Aquarium help!...Disease, Toxins???

[AmazonTankz]

I need some real help on this one. The inhabitants of my 55g are slowly starting to die off! I have had a female betta and my only twig catfish die in the the past 3 days. The other fish: An Angel, Severum, Silver Dollar, and 3 remaining bettas all have closed fins and are sluggish. They all seem to have something different! The Silver Dollar looks as though he has a cloudy film all over his body. I thought it was ich until it spead put and now looks like a film. The Angel's fins are shreding more and more every day even though there is no fish in there thats nipps, he also has a stringy fuzz hanging off of his fins. The rest of the fish are sluggish and have closed fins. Please help I just got done treating for ich.

I tested the water last night and everything is fine! The PH is 8.0(which is normal for my tap water), no ammonia, no nitrites either. Please help!

 

[Orion]

I had something like this happen to a Pacu I had a while back. Sounds like it could be Columnaruis(sp)? Sounds identical to what happend to my Pacu. He was fine oneday, then he started to get this nasty 'slime' coat all over him, with some patches of really white stringy stuff, and his fins started to rag. I forget what meds to use for it, I will try and find out. If I find a good link for the disease too I will post it.

 

[Orion]

http://freshaquarium.about.com/library/weekly/aa092102a.htm
this has a pretty good dectription of it, still trying to find some pics

 

[Orion]

http://www.dph.nl/sub-article/cat-02/columnaries.shtml
this is a much more decriptive page with some treatment options. It focus's mainly on discus treatments, but they should be safe with all fish.

BTW, the name of what I am talking about is Columaris. HTH

 

[AmazonTankz]

Hey thanks a lot Orion, I'm gonna check out those links right now.

One more thing I forgot to mention, it is a planted tank I don't know if that makes much difference.

 

[Orion]

I hope that you are able to treat this. As I said before, we had a pacu and several catfish to get this last year. It is a very nasty disease. We isolated the pacu as soon as we found it on him, but only to watch him slowly die after about two days. It was so sad, I had never seen a fish suffer so much. I truly hope that your fish do not have this. But good luck in treating it. From the page on the second link, it seems that it is not that difficult to treat, I just hope that you have more luck than I did.

 

[adamj]

amazon tanks

That sucks! Dont forget some water changes and higher tank temperatures. By the way, how often do you do water changes and substrate cleanings? If you have frequent outbreaks, its been said that disease can be linked to husbandry problems, unfortunatly.

 

[AmazonTankz]

Well, the tanks has only been up for about 4 weeks. Since it is planted the cycle was complete in no time. These are all fish that I have had in other tanks. No new fish. Except the Twig catfish, he died the second day I had him!!. On all my tanks I do a 15% water change about every week and clean the gravel,filter, and etc. every month with about a 20%.


Last night I realized that there is a decoration in there(fake wood) That I bought a awhile ago. I bought it in the reptile section and the tag said" not recommend for fish tanks" but I figured the tag did not say "toxic to fish" so I put it in. Could this be the problem?? I took the decoration out and did a 20% water change. I also took the charcol out of the filter and started to treat with aqua-sol. This was all I had on hand since my fish rarely become sick.

 

[Orion]

Well if the fake wood is painted or dyed then it could be that some of that 'leaked' into the water. Some might not be able to be seen in the water. Not realy sure what to tell you here. I would change at least 20%, if not a little more, everyday for a couple of days or so. The charcol would be a good thing for the water in the tank, but bad for the meds you are giving your fish. If you can I would move the fish out of the tank into one with no charcol in the filter and continue the water changes on the tank that they were in with charcol in the filter. Keep a close eye on the fish and see if they are showing any signs of improvement.

 

[AmazonTankz]

Well the wood is painted but I really don't think that is the problem... If you go to the Rate my tank section find the thread Jovian's 55 gallon the decoration on your left if the same one I have only mine is a green mossy color. Thats why I figured it would be okay, I saw the decoration hear before I bought it.

 

[adamj]

wood... painted... BAD!!!!!!!

hard telling whats in that paint... i suspect its something you put in the tank to weaken the fish which allowed disease to set in

 

[AmazonTankz]

well it's not real wood. Some kind of plastic. But it's still colored I don't know if you would call it painted. . .

 

[wayne]

Well it still sounds like a poisoning problem, although it's also similar to some dieseases, this is less likely i.m.h.o.. This is still a new tank, so I'd re check ammonia =0,nitrite = 0 and nitrate should still be low (<10,20). White mucus films sound like an overproduction of bodyslime in response to a 'poisoning'.

