# Worrying about TB



## Nont (13 Jul 2022)

Hi there,


I bought 20 zebra danios 2 months ago, all of them are fine in the first month. Then, a week ago, they started to show a symptoms including bent spine, sunken belly and doesn’t eat before losing 9 of them. I’m quite concerned about it being fish TB. What are you guys opinions?


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## MirandaB (13 Jul 2022)

With the symptoms they're presenting  it's a distinct possibility but the only way to be certain is to have a histology done on one of the deceased fish but I'm guessing that's not really an option for you.
Have you treated them for internal parasites at all as that's one of the easiest things to rule out as a cause.


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## dw1305 (13 Jul 2022)

Hi all, 


MirandaB said:


> Have you treated them for internal parasites at all


Whenever I see a fish that looks like that, after you've had it for a month or two, I really worry about <"_Camallanus _infection">.


Nont said:


> I’m quite concerned about it being fish TB.


It definitely could be, but internal parasites are probably more likely.

cheers Darrel


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## Conort2 (13 Jul 2022)

dw1305 said:


> Whenever I see a fish that looks like that, after you've had it for a month or two, I really worry about <"_Camallanus _infection">.


I can see why people would misdiagnose this with fish tb as it causes many similar symptoms. Sometimes they don’t even show themselves before killing their host so the fish keeper is none the wiser. Awful things but thankfully they can be removed. I’ve had these wipe out over half a tank before I knew what I was dealing with. Common symptoms were wasting, discoloured patches, dropsy. It wasn’t until they showed themselves on a fishes vent I knew they were there.


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## Wookii (14 Jul 2022)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Whenever I see a fish that looks like that, after you've had it for a month or two, I really worry about <"_Camallanus _infection">.
> 
> ...





Conort2 said:


> I can see why people would misdiagnose this with fish tb as it causes many similar symptoms. Sometimes they don’t even show themselves before killing their host so the fish keeper is none the wiser. Awful things but thankfully they can be removed. I’ve had these wipe out over half a tank before I knew what I was dealing with. Common symptoms were wasting, discoloured patches, dropsy. It wasn’t until they showed themselves on a fishes vent I knew they were there.



Is is possible to pre-treat fish for this during quarantine with a general anti-worm/anti-parasite treatment?


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## Conort2 (14 Jul 2022)

Wookii said:


> Is is possible to pre-treat fish for this during quarantine with a general anti-worm/anti-parasite treatment?


Yes, Esha ndx gets rid of it.

I’d recommend to worm fish in quarantine. One of the few treatments I’d recommend to use as a preventative measure.

Cheers


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## Wookii (14 Jul 2022)

Conort2 said:


> Yes, Esha ndx gets rid of it.
> 
> I’d recommend to worm fish in quarantine. One of the few treatments I’d recommend to use as a preventative measure.
> 
> Cheers



Thanks Conor, @MirandaB also recommended Esha NDX as a quarantine treatment, along with Manaus Aquariums Octocil for intestinal flagellates. I can't find the latter product for sale, but Sera Med Professional Flagellol seems an alternative with the same active ingredient. Should any other preventative medications be applied during quarantine, or will that cover most bases?


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## castle (14 Jul 2022)

Wookii said:


> Thanks Conor, @MirandaB also recommended Esha NDX as a quarantine treatment, along with Manaus Aquariums Octocil for intestinal flagellates. I can't find the latter product for sale, but Sera Med Professional Flagellol seems an alternative with the same active ingredient. Should any other preventative medications be applied during quarantine, or will that cover most bases?



Covers the main ones, but really quarantine should been seen as a filter. Most fish diseases we can’t (easily) stop, so by quarantining fish we’re hoping anything nasty gets them within the quarantine period. A bonus is to get rid of any parasites that might be there.

deworming is about as good as we can get imo.

However, diseased fish are increasingly less common - from my experience. But I guess that doesn’t account for the millions of fish sold every year that die 8 weeks later where the owner just assumes it was their fault, or the water was bad etc.


