Celestial danios - one dead,and one looks unwell, please help.

[Abcdefg]

Looks familiar?.. Perhaps

i saw some like the bottom two in the shop, but I don't think mine looked that bad, so I'm still not sure if I should do the de-wormer or not...

I guess I never will know 100% (or even close) whether I should use the de wormer, if it where you would you wait for a third fish to show signs before committing to it?

Thanks very much for your help on this!

 

[Abcdefg]

I had a particularly bad experience with cpds earlier in the year and that finished it for me as they are just too weak and inbred these days.
Personally I would be extremely wary of any fish presenting wasting symptoms coupled with a bent spine and lethargy.
Mycobacteriosis (fish TB) is always in my mind whenever I see fish like this

Thanks Miranda,

So presumably this would pass to the other fish, and possibly shrimp? I've quickly read some internet stuff, and it seems also to be transferable to humans... (hopefully with nothing serious resulting..)

I guess i should stop starting siphons with my mouth? do folk usually worry about ingesting tank water? is it something I should be wary of. sorry to sound like a paranoid paula.

I don't wish to unduly alarm you

I scare easily!

 

[MirandaB]

My apologies I really didn't mean to scare you
Shrimp are not in any danger from fish diseases so there are no worries there!
I would stop using the mouth start method for siphoning,it's not the best idea even with a healthy tank..yes I used to do it myself but after my disaster I stopped.
Hopefully it isn't mycobacteria but I'm a paranoid Paula about this disease,particularly as there has been virtually no research done in this country as to the incidence of it in tropical fish although there has been some in other countries.
Fingers crossed it's just this mysterious wasting disease that cpds seem prone to these days but do keep a close eye on the fish and water quality of course

 

[darrensp]

Best using a pump to remove tank water or I use the garden hose and turn the tap on and after a little minute of the I split the hose at the join and the water runs back out of the hose pulling the tank water out without any hassle or water in my mouth.

 

[zozo]

That's why treating fish is so difficult, it is very difficult to make a proper diagnose without the use of a microscope and many parasites and or bacteria have summular symptoms and require different treatment. That;s why broad spectrum meds are most popular in use, like Esha.. Not a bad thing to have it the med case, in case. But it actualy also invited to use it to soon.

Deworming a newly setup tank with new fish is never wrong, most dewormers are quite harmless, tho some can kill snails unwanted. Praziquantel is one of the least agresive.. Deworming is something you only have to do once if you do not feed live food from unreliable sources. Live food like that is always a risk. If a fish tank is maintained properly you do not need to worry that much.. You get more (bad) bacteria on your fingers with handling money, public doorgrips and banisters. When was the last time you got sick because of that? Actualy you should wash your hands every time you touched something like that.. And what do most poeple do? They wash their hands when comming from the toilet instead with the assumption they are dirtier than the toilets doorgrip they handled..

If you syphon use a smaller and longer hose like 1 metre x 10mm, it runs way slower and no need to get any tankwater in your mouth like that. It never happened to me.. If that happens you probably using a to short 12mm or 16mm hose runs the water faster than you can react to it..

The mycobacteria cuasing TB in fish can indeed be cuaght by us if we have wounds on or hands when sticking them in the tank.. But TB (and i mean the real one for us) can also be spread by the things i mentioned above.. This bacteria can survive for veri long in moist invironments outside a host..

Speaking of paranoia Paula.. A tiger, a bear and a chicken are sitting at a bar bragin a bit..
The bear says "When i roar all the surrounding mountains tremble, i cause avalanches daily!"
The tiger says "When i roar the whole jungle shakes in fear and leaves are falling"
The chicken laughs and says "When i sneeze, everybody in the world craps in their pants!"

 

[Abcdefg]

My apologies I really didn't mean to scare you

No worries! , it was partly in jest, but it's my first time having a tank and whilst it's been interesting and exciting, it's also been a process of becoming very, very worried about lots and lots of details.

