My Fish Are Dying, Pls Help

[nlpmaster1974]

Hi All,

I am fairly sure I have a disease in the aquarium but seem unable to control it.

Symptoms:

Guppys: Pregnant females already large seem to have their scales sticking up on their tummy and sides. Its almost as though they are so fat with pregnancy that their scales cant take it and look very rough and sticking up. Does not look like any type of worm or cotton wool. On some, tails seem to be wasting - discoloured and thin.

One gourami did have popeye a few weeks ago and also swimming difficulty. It seemed to get a very thin tail and tail turned very pale (not the tail fin but the bit between body and tail fin).

Today I found two more fish (1 guppy and 1 molly) hanging vertical trying to swim but looking like they are struggling.

Water Quality:

Not great but is very consistent. 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite. Nitrate difficult to tell but always high due to our supply. Fish seemed fine with this for the past year and no change in Nitrate has been observed. 26 degrees C. 40% water change every two weeks. Now changed this to 60% due to illness.

Meds:

Never usually use meds however have tried Interpret Aquarium Treatment No 9 - Anti Internal Bacteria. I thought this was helping for a while but today it seems not. The instructions tell you to remove black carbon filter and ammonia filters. I removed the black carbon filter and 1 ammonia filter but left the other in place as I don't want soaring ammonia levels as a second problem.

Any advice on what this may be would be helpful and on what I could try to resolve it.

Thank you very much in advance.

nlpmaster

 

[WILDER]

Sadly with all them systoms you could be dealing with fish tb.
http/www.4qd.org/Aqua/disease/tb.html

Abit more info for you, but i I am not the author of it.
Piscine Tuberculosis



Symptoms:

Because of the symptoms associated with this disease, it is often referred to as Wasting Disease. An infected fish may show a loss of appetite, emaciation (sunken belly), fading of colors, eroding fins, erratic swimming, scale loss or protrusion, "pop-eye" or eye loss, skin inflammation, ulcerous skin wounds or open lesions, gill deformities, spinal curvature, and Dropsy.

Symptoms may occur singly or in various combinations. Symptoms may also vary from species to species and from one individual fish to another. Not all symptoms need be present. Healthy fish may carry the illness for some time without being affected, and then become ill when stress or poor water conditions lower their resistance. The disease may run a lingering course, killing the fish slowly over time, or strike in epidemic proportions quickly wiping out an entire aquarium population.

Diagnoses of Piscine Tuberculosis is difficult, as all of the diseases symptoms may appear in other illnesses. Piscine TB can only be verified upon autopsy.



Cause:

Mycobacterium bacteria. Piscine Tuberculosis is highly infectious and can be easily transferred. Gravel can harbor this bacteria causing the entire aquarium to become infected. The disease may strike in epidemic proporations, killing an entire population of fish in record time with little to no symptoms. However, it can also remain latent for some time, progressing slowly, silently causing internal organ damage to the fish.

This illness is not always fatal to the fish. The bacteria may become encapsulated to form small nodules and as long as good environmental conditions are maintained there is no danger. However, if the fish is weakened by unsuitable water conditions or other diseases the nodules can burst. The infection then becomes acute and can kill the infected fish as well as infect others.



Treatment:

Infected fish must be isolated quickly because the disease is highly contagious (see below). Treat with a combination of sulphafurazone (0.2mg/g fish), doxycycline (0.005 mg/g fish) and minocycline (0.005 mg/g fish) administered intramuscularly. It is also recommended to feed any sick fish isoniazid. It may take up to 2 months for fish to completely heal. Kanacyn also claims to be helpful in treating Piscine Tuberculosis.

 

[WILDER]

I would protect yourself and wear some gloves when you have to put your hands in the tank.
http/www.aquarticles.com/articles/manage...fer_FishTB.html

 

[nlpmaster1974]

Has anyone else had this? Is there any practical advice on where I can go from here? Can it really only be fish tb?

Thanks for your replys.

I would protect yourself and wear some gloves when you have to put your hands in the tank.
http/www.aquarticles.com/articles/manage...fer_FishTB.html

 

[WILDER]

All the symtoms seem to point to this, whats your location.

Minocycline 100 mg/10 gallons every other day bacteria possibly effective against fish tuberculosis

Also check the anus to see if it enlarged or red and inflamed look at all the fish anus, also check to see if you can see anything prutruding from the anus.

 

[tttnjfttt]

EVERY single symptom you have seems to point to TB. This one diagnosis answers every problem you are having.

Even if it isn't fish TB, it is definately bacterial. Minocycline is a good antibiotic. If you are in the US, maracyn 2 is actually minocycline. Treat with maracyn 1 also if you want to cover bacteria that the minocycline might miss.

Even if you aren't convinced it is TB, you should use gloves when handling the water or doing anything in your tank. This can give you a nasty skin infection, and it is better to be safe than sorry.