Mystery deaths

[peaches]

@peaches - I am so sorry that I missed your post. Please use the @ symbol to get me.
I would love to try and help you and at least give my opinion.

I have had the exact same issue a few years ago, which started with newly-purchased Panda corydoras (Corydoras panda) and spread to other fish. I put it down as Aeromonas, and in my case it was probably triggered by contaminated frozen bloodworm and initiated due to the fact that the fish had a weak immune system. I would place a bet that the treatments used in aquarium fish farming either damage the microbial balance inside this particular species or work in such a way as to make them more vulnerable to digestive tract infections. My diary reveals that I did use isostatically-balanced aquarium salt (even though they are thought to prefer lower salt concentrations in the wild) and this was fine. I tried Interpet Anti Fungus and Fin Rot 100ml (number 8) which contains phenoxyethanol first (I was quite naïve back then 🙄) in a sterile, highly-aerated, quarantine tank, also feeding a decent flake food: the results were catastrophic. I cannot advise people enough to avoid phenoxyethanol. I then tried a parasite and worm treatment and saw no changes, before finally trying EHSA 2000. I do not think that these treatments did very much if anything at all, but EHSA 2000 is well respected and may have helped, but it's not ideal for shrimp and snails due to the copper content. Over a few more weeks the fish gradually recovered and the disease disappeared for good. If I had lots of fish then I would opt for doxycycline in a controlled treatment tank because it works well for me and there are studies supporting my findings. For your situation, I might not bother to set up a treatment tank. You could look into other commercially-available treatments if you feel that it is likely to be Aeromonas; I think there are a few around and they should be far cheaper, possibly more effective and readily available.


Yes - primarily I use Grindal worms for recovery after I have completed the dosed treatment.

Existing stock go into a bucket and have to put up with it for a day. The water gets changed before they are put back. If you go for that option, I support the dosage concentrations of potassium permanganate recommended here. I do not think it is that necessary because I think of Aeromonas as an opportunistic infection, but if you feel that it is too abundant to avoid disease reoccurrence, then you could either do the tank and ignore the filter, or do both. I cannot say whether it is necessary because I do not know, but it is something I would consider for infections like columnaris Flavobacterium columnare (when I have uncertainty and am planning on reintroducing fish from their treatment tank and back into the previous aquarium).

Some aeromonas is zoonotic and can be transmitted to humans. Wash hands with soap and wear gloves if you have cuts. It is usually treatable in humans, but I wanted to mention just in case so that you are aware.

That might not be necessary if the abundance of the pathogen in the aquarium lowers sufficiently to reduce disease, or it disappears. Potassium permanganate as a decontaminant is non-destructive to plants and hardscape, but it may stain rocks for a few days if you have one that reacts. It may affect microbial communities, but plants do most of the work (Darrel's "headline news") mediating nutrient levels and bio-adsorption of other organic molecules, so you might be able to get away with this. I wouldn't bother personally... but then again, would I... if I knew it was aeronomas and could spread elsewhere... given how much of a problem it now is??? ...not sure.

Those are my thoughts too.

Balanced against the costs of treatment, you could probably order and get delivered: a new quarantine tank, pump, air stone, tubing, new food and pharmaceutical medication for that price, and still have enough for a booze-up down the local 🍺.

@Simon Cole
Right. I have treated the tank several times over the past few months. With Esha 2000, Myxazin, Protozin, 2 different wormers: flubendazole and praziquantel. Obviously when you have a chain of individual deaths you keep having different theories. My head is spinning a bit. The last treatment I messed up, it was the flubendazole. I took my applesnails out, kept for a week in a plastic tank. Did 50% water changes, put carbon in filter, returned snails ... it's killed them. The stink led me to this. I think I have to strip the tank down as there are dead MTS in substrate. (Yes I know its a right mess)
So , tomorrow, plan B
New QT tank. Put stock in.
I will dump the substrate buy new.
Can the plants treated with permanganate and my wood etc
What shall I do with filters?
I can buy a new mature sponge filter from tropco and then I can clear out the media. Or did I misunderstand that?
I'm off to research Aeromonas. Thanks.

 

[peaches]

Still can't decide what to do about filters.

 

[xZaiox]

Hi peaches,
I think Simon has given good general advice, but honestly I really don't think parasites are that uncommon in fish, I've dealt with so many that I now pre-medicate fish in quarantine in order to stop takeovers in the main tank. The fact is a lot of fish are wild caught, and we have all seen fish eat eachothers poop in aquariums, they aren't exactly sanitary creatures, and it's easy for parasites to spread this way.