I'll stop with the manual siphoning and find a grown up way to do it.

What I'm not sure about is what to do right now, seems like I can;

1: do nothing; wait to see if any of the others get sick

2: try to remove the sick one* and put it in a bucket with a heater and some prime and the de-wormer. and see what happens.

* I have unfortunately made a very convoluted hardscape that will make this difficult, I wanted to provide some places to hide. In retrospect I went too far

3: treat the tank with the dewormer in case they could all become ill, and also probably treat the tank with an antibiotic.

I'm not sure which to do.

I'm conscious that the lady or gent who is ill might be suffering, in which case what's the humane thing to do? If I put it in a bucket, then it passes away, I wount know what the cause is as it won't exactly be a bump up in accommodation terms.

 

[MadMike]

what would be the main disadvantages of using treatments? is it that they would mask problems with the tank and water quality? or that they have specific detrimental effects on the tank environment or inhabitants?

I don't mean in the sense that I'm thinking about blitzing the tank with all kinds of medications, but in my position I'm not sure what to do;

it's my first livestock in my first aquarium, I understand that losses could happen, but I'd like not to lose them all.

I feel like I have been taking things patiently, and researching stuff, and I have had the tank running for 2 months with no livestock hoping to get things in a good place, I don't want to panic, but I don't want to sit by idle while fish die.

What process do people go through when they spot an unwell fish in their tank? (with the caveat that they only have one tank)

Thanks

I would use treatments, if I had a quarantine tank. I'm in exactly the same situation, where I have only one tank.

We have all been in this situation at one stage or another. Whether it's a new tank, or the first illness. My response depends on what I see.

If the fish dies without warning, remove carcass and test water. Change if necessary.

If the fish is lethargic and not feeding, I just watch it.

Otherwise if I have an outbreak, maybe I might need to consider treatment. One fish, I don't treat. Again, if I had a QT tank I would definitely treat individually.

I started with a smaller tank, internal filter all the "came with it" things. As I've upgraded I've ended up with an external filter and plants and a UV steriliser to help prevent any diseases from getting a hold.

Using forums I've gained a lot of knowledge I use personally.

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[sciencefiction]

This is "wasting disease", very common to a lot of aquarium fish. There are 4 possible scenarios as far as I know which cause the fish to waste until it dies...

Least likely - bacterial but if it is, as mentioned previously, mycobacteria is not out of the question. In this case all fish will most likely perish early or later but for that external sores are also typical, so is deformed spine(like an s shape rather than from wasting).....different fish...different symptoms but it is not just an internal disease...and it can take up more than 6 months to show. Its untreatable....

Second least likely - tapeworms...typical to wild caught fish mostly because it needs an intermediary to spread....Fish bred in captivity are very unlikely to have those but its treatable with praziquantel. Prazi also treats some minor other parasites but not much.

Most likely - some sort of round worms or/and parasites. For round worms - Kusuri wormer plus sold in the UK. If just parasites, some are covered by the Kusuri wormer if the treatment is doubled but it also treats round worms infestations so I'd start with that to cover all fronts. The most common parasite I know about and which I have encountered a lot, is called hexamita disease, caused by spironucleus parasite mostly. Its treatable with hex treatment of different kinds. New life spectrum sell hex shield food(from amazon) which is quite good but that's for fish that are still eating.

Someone mentioned bullying...bulling in a tank can trigger internal parasite infections but the fish was most likely already a carrier. Healthy and happy fish may fight it off so would not show visual signs. I'd treat the whole tank if I see the "skinny" disease" as above....

In the worst scenario, fish has both parasites and bacterial infection, it will probably die rather quickly...The bacterial infection is a secondary...

To sum it up, its most likely a type of worm or parasites. Treating for bacterial infection at this stage is unless one has tried all other 3 options, is a waste of time...