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## dw1305 (14 Jul 2022)

Hi all, 


Wookii said:


> during quarantine with a general anti-worm/anti-parasite treatment?


Certain fish (Dwarf Cichlids and Live-bearers for example) are very likely to have _Camallanus_ infections. 

My understanding is that these are often Flubendazole resistant and it tends to take some time before symptoms appear.  Again, purely anecdotally, SE Asian produced fish are most likely to carry _Camallanus, _but it is also present in Czech farmed fish.

There is also some suggestion that Levamisole HCl resistance has also occurred, but Levamisole would still be <"my weapon of choice">.

cheers Darrel


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## Conort2 (14 Jul 2022)

castle said:


> However, diseased fish are increasingly less common - from my experience.


Most fish I keep are wild caught and believe it or not I seem to have less problems with them compared to tank bred. Don’t get me wrong parasites are certainly a thing with wild caught fish but apart from that they appear to be more robust. I wouldn’t go near tank bred neons, livebearers, dwarf gourami etc. I always go for wild caught cardinals over tank bred if I can too.

Cheers


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## Nont (14 Jul 2022)

Thanks for replying, guys.

I moved all of them out to the quarantine box


MirandaB said:


> Have you treated them for internal parasites at all as that's one of the easiest things to rule out as a cause.


Yes, I have treated them with Metronidazole and Flubendazole, unfortunately it didn’t do anything.
And sadly I can’t find Levamisole or Esha med here.


Conort2 said:


> It wasn’t until they showed themselves on a fishes vent I knew they were there.


Just checked as soon as saw this sentence. It seems like they have red vent and anal fin. Does this mean we can be 100% sure that it isn’t TB and is parasite?


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## castle (14 Jul 2022)

@Conort2  It’s hard to say whether farmed or wild are tougher, I used to think wild caught fish were tougher but I’m not so sure now. i guess this is more about which fish get less stressed in our tap water. I think picking fish is a bit like playing bingo. 

If you import a hundred  wild cardinals (assuming neon tetra) and don’t get an outbreak of white spot, I’d see that as a sign to do a lottery ticket too.


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## Conort2 (14 Jul 2022)

Nont said:


> Just checked as soon as saw this sentence. It seems like they have red vent and anal fin. Does this mean we can be 100% sure that it isn’t TB and is parasite?


Redness or red spikes? Red spikes protruding mean worms.


castle said:


> It’s hard to say whether farmed or wild are tougher, I used to think wild caught fish were tougher but I’m not so sure now.


to be fair it’s probably a lot to do with how the fish are handled after being caught as well. The same with tank bred fish. They all have to go on quite a journey before they make it into our tanks.

Cheers


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## Nont (14 Jul 2022)

Conort2 said:


> Redness or red spikes? Red spikes protruding mean worms.


Redness


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## JeffK (14 Jul 2022)

Camallanus can sometimes be seen from their, erm, poophole. It's tricky to get rid off and often treatment comes too late with the fish already too damaged.

Strangely enough, only my Congochromis seem to be struggling with it.

I'm not sure if you're able to buy this, but I bought Levamicil to battle it.


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## Nont (17 Jul 2022)

Update: loss 1 otos and 8 more zebra danios today. Most of them have same symptom I described above however oto and a few zebra danios have bloated bellies.   Edit: Just noticed, some also have white bump.

At the moment I’m currently doing 50% water changes daily and treat them with parasite med I could get my hands on.


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## Simon Cole (17 Jul 2022)

xZaiox said:


> I personally do 3-4 doses of *praziquantel*, 2 doses of levamisole and I also feed them metronidazole medicated foods for 2-3 weeks. Since doing this I've had no outbreaks of flukes or worms, and I've not seen many cases of internal parasites (although one of my dwarf rams currently has them... I don't think he ate much of the medicated food in quarantine). These medications are all quite easy on the fish and so I've never encountered any that don't tolerate it.


^ One of Ed's posts that I made sure to bookmark.