Check out this link - 11.2. White Poop

I've had lots of success treating internal parasites with Metronidazole by using Seachem's 'Metroplex' (if you go this route make sure to get their product 'Focus' too in order to bind the medication more effectively). In instances where Metronidazole hasn't worked, I've then switched to Fenbendazole (from Panacur-C for dogs), and this has worked for my fish.

Forgive me if you have commented this already (I only skim-read the posts), but from the list of medications you've provided, it sounds like you've been water-dosing? Generally with internal parasites, you want medication in the food, as it goes straight to the parasites. A benefit of dosing in the food also means that friendly bacteria in the tank are unaffected.

I personally wouldn't worry about fish TB yet, from my understanding the bacteria is present in most aquariums already, and infections of this don't usually kill quickly at all. Symptoms listed under fish TB such as sunken belly and various bodily deformities can also occur as a result of internal parasites.

You have said that your fish "swim irregularly and hide", in my experience these can also be symptoms of internal parasites. Fish are generally good at hiding sickness from other fish, after all, showing weakness in the wild will often result in death. So if a fish is at the point of hiding, it is usually because they really aren't feeling well. This in combination with white stringy poop is definitely something I would treat for. Clear stringy poop can sometimes be empty fecal casts if a fish hasn't been eating, but if the fish are eating and also have white/clear stringy poop, I would personally start metronidazole in the food. The medications you listed that you tried aren't effective against hexamita/capillaria.

Hopefully this helps 🙂

 

[xZaiox]

I can buy a new mature sponge filter from tropco and then I can clear out the media.

Just saw this comment - I don't know if I'm allowed to say this on this forum (if I'm not then can a mod please just delete this comment?), but I would HIGHLY discourage this. When I was new to fish keeping, I went to tropco in-person and bought fish without checking their health (I was inexperienced and assumed the fish would be healthy), and they were absolutely infested with ich, had internal parasites and I also suspect gill flukes. A few years later, after necessarily becoming more familiar with fish diseases, I decided to go back and inspect their tanks. They had dead fish in nearly every tank, there was ich and white poop absolutely everywhere.

I would personally advise just staying away from this company, their standards are not high.

 

[Simon Cole]

Yes - diluted potassium permanganate at an appropriate concentration is idea for decontaminating rocks and wood, especially in a bowl in the sink. There are plenty of other decontamination options that you might prefer, like boiling wood or baking the rocks in an oven. I have used a range of different chemicals for this over the years too, but an appropriate dilution of potassium permanganate is what I currently tend towards using the most often. For internal filters, you could dunk them into the same bowl and it does the same job. This is best done with synthetic foam and nothing that will oxidise strongly like cotton or hemp. For external filters, you could wipe them with the solution in the same way that people dress wounds using the same chemical; you could use bit of kitchen sponge. I would be careful not to stain myself or other surfaces, so butyl gloves are quite useful. It is a powerful oxidising agent and is worth looking at safety data sheets before you do too much with it. If it is powder or granular form, then you could store it in a safe location like a sealed tub in the garage, appropriately labelled, and take additional precautions not to breath it in or make skin contact, especially on your eyes. The diluted solution is often used as a human medical treatment in the correct concentration, and it is even used to purify drinking water in extreme survival situations, again at the correct concentration. When I have stained my fingers, it did me no harm, but it is worth being aware of this and to keep clothing away. I can see 10 grams for £3 with free delivery online. You could also get pre-diluted measures. You could use a colour index to estimate the dosage, or if you have sensitive scales, then you could mix a stock solution using deionised water (e.g. RO) and keep diluting it down until you get the desired concentration. It is usually safe to flush away in sewerage. It usually takes a while to dissolve in crystalline form but helps if you shake the bottle.

External filters work like a "pump in a bucket", and as Darrel once pointed out:

• "...the bacteria we thought were essential for cycling don't actually occur in aquarium filters
• If you have plenty of plants (and some with the aerial advantage) you can use them both to improve water quality and as an indication of when to add fertilisers.
• "Plant/microbe biofiltration" is much more efficient than "microbe only" biofiltration."

Considering the extensive discussions we get on the value of filter media, I am led to presume that they have no real benefit if you have enough plants present, and if you don't because you are replanting, then you're probably going to wait for the tank to cycle first.