Get all suspicious items out of the tank , give it a 50% water change, and again tomorrow, and again for the next two days. Filter thro' a polyfilter as well. Use a GOOD chloramine remover with the water changes., one that actually removes rather than hides- some of these also rely on mucous production to protect the fish, and do nothing to remove the problem, this is another stress the fish don't need.

 

[AmazonTankz]

Okay, I think what has happend was a combination of things. The decoration made them week and suseptible(sp?) to diesease as adamj sugested. Now even though I am treated them, doing water changes and so on, their symptom have become worse. I can tell what they have now. My severum has bad ich(again, last time it wasen't near this bad) and my angel has it also but mostly fin rot. He pore little fins are getting shorter and shorter with stringy things hanging off. Now the medicene they are being treated with should cure ich and fin rot if its not to late.

I haven't lost hope for my fish, but I do want to know something.
I have read all this disease profiles and so on, and some say that certain diseases can not be cured and the fish should be humanely destroyed. I know my fish have a treatable disease but just for my knowledge how would you go about humanely destroying a fish??

 

[Orion]

There is an article about this in the article section( go figureLOL), but the only way I have gone about this is puting them in the freezer. I know that there is debate on this method, but it is what I have used for the few times I have been forced to do so.

 

[adamj]

heres were hospital tanks come into play
always remember, the best type of medicine is the preventative kind. Dont ever mix waters, water/gravel cleans on a regular basis, and bleaching driftwoods and plants before they go into tanks on a 1:15 bleach/water mix. Make sure tanks cycle well, good bateria cultures are key. This like this keep disease from setting in.

Im thinking what happened was this. whatever got into that tank ate up the slime coat which helps fish fight disease. Then various parasites set in, the fish then faught off the paracites and in their weakended state, fungus and basteria set in.

If at all possible, separate some of the better looking fish from some of the poorer looking ones. Keep on the heavy medication and water changes with gravel cleans, with higher temps in the water. Higher temperatures help speed up the life cycle of ich and other parasites. That only helps in conjunction with medication in my opinion.

If there are some fish that show no signs of eating and arent recovering, ill have to agree with Orion about the freezing part. When fish reach low temps, their bodily systems just slow to a halt, being cold blooded. The only thing that keeps a fish from comming back after being frozen is the same thing as human beings. When frozen tissue dies and blood vessels burst, but that happens long after the fish is mentaly gone. Please some one correct me of there are better ways of euthanasia.

EDIT: you did mention ich, body clout, and fin rot. If you can separate the fish that have ich and the bacterial and fungus infections so you are able to treat each individualy, you need different types of medicine here.

 

[Paul]

I'd treat them for 7 day with melafix before you decide to destroy them. Also I'd add aquarium salt to the tank. 1 teaspoon for every 5 gal of water. melafix is wonderful for finrot and Flexibacteri. Give it a try for a few days and see if you don't have an improvement. Usually I see improvement over night for something that is bacterial.

 

[AmazonTankz]

Well, I don't have a hospital tank. . . I know I know I had a spare 10g w/supplies but I just set it up as communtiy tank. Maybe I can find some place to put the fish I have in there and turn it in to one. Anyway, I'm not considering destroying them at all yet. Everyone is still eating,there just very listluss hanging at the top and such. I can't get to the not so local LFS until friday to get some different kind of medicine. I hope I have that long.


PS thanks a lot adamj and everyone else for all the info so far!!

 

[adamj]

what kind of dechlorinator do you use? if its a good kind like aquaclear or something allong those lines, add some for the hell of it. to help illiminate some ammonias, and generaly they say they help grow the slimecoat on the fish, and i believe it hehe. so use that stuff!

also, once ya get your fish in good order, you need to keep in mind that your tank still might have some of those negative bacteria and fungus in the tank. I dont believe every tank has parasites and what not, thats just absurd. BUT in your tank there still will be small populations of disease that might surivive your efforts, even when the fish are healthy. So keep in mind, preventative maintenance. What kinds of food do you feed your fish? If just flake, that wont cut it. its like you eating nothing but crackers for the rest of your life give them daphnia, brineshrimp, bloodworms, flake, shimp pellets, you name it. the more variety the fish have, the healthier they will be, thus the stronger to fight disease. I believe a proper diet is essential to aquatic husbandry

 

[AmazonTankz]

Well, I use AquaSafe and Stress Coat. I'm running out actually. And right now all I am feeding them is flake, yes I know thats bad but that is all they will eat right now. I tried giving them ZooPlankton (daphnia) but they did not like it. I have given them dried blood worms and that went over well, I have to get more of that. As for live food, the only thing I can find in these parts are brine shrimp which I have not tried yet.