 

[Archer]

I truely can relate with this post. Thanks for info and please keep them coming as i myself is strugling with my danios


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[Abcdefg]

I'd treat the whole tank if I see the "skinny" disease" as above....

This is very helpful, thanks.

When I got back from work last night the skinny Danio was still alive and active comparatively (didn't seem any worse than in the morning).

So, I treated the tank with the de-wormer, which was in fact kusuri wormer plus, as you recommend.

This morning I think the skinny one is still alive, but it's tricky to tell as I have blacked out the tank for a day ( I read that flubenzadole was photo-degradable, and a 24 hour blackout was recommended. Maybe it will lower stress too if there's bullying?)

I'll take another peak tonight and a proper look tomorrow morning when I stop the blackout.

Even with only 8 in a small tank, it's so tricky to do a population count. Do they breed versions of these guys with numbers on the side?

Cheers!

 

[Abcdefg]

UV steriliser to help prevent any diseases from getting a hold.

Thanks, is this a worthwhile investment? How much of a 'must have' do you think it is?

My tank is fairly planted, but it's a small volume of water, so presumably prone to all kinds of water quality issues.

Thanks

 

[MadMike]

Thanks, is this a worthwhile investment? How much of a 'must have' do you think it is?

My tank is fairly planted, but it's a small volume of water, so presumably prone to all kinds of water quality issues.

Thanks

That is the million dollar question. I haven't seen any illness since I installed the UV steriliser, whether that can be attributed to the steriliser or not is practically impossible to answer.

Water clarity improved though.

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[Tim Harrison]

I've had a very similar experience with Celestials as well...https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads...osterifolia-flowers.37490/page-20#post-459023
It's like Marcel says, they've been bred to within an nanometer of their genome, and have become susceptible to any number of diseases...Looking at your poor little fellow he was suffering from TB.

 

[Abcdefg]

That is the million dollar question. I haven't seen any illness since I installed the UV steriliser, whether that can be attributed to the steriliser or not is practically impossible to answer.

Water clarity improved though.

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i might read around a bit and look in to it, although I'd have to wait a few months, it's not the time of year to be spending money...

 

[Abcdefg]

I've had a very similar experience with Celestials as well...https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads...osterifolia-flowers.37490/page-20#post-459023
It's like Marcel says, they've been bred to within an nanometer of their genome, and have become susceptible to any number of diseases...Looking at your poor little fellow he was suffering from TB.

Thanks Tim, I guess I'll just have to see how they do. if it is TB is it something that the healthier fish will fend off?

Also, I notice from your thread that you look like you have, or had a radion (freshwater presumably), I have one too but I'm finding it pretty irritating in this style:

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/ecosmart-live-thumbs-down.37793/#post-475574

Can I ask what your experience with it has been? I'm hoping I'm just missing a trick with it like it's bad on a mac in a certain browser or something, or there's a particular firmware version that works etc.

Thanks!

 

[sciencefiction]

hen I got back from work last night the skinny Danio was still alive and active comparatively

The skinny danio can recover with the right treatment(as previously said except for fish TB but I seriously wouldn't jump on that horse so fast)

If I find my old pictures...I'll show you an extremely skinny deformed platy that recovered to normal looking one, and lived a normal long live. She had hexamita. She could barely hold in the water flow when I started treatment...One thing to keep in mind is that for that fish it took 2-3 months to actually fully visually recover from the exhausted deformed body she had. And she never grew up to her potential size but it didn't really matter. For a platy she lived about 4 years old which is not too bad. She never stopped eating though even when sick..I treated via food only.

But I knew what she had exactly because she was not the first one..Hexamita is just very common in many fish, mainly cichlids and apparently not livebearers but it has spread..It's a slow working disease for some fish( I think they have immunity to it to an extent and the trigger is stress) and kills others in a week or so(Discus, Angels, dwarf cichlids)...