Regarding my comment on decontaminate your aquarium after the fish have been removed using potassium permanganate. Please allow me to clarify that a person doing this could follow the following method:

a) remove the livestock,​

b) add potassium permanganate at the recommended concentrations to the existing aquarium water,​

c) leave it alone for a suitable duration (over this the duration lots of the potassium permanganate will become oxidised and the aquarium water should end up with potassium and manganate ions),​

d) change the water anyway to reduce any residual concentration to levels acceptable for the aquarium livestock,​

e) replace the livestock and check that they look happy,​

f) job is done, time for a cup of tea,​

g) plants are generally assumed to be unaffected in any significant way by the process, and long or medium-term impacts upon rocks, substrates and filter media are assumed to be unlikely,​

h) nothing actually needs to be removed during this process except things that could stain permanently and the livestock (some people leave them in, this is irrelevant if they are relocated during step (a) to a treatment tank,​

i) never add chemicals or treatments to potassium permanganate, whether diluted, undiluted, crystalline, or during treatment. Point (d) I generally assume to be safe with conditioned water.​

j) points (a) to (i) are what I do personally, and do not mean that this method is intended as advice or guidance that you should feel obliged to follow - it's up to others to judge the merit of this method.​

If you have used two different wormers, and the use of a third is recommended then I'm not going to disagree simply because there is diversity of opinion. I'm not a professional fish doctor and I simply do not know what will work; what I do know about wormers is that treatment resistance has increased over time. If there is more saliency following one possible solution then I would do whatever approach makes the most sense to me at the time. I find the possibility that there could be ich at Tropco deeply worrying because it does not need to be like that if they follow good husbandry protocols.

 

[peaches]

I will try it. I have liquid potassium permanganate in stock as I bought it to do a dip on my plants following anubias rot. It's the same permanganate they use to dip koi. I was concerned that by letting the permanganate come into contact with filters i would kill off the archaea or bacteria. The i fo below is from tropco. I bought several to set up breeder tanks and checked daily for a fortnight to find no problems with ammonia nitrite or nitrate. The first one was so successful, I repeated it again. Thankfully the breeder tanks are kept completely separate from my display tank.

 

[peaches]

Hi peaches,
I think Simon has given good general advice, but honestly I really don't think parasites are that uncommon in fish, I've dealt with so many that I now pre-medicate fish in quarantine in order to stop takeovers in the main tank. The fact is a lot of fish are wild caught, and we have all seen fish eat eachothers poop in aquariums, they aren't exactly sanitary creatures, and it's easy for parasites to spread this way.

Check out this link - 11.2. White Poop

I've had lots of success treating internal parasites with Metronidazole by using Seachem's 'Metroplex' (if you go this route make sure to get their product 'Focus' too in order to bind the medication more effectively). In instances where Metronidazole hasn't worked, I've then switched to Fenbendazole (from Panacur-C for dogs), and this has worked for my fish.

Forgive me if you have commented this already (I only skim-read the posts), but from the list of medications you've provided, it sounds like you've been water-dosing? Generally with internal parasites, you want medication in the food, as it goes straight to the parasites. A benefit of dosing in the food also means that friendly bacteria in the tank are unaffected.

I personally wouldn't worry about fish TB yet, from my understanding the bacteria is present in most aquariums already, and infections of this don't usually kill quickly at all. Symptoms listed under fish TB such as sunken belly and various bodily deformities can also occur as a result of internal parasites.

You have said that your fish "swim irregularly and hide", in my experience these can also be symptoms of internal parasites. Fish are generally good at hiding sickness from other fish, after all, showing weakness in the wild will often result in death. So if a fish is at the point of hiding, it is usually because they really aren't feeling well. This in combination with white stringy poop is definitely something I would treat for. Clear stringy poop can sometimes be empty fecal casts if a fish hasn't been eating, but if the fish are eating and also have white/clear stringy poop, I would personally start metronidazole in the food. The medications you listed that you tried aren't effective against hexamita/capillaria.

Hopefully this helps 🙂

Where do you get metronidazole in uk?

 

[xZaiox]

Where do you get metronidazole in uk?

Since Metronidazole is also an antibiotic, it's usage is restricted in the UK, so it can't be bought over-the-counter. You could get a vet to prescribe it if you were really desperate. I'm from the UK too, and didn't have any difficulties getting it though... cough ebay cough

 

[Simon Cole]

You could feed oregano to your fish while you threat them with metronidazole because it might help fish with particular strains of Aeromonas.

 

[peaches]

Just saw this comment - I don't know if I'm allowed to say this on this forum (if I'm not then can a mod please just delete this comment?), but I would HIGHLY discourage this. When I was new to fish keeping, I went to tropco in-person and bought fish without checking their health (I was inexperienced and assumed the fish would be healthy), and they were absolutely infested with ich, had internal parasites and I also suspect gill flukes. A few years later, after necessarily becoming more familiar with fish diseases, I decided to go back and inspect their tanks. They had dead fish in nearly every tank, there was ich and white poop absolutely everywhere.

I would personally advise just staying away from this company, their standards are not high.