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## MirandaB (17 Jul 2022)

Sorry to hear that @Nont...my feeling is it's not Camallanus as it's killing so many so quickly.
Not sure if you'd feel up to doing it but if you had some rubber gloves and a scalpel I'd be tempted to open up one of the dead fish to see if it is Camallanus worms as they should be very obvious to see.


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## Nont (17 Jul 2022)

MirandaB said:


> Not sure if you'd feel up to doing it but if you had some rubber gloves and a scalpel I'd be tempted to open up one of the dead fish to see if it is Camallanus worms as they should be very obvious to see.


Just done it and I found no signs of worms. 

I’m going to call fish vet tomorrow and posting more updates here.


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## xZaiox (18 Jul 2022)

Hi all,
I concur on the internal parasite diagnosis. I would absolutely assume this is parasitic in nature - fish TB tends to be a longer-term illness. Bent spines can indeed be a part of fish TB, but this happening over the course of a month is very quick. Have you noticed any white/clear poop? Typically it's seen with various parasitic infections.


Nont said:


> I have treated them with Metronidazole and Flubendazole


Did you put the Metronidazole in the water, or feed it to the fish? I find Metronidazole is an incredibly effective medication for various internal parasitic infections, but it's best mixed in with the food, and with some sort of binder being used such as Seachem's 'Focus', or agar agar, or some type of gelatin product. This is to 'hold' the medication so that it's actually delivered to the fish, and not lost to the water column. It's also important to watch the fish feed, and ensure that they're actually eating it and not ignoring or spitting out the food.

Camallanus worms can often be physically identified on the fish (you can google this for images). As the worms mature, the females will hang out of the fish in order to release eggs into the water column. If this is physically seen, then it means that the infection is far progressed.

In a case like this with an unknown infection that is rapidly killing, I would personally employ a multi-pronged approach. Levamisole is a drug that will treat Camallanus and Capillaria, and it's usually only dosed for 24 hours followed by a water change. Praziquantel will treat tapeworms. Metronidazole will treat Hexamita. If none of these work, then I find Fenbendazole can treat a wide range of resistant parasitic infections.

Best of luck! Hope this helps


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## Nont (22 Jul 2022)

Hi guys, just to give updates on you guys.


Loss a couple more fish since med isn’t helping.
Right now I feed them Praziquantel, febantel, metronidazole I could find right now as Levamisole are not available anywhere.


xZaiox said:


> but it's best mixed in with the food, and with some sort of binder being used such as Seachem's 'Focus', or agar agar, or some type of gelatin product. This is to 'hold' the medication so that it's actually delivered to the fish, and not lost to the water column.


Thanks you for the reply.
Never thought of that, could you give me some tutorial on how to mix the medicated food?


Moving on to the vet service story.
Earlier on monday I gave vet a call. I wanted to know what you guys thought on all of this?
In their website, prior to the call, I was asked for the info of the infected tanks and symptoms of the fish. (It was an online/via telephone vet service)
During the call, I was told that the problem is bacterial infection and Vitamin C deficiency. He also mentioned that
*fish and planted tank are not suitable for some reasons. Plants cannot absorp Ammonia and Nitrite, only nitrifying bacteria can. And since my canister filter are empty, I need filter media and bottled bacteria so it doesn’t poison the fish. *Followed by a long explanation of how the cycle works.

The sentence made me extremely skeptical about the vet tbh.
Surely, it can’t be about ammonia right? I never seen it shown on the test. And with this amount of plants I don’t see the point of having filter media to lower the flow. Am I missing something?


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## plantnoobdude (22 Jul 2022)

Nont said:


> Plants cannot absorp Ammonia and Nitrite, only


Simply not true…. Plants can and will use nitrogen in different forms.


Nont said:


> The sentence made me extremely skeptical about the vet tbh.


I think you should be.


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## KirstyF (22 Jul 2022)

How long had the tank been running before you added the 20 danios?


