you imagine what Facebook would have looked like in the rockier periods of giant change in the past?

Luckily, we have fishtanks and fishtalk to prove our sanity with.

 

[Magnum Man]

well, I was talking about fish mental wasting disease, in my original post... but it is hard to believe we humans are not close to the end... every news story, has "breaking news", & something is "unprecedented", & I've heard the term "century flood" 8 - 10 times this summer... not sure how long it'll be before we're all "swimming with the fishes"

 

[GaryE]

It's entertaining to look at 'sure thing end of the world predictions' in the period we've been recording things. There are thousands on record, across all cultures, countries and belief systems. We seem to like the idea of this wonderful world being wrecked. It's a universal human dream, it seems.

We may go extinct with recent developments, but many of our fish would outlast us (not in our tanks), and the world can go on being great without us.

I looked at coastal sea level rise prediction maps when I bought my house, since I face the Bay of Fundy. I blocked out houses in the zones that would flood in different scenarios over the next 50 years. Beyond that, it won't matter to me or mine. I got a house that should be here as long as I am, and feel that was prudent. Up the road, a guy just paid many times what I did for a beachfront house I'd give 10 years before the foundation collapses into the Atlantic. A lot of people lack the ability to look ahead and consider possibilities, or just don't believe the research.

My 20 year old Uncle Sid stood at the rail of a sinking minesweeper in ww2, looking at the burning oil from a torpedo they'd just taken. His buddy asked him if he could swim, and he said "All the way to Norway?"

I like that attitude. He survived. The world went on, and he died in his eighties. I'm not worried about swimming. And the world won't end if we do. Fish will still whirl.

I'm an optimist.

 

[Magnum Man]

Going back to fish… and the snail theory… this is one of the few tanks I have with no pest snails… originally I was going to put earth eaters in here, so until recently there were no aquatic plants, just terrestrial, and plastic

 

[gwand]

I am cycling a 60 gallon tank. It only has well water, pool filter sand and rocks that I sterilized. Today I see pest snails. How could that be? Then I realized I placed an old filter in the HOB to accelerate the cycling process. The filter must’ve had a snail eggs.

 

[Magnum Man]

I got them in my tilapia tanks last year, and everything was new, but they were outside… those things are worse than cockroaches