Since Metronidazole is also an antibiotic, it's usage is restricted in the UK, so it can't be bought over-the-counter. You could get a vet to prescribe it if you were really desperate. I'm from the UK too, and didn't have any difficulties getting it though... cough ebay cough

What type of metronidazole? Is it a tablet @xZalos

 

[xZaiox]

What type of metronidazole? Is it a tablet @xZalos

I personally use 'Metroplex' by Seachem, and then I use it with their product 'Focus' - Focus binds the medication to the food so that it substantially reduces losses in the water, that way you know the fish are actually consuming the medication. I initially only bought metroplex, and found a guide online of binding it myself by using agar agar to make a sort of jelly food-paste, but honestly this turned out to be a total disaster, the consistency was way too thick and the fish couldn't/wouldn't eat it 😂 I never was much of a cook...

Focus is very user friendly though, and it's honestly incredibly useful to have lying around, I also use it whenever I want to feed any other medication, such as Fenbendazole.

 

[peaches]

@×zalos
Got metroplex not the other thing.
Would it be safe made up in repashy?
Or is it safer to treat whole tank as let's just say certain fish are hogs.

 

[peaches]

You could feed oregano to your fish while you threat them with metronidazole because it might help fish with particular strains of Aeromonas.

@Simon Cole got metroplex. Is it better to treat the tank or food?

 

[Simon Cole]

@xZaiox:

Is it better to treat the tank or food?

 

[xZaiox]

Got metroplex not the other thing.
Would it be safe made up in repashy?
Or is it safer to treat whole tank as let's just say certain fish are hogs.

I'm not actually sure what repashy is, I just looked it up and it seems like a gel type of food? Medicated feeds such as metronidazole are fine to use with any food, but you generally want to be mindful of actually getting it into the fish, so gel type foods are useful to ensure it holds the medication and gets properly delivered. This is what Seachem's 'focus' achieves, but it can also be done with simple gelatine mixtures or agar agar - I didn't have much success with agar agar, but I know it can be done.

Is it better to treat the tank or food?

Without a doubt, treat the food. For internal parasites, you really want the medication going straight into the fishes gut. In-fact, in extreme cases (i.e fish wasting away and refusing food with white poop), some people actually dissolve metronidazole in a little bit of tank water and use a pipette to directly inject the solution into the fishes gut. This is obviously not a pleasant experience, but many report it works brilliantly. I would imagine this would be increasingly more difficult with smaller fish though...

 

[peaches]

I'm not actually sure what repashy is, I just looked it up and it seems like a gel type of food? Medicated feeds such as metronidazole are fine to use with any food, but you generally want to be mindful of actually getting it into the fish, so gel type foods are useful to ensure it holds the medication and gets properly delivered. This is what Seachem's 'focus' achieves, but it can also be done with simple gelatine mixtures or agar agar - I didn't have much success with agar agar, but I know it can be done.

Without a doubt, treat the food. For internal parasites, you really want the medication going straight into the fishes gut. In-fact, in extreme cases (i.e fish wasting away and refusing food with white poop), some people actually dissolve metronidazole in a little bit of tank water and use a pipette to directly inject the solution into the fishes gut. This is obviously not a pleasant experience, but many report it works brilliantly. I would imagine this would be increasingly more difficult with smaller fish though...

Repashy is a food with gelatin, you buy as a powder, mix with hot water and set and cut into pieces. It's supposed not to mess with water quality if not eaten all at once because of gelatine. I also have basic gelatine. I've made up snail jello using it. I have a new quarantine tank now so just need to set it up and start the process.

 

[xZaiox]

Repashy is a food with gelatin, you buy as a powder, mix with hot water and set and cut into pieces. It's supposed not to mess with water quality if not eaten all at once because of gelatine. I also have basic gelatine. I've made up snail jello using it. I have a new quarantine tank now so just need to set it up and start the process.

Ahh, that sounds like it should get the job done then try to ensure the medication is spread evenly within it. I'm not sure what temperature metronidazole is stable up to, but it would probably be good practice to add it when the mixture is cooling down a bit before it's set.

 

[peaches]

Yes I thought that too.

 

[peaches]

State of play:
The Roma 200 fish are now in a 105 L quarantine tank. The Roma has had substrate removed, it is full of water and potassium permanganate , the bottle says 10ml to 200L so that's what I'm doing the wood and stones and filters are all in there. I don't know if the potassium permanganate kills the filter. But I have some nitrico on order.

I have some Metroplex in the house, for adding to fish food but I've lost it!!! I could scream! I'm mixing it with repashy.

 

[peaches]

Food made up with metroplex and they have started it. The food made up more than I thought, they will be taking it for a few days.