Very Very Worrying, Major Disease?

[twistedlink]

Lately a few of my fish have been dying, ive put it down to sheer luck because i maintain the tank well.

However when i typed in the symptoms i got some worrying results.

Apparently it could be fish TB, or sporozoan which apparently have no cure and are transferrable to HUMANS.

The main symptoms of my guppies and tetras are elongated spines, gradual twisting and curving of spine after many weeks, the tetras red areas are lacking colour, and they have black lines in the tail, just as the fin at the back starts, theres a black vertical line running down them.


Eventually the swimbladder goes and the guppies in particular have massive bloating, is this something for Me to worry about? as in, am i gonna get infected?

Apparently there is no cure.


I dont understand because i maintain the tank perfectly with water changes each week etc etc...

Im very worried, please reply any ideas or experience please, thankyou



Oh also please refrain from "tested water?" questions, yes i have and ammonia levels nitrite levels and nitrate levels are all fine,
0,0,10

and nitrate ALWAYS exists so...yeah

 

[minxfishy]

May not necessarily mean TB, could be an internal parasite infection, when did this first occur was it after introduction of some new fish for instance, as they could have bought the parasite in with them? Have you tried feeding some cooked peas, as sometimes this can help with bloated, constipated fish. How does the fish poo look, is it long white, normal colour? What do you feed them and how often?

If it is TB, then please be careful when maintaining the tank as in rare cases yes fish TB can be trf to humans, usually by broken skin, cuts etc.

Before immediately thinking TB, I would try to medication with an internal parasite medication and see if this helps.

 

[twistedlink]

I have maintained the tank with cuts before....Should i go to the docs and state my case??

This mainly started happening when i introduced a new batch of female guppies to the tank, though there was one incident before that

Yep i tried the peas, didnt work much, the poo is usually fine but every now and then it is liquidy and white and gooey

Feed them standard dried flakes, and catfish pellet food for the corys, 2 times a day

 

[minxfishy]

The white stringly poo would indicate an internal bacteria infection/parasite, I would get some medicaton for it and try that 1st, see if it clears it up.

If that doesnt work and fish are still dying with the bent spines, sunken stomaches, then possilby is TB, although I know someone with waaay more info on this will be along to correct me if Im wrong I wouldnt worry too much about you contracting it, if you had, you would know about it, so dont panic.

 

[twistedlink]

the spine bending only happened twice at the very end near death.

Mainly now the spines are elongating, as in, getting longer, and the stomachs are mainly bloated rather than indented.

Im severely put of keeping fish now with all these weird freaky parasites and such like.
How rare are fish contracted diseases?

 

[minxfishy]

Extremely rare, honestly I dont think you have anything to worry about.

Definately sounds more like an internal bacterial infection to me, go to your LFS and get some medication for internal bacteria, remove any carbon you have in your filter (as carbon removes medication from the water) and dose per the instructions.

 

[twistedlink]

Thankyou VERY much, youve been very helpful, i appreciate it a LOT!

Youve given me a lot of peace of mind, and now i can change the water without scrubbing my hands with salt solutions and IMS lol

 

[minxfishy]

Your welcome, if your at all concerned, wear some clean rubber gloves or similar, Ive only ever read that it is possible to trf to TB to humans, not ever read of anyone actually ever getting it.

Try interpet internal bacteria no 9 for bacterial infection, should be readily available from a good LFS.

 

[Miah002]

I got that. Look at the dropsy forum and some guy is saying it's useless.

What does white poo mean?

 

[minxfishy]

As per your other post, please give a full description of the fish and what they are displaying. Stringy white poo is often a sign of an internal bacteria infection, although unless you give full details its hard to give a definitive answer.

Interpet internal bacteria n0 9 is fine to use with internal bacteria problems. But without knowing for sure thats what your fish have, its hard to say if thats the best treatment for them.

 

[Miah002]

They have sunken bellies, some have ulcers and another one of my Lampeye Killifish is starting

to look a bit fat like the the other one that died today morning. The one that died in the morning had a picone effect.

It's scales were popping off.

 

[minxfishy]

The one that was pineconing, was dropsy in which case the interpet wont make any differnce, once the fish has dropsy it has no chance, however, dropsy is often the end effect of an internal bacteria problem (so Im lead to believe).

 

[Miah002]

Ok so how do i know if they have internal bacteria problem?

 

[twistedlink]

Yeah i always use rubber gloves anyway, i work in a lab so ive got easy access to em, but water still sometimes gets in them as its a nearly 2ft deep tank so the water usually goes in.

I may use some effective tapes around the gloves, the cuts around my fingers have been a problem with lab work too, im a terrible nail biter and always have open wounds round nails..

I'll get the interpet treatment and see what goes, im nothing special when it comes to fish knowledge but i thought dropsy was internal bacteria too.

BTW is there any evidence to suggest corys are rather immune to this stuff?


My cory juli are breeding heavily, and seem extremely happy, same with rummy noses, extremely red noses and shoaling lovely, and my betta is fine too, its just the guppies and tetras that seem bad.

Im also worried for my keyhole cichlids one died 3 months or so ago from a weird circular gunus on its body, i did use cotton wool fungus treatment but it just got worse and eventually its swim bladder failed and was suffering badly, so i had to scoop it out and euthenase the poor thing.

I love my keyholes the most in that tank and would hate for them to die, they have weird yellow spots in there tails, its definitely not whitespot, its just a weird mottled yellow-ish dots, theyve had them for months with no real symptoms, i know its not white spot because its not white, and they dont have any symptoms of white spot lol.

Know what this could be?

Only 1 of them has it quite a lot, the others only a few.

i maintain my tank once a week (sometimes twice) and use water treatments and make sure to never overfeed and always gravel vac things well, why do i get such problems when i know people who plonk 30 fish in at one go in a 100 litre tank with no cycling, feed them near bursting point and they never have fish death.

Its rather disheartening doing so much for them and they just die when before i knew correct fish keeping they died much less in ammonia filled environments.

Its just annoying lol