The stress could be just moving the fish from one tank to another or the fish shop to your home...never the less the fish must carry the parasite to succumb to it. So treatment is a must although some fish will never succumb to it in the same tank.The Kusuri wormer plus has an effect on it. After the recommended treatment. Do it for another week...Kusuri is safe for even sensitive young fish but not so for inverts such as snails and shrimp.

If it is round worms, it is actually a matter of one time treatment and not introducing any other fish. I think parasites are nastier...because some of them are normally harmless but turn pathogenic in the right environment for them, the wrong for the fish..Internal parasites is more difficult to treat in my opinion..It can re-occur..but once you know what worked the first time...its not difficult to remedy the next time...It took me months and even years to figure things out...after trial and error..

 

[MadMike]

i might read around a bit and look in to it, although I'd have to wait a few months, it's not the time of year to be spending money...

For your information, I have the allpondsolutions 9W unit. Other sterilisers are available.

It's a bit beefy, draws 12W. 12W over the course of a year is a menial amount of electric, whether you can justify it is up to you.

It's not something I would rush out and buy, but it's a nice thing to have.

The filament needs replacing every 6 months for sterilisation, 12 for purification. The way I see it, it may do nothing, but if it does help I'm pleased it's there.

Edit: as a side note, it probably wouldn't have helped in your situation.

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[Abcdefg]

T

The skinny danio can recover with the right treatment(as previously said except for fish TB but I seriously wouldn't jump on that horse so fast)

Thanks,

Unfortunately this one didn't make it, I found it dead on Saturday, and it had been that way long enough to grow a fine fuzz of long strands, I'm not sure whether the others may have fed on it before I found it. As it was hidden away under some hair grass, I did t spot it immediately.

I treated with the wormer plus last Thursday, but don't want to overdo it as there are shrimp in the tank as well.

I have also treated with esha 2000, which appears to be a broad antibiotic, started the course on Saturday - it's a three day course, not sure if I can overdose.

There are two more fish that seem like they have wasting, so I'm partly expecting them to die also, if they did this would bring the deaths to 4 out of nine.

Can I ask everyone;
- Is there anything else I could treat with? or is it just wait and see.

-What should I feed? I gave them some daphnia, and they appeared to enjoy them, also most fish are eating or at least attempting to eat. but the daphnia are arguably a bit large for these guys.

-should I give medication in food? Or medicated food? If so which brands and products are any good and does anybody have any tips for administering them?

- is this still a case of 'could be fish TB, could be parasites, could be anything' or now that I have treated with the wormer plus, can I be fairly sure that if it continues it is bacteriological.

- I don't suppose I can reasonably say that the fish must have been ill when I bought them can I? I don't know how long fish tb, takes to develop. Would it have been in my tank, or been in the fish and been triggered by arrival in my tank?

Apologies for the endless questions. And many thanks for everyone's help.

Cheers

 

[Abcdefg]

The filament needs replacing every 6 months for sterilisation, 12 for purification.

Thanks Mike, I didn't realise they had consumables involved, can I ask what the filaments cost to replace?

Thanks

 

[Abcdefg]

Mycobacteriosis (fish TB) is always in my mind whenever I see fish like this

Hi Miranda,

Can I ask what you did afterwards with your tank? Did this wipe out everything in the tank? As in you euthanised everything, even other species of fish and non - symptom fish? sounds pretty traumatic.

I have been reading this;
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/blog/articles/should-you-be-worried-about-fish-tb

And it seems to be suggesting that scraping the whole tank and disinfecting everything and re-starting is the outcome of having this disease.

I realise that I don't know for certain whether the fish have TB, but they are pretty much the first livestock that I have in a 3 month old tank.

I thought I'd got to the part where I could enjoy a bit less stress from the setup, and checking water parameters daily and start to enjoy watching the fish and shrimp and doing slightly less maintainance (50 - 100% water changes etc...). If I have to tear it down and disinfect it it's going to be sad and pricey (plants etc). Maybe I can just forget keeping fish and carry on with just shrimp, as an alternative.

Thanks