Sudden disease

[parula6]

I've kept tropicals off and on for years but am by no means an expert. In the last week I've had a new-to-me-disease appear and kill 2 fish extremely quickly, while all other fish in the tank seem perfectly fine and exhibit none of the symptoms. I'd appreciate any advice!

Here are the details. First, about the tank:

44 gal pentagonal community tank containing several tetra sp. (15 fish total), 2 rainbows, a killifish, 2 Nannacara anomala, 1 Ancistus, 1 H. plecostemus, several Corydoras, a few Otocinclus, 2 smallish Scalare. And the female betta that's dying as I write.

Water is pH 6.5; don't know precise GH -- I'm guessing moderately hard; KH is very low. Temp stays at 76-78 F. I change 10 - 15 % of the water weekly. Filtering is done with an Aquatech 200 and an undergravel filter with a powerhead. The tank substrate is small gravel banked from front (thin) to back (thicker depth). It's planted with anubias, echinodoras and one crypt I couldn't resist.

Here's how the disease shows up:
All fish appear fine when I shut the tank light off at about 9PM. The next morning all appear fine except (so far) one. The first victim was a female guppy a couple of days ago; now it's the betta. The afflicted fish is lethargic and hanging near the top of the tank. There's significant deterioration of one or more fins -- they're literally starting to disintegrate, almost like they're melting, and show bright white patches, not cottony fuzzy but seemingly solid and not made up of tiny dots close together. The female betta displayed this problem on the top of her tail fin and the back edge of her dorsal fin this AM. Now the white coating covers the whole front of her head and she's obviously about to die. And I repeat, she seemed vigorous and healthy the previous evening when she eagerly ate (frozen brine shrimp). Needless to say, she was totally uninterested in food this morning.

I began dosing the tank with Melafix when the guppy showed up sick, but I don't think it's doing the trick. I'd love to know what this is and how to make it go away!

Thanks for any advice given!

 

[CFC]

Would be interesting to know where your from,one of our tanks had this problem a couple of weeks back and it wiped out 14 fish before we hit on what appears to have been the right treatment.Also one of the lfs seems to have been hit by it (although they wont admit it but their tanks are full of corpses).If you are in England i would advise treating with Waterlife's PROTOZIN it seems to to work on ours when nothing else did,good luck and i hope you dont lose any more fish.

 

[parula6]

Thanks for your reply! I'm near Nashville, Tennessee and I'm not familiar with the medication you mention. It may not be available here, at least not under that name. What's in it, do you know? And did you ever figure out what the disease is? I've never seen a fish go from healthy to dead so fast.

 

[CFC]

Shame you cant get the medication over there,i would send you some but authorities might mistake for biological weapon and arrest us both.If you visit the Waterlife web site you might be able to find out if there is a similar product you could get (sorry would provide link but im new to this and don't know how ) ).Your spot on about this diseases speed it really is frightening that it can kill a healthy fish in under 24 hours, i never did manage to ID it but it seems to be fungus related as that is what the treatment deals with.

 

[semper fi]

sounds like you have ich in your tank. does it look like dandruff? ich or hite spot is a parasite that is in the tank. it is when the parasite finds a host that the fish will display symptons of ich. i would try the maracyn II and treat the whole tank. go the full round with the maracynII. you should be able to find it ay any pet store. also raise your temp during treatment to between 78-80. the parasite cannot live at warmer temps which is why it is more prevelant in the cooler months. raise the temp slowly though. you might even be able to go between 80-82. not too sure with the fish that you have. if you have a smaller tank move the scaleless fish to it and treat only with the maracynII. with the others use the maracynII and salt. aquarium salt only. one well rounded tablespoon for every five gallons of water. the salt will help the fish to expel toxins that can be built up in the body. during illness you will want to maintain proper gill function and the salt helps to do this. scaless fish can be burned by the salt that is why you will want to seperate them. also remove any carbon from your filter. the carbon will remove the meds. when you are done treating the tank you will want to put some carbon in the filter to remove any of the remaining meds.

are any of these fish new to the tank? if so, they may have brought the ich to your tank without showing symptons. new fish should always be quarantined for atleast three weeks before being introduced into the communtiy. that way if there is a problem with them, youonly have to treat them and not expose your established tank and fish to disease.

hth

maggie

 

[parula6]

Thanks for your response, I appreciate all thoughts!

You may be right, but if this is ich it's sure looking and behaving differently than any ich I've battled before. This doesn't have that the grains-of-salt look I expect with ich. it's a coating and the fins disintegrate quickly where patches of it appear, typically along the fin edges. When it moves to the body of the fish, which seems to only take a 6-8 hours, the fish dies very quickly. No losses last night I'm happy to say, but I dosed the tank with Quick Cure and MarOxy in desperation.

 

[Paul]

It sounds like a parasite. Bacteria can't move that fast. Try adding salt to your tank like simper fi suggested. I keep salt in all my tanks and never have a problem with parasites. 1 teaspoon = 5 milliliters.