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## dw1305 (22 Jul 2022)

Hi all,


Nont said:


> During the call, I was told that the problem is bacterial infection and Vitamin C deficiency. He also mentioned that *fish and planted tank are not suitable for some reasons. Plants cannot absorp Ammonia and Nitrite, only nitrifying bacteria can. And since my canister filter are empty, I need filter media and bottled bacteria so it doesn’t poison the fish. *Followed by a long explanation of how the cycle works.


Unfortunately beyond clueless.


Nont said:


> (It was an online/via telephone vet service)


I can't believe he was a qualified vet, if he was? That is absolutely shocking and you should get your money back.


Nont said:


> The sentence made me extremely skeptical about the vet tbh.
> Surely, it can’t be about ammonia right? I never seen it shown on the test. And with this amount of plants I don’t see the point of having filter media to lower the flow. Am I missing something?


No, you aren't missing anything, as even the most cursory glance at the scientific literature would have told your "professional advisor". 

Point him at: C. O. Akinbile & Mohd S. Yusoff (2012) <"ASSESSING WATER HYACINTH (_EICHHORNIA CRASSIPES_) AND WATER LETTUCE (_PISTIA STRATIOTES_) EFFECTIVENESS IN AQUACULTURE WASTEWATER TREATMENT"> _International Journal of Phytoremediation_, *14*:3, pp. 201-211>.


> ............ _Considerable percentage reduction was observed in all the parameters treated with the phytoremediators. Percentage reduction of turbidity for Eichhornia crassipes were 85.26% and 87.05% while Pistia stratiotes were 92.70% and 93.69% respectively. Similar reductions were observed in COD, TKN, NO3−, NH3, and PO43−. The capability of these plants in removing nutrients was established from the study_ .........





plantnoobdude said:


> Simply not true…. Plants can and will use nitrogen in different forms.


and that is the truth.

cheers Darrel


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## xZaiox (22 Jul 2022)

Nont said:


> During the call, I was told that the problem is bacterial infection and Vitamin C deficiency.


I find this actually pretty amusing - I've read quite a lot of posts from "vets" that seem to believe that fish in the aquarium trade cannot possibly have parasitic infections, and that they are only found in the wild, so they blame everything other than parasites. My experience has been the exact opposite - I can usually identify signs of parasitic infections in every single aquatics shop I go to, which is why I pre-medicate fish in my quarantine tank before they go in the main one. A large amount of fish in the aquarium trade are in-fact wild caught anyway, and I find gut parasites to be amongst the most common that I encounter. Fish aren't exactly sanitary creatures, they eat each-other's poop all the time  yesterday I literally watched one of my platy's poop, swim down and eat it, all within the span of 1-2 seconds. Gross.


Nont said:


> Never thought of that, could you give me some tutorial on how to mix the medicated food?


I unfortunately won't be able to be of much help here, as I now just use Seachem's product 'Focus', which is very user-friendly. I previously tried to make a medicated food mix with agar agar, but the consistency was way too thick and the fish outright refused to eat it  there appears to be a guide here - 12.7. Making Medicated Food
I don't think the medication measuring amount in that guide is very specific though, so if you follow a recipe you might want to double-check the dosing amount against what your medication packet advises.


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## dw1305 (22 Jul 2022)

Hi all, 


xZaiox said:


> I previously tried to make a medicated food mix with agar agar,


I think people have had success using Repashy foods.

cheers Darrel


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## Nont (25 Jul 2022)

Thanks again for response guys.


dw1305 said:


> I can't believe he was a qualified vet, if he was? That is absolutely shocking and you should get your money back.


Yes he was qualified. Unfortunately though, this kind of doctors are common in my country. There’s even qualified herbal doctor that says there’s herb for every single diseases on earth, they don’t even have a scientific explanations for what they’re doing and people are believing them 


xZaiox said:


> I've read quite a lot of posts from "vets" that seem to believe that fish in the aquarium trade cannot possibly have parasitic infections, and that they are only found in the wild, so they blame everything other than parasites.


It seems to me that they really like to make things more complicated than it actually are. And they doesn’t seems to have the fishkeeping experience like fishkeepers have.


KirstyF said:


> How long had the tank been running before you added the 20 danios?


About 2 and a half months.


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