The Nymph's Spring (EA900)

[shangman]

So sorry to hear about your beautiful cat 😢
Mine will be 21 soon,doing very well for her age but I know that day will come and I dread it.

As others have said see if you can get a definitive diagnosis but if not then I would treat the tank as if it is that and carry on pretty much as you have been in regards to your own safety.
Regarding the fish I think keeping stress to a minimum,good food,regular water changes and where possible euthanising any as soon as they show symptoms is the best thing.
It's important not to let fish die in the tank and then be picked at by the other inhabitants.
Edit...forgot to say make sure each of your tanks has separate maintenance equipment if you don't already to minimise cross contamination.

21! That's very impressive. My boyfriend's childhood cat lived until 23 amazingly. I wish you many more good years <3

Yeah I think for now it's safer to assume they have it and take the precautions, going to buy myself some extremely long pond gloves! The infection people can get looks grim af.

Your plan is the same thoughts as mine, I've got new equipment for separation today, and checked at the allotment - just in time the live food stocks are booming which is great. Sort of grim to euthanise any fish that look even slightly dodgy but I think it's for the best long term, they will suffer more without it.

My other plan is to buy a proper UV steriliser like a "TMC v2 Vecton UV Steriliser" which from what I can tell is a powerful one, and using a small one from a friend just in case it helps until that arrives. Today when feeding the fish it does occur to me that a lot of fish are looking healthy still and I hope I can save them with this, to help keep the viral load down. At the very worst it will save my plants if all the fish are doomed.

I have been looking at other possibilities online like Hexamita and endo parasites that some friends suggested but the micobacterium fit better. We'll see if the vet gets back to me!

 

[shangman]

The one issue in coming up with using the UV steriliser is that it may make my iron precipitate out of the water. I'm thinking of putting it on a timer so it's off for 3-4 hours after fertilising in the morning, any thoughts on off that is a good/bad idea? I do have DTPA iron if that helps.

 

[shangman]

Ok doing a post recording the various deaths of fish and what it looked like over the past 2 weeks. This also started about a month after I bought the pencils & dicrossus. I don't have photos of all the fish, and looking back I haven't euthanised the fish all immediately when I saw a problem, I have tried to wait a few days to see if it improves but tbh it never does (except for ich). Very grim tbh.

Death 1 18/02/2022: this pencilfish blew up like a balloon for a few days (when I first saw it it was smaller and I assumed a female with eggs), who I took out to see if it responded to salts and then realised was pineconed and had dropsy. This was a good week before everything else started, I didn't suspect anything at that point.

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Death 2 & 3 (not sure which date this was): I didn't photograph the second one, but I saw one of my big older tetra with a white "graze" on it, and thought hmmmm, columnaris? 2 days later I saw it in the back, the graze was worse (more 3D/fuzzy) and it wasn't swimming around so I caught it. I got the 10 tetra about 10 months ago, one has had really short nipped fins that never grew back the whole time, and I noticed this one also had a few dodgy white scales so even though it was still swimming around, it looked vulnerable to me and I euthanised them both. I thought at this point that these tetra were probably just getting old and that was the problem.

​

At this point the tank got ich which I treated with Esha Exit. I didn't have any deaths from the ich and it went away quickly. Only tetra got the ich on the body, to rest just on fins before going away.

And then I noticed a dicrossus had a few tiny pits in the head, and thought... uh oh.

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Death 4 & 5: These fish were hanging at the top of the tank together - an anorexic pencilfish that was bent, and a bent fat old tetra with another white graze. I didn't take a pic, just netted them out and euthanised. This was last week, and about when I made the post about how I am suspicious and suspect the fish tb/mycobacteria. Sadly didn't take a pic.

Deaths 6. 7, & 8 12/03/2022: I noticed 3 dicrossus now had these pits and they were getting worse, so I took them out and put then in a quarantine tank. 2 died by the next day, and the third I euthanised as the pits looked bad and I realised they coudn't go back in the main tank like that. This was last week, can't remember the exact date. This is the worst one, it's hard to tell but the head at the top looks like it's eaten away. Honestly this was the ahrdest one, they are such lovely fish.

The morning of this day I woke up to find a pencilfish dying upsidedown on the floor of the tnak, to took it out and euthanised it. This pencilfish had a similar graze on it to the first tetra pictured for 2 days before, but had been acting fine.

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Death 9 13/03/2022: I had noticed a few days before a pygmy cory with its fins eaten away, and knew I should kill it but didn't have the heart yet. But I knew I really should be euthanising them when I see them and just did it. When I caught it I realised it had ich, I didn't take a pic though it was at night right before I went to bed when I saw it. This is the only pygmy cory I've seen with an illness so far, though I suspect a few more have died since I added them. Although none of the other fish are showing it, this little pygmy cory seemed to have ich so I treated the tank again. This seems to be a telltale sign of the near end of a dodgy fish, the ich comes back on them only.

Today - Deaths 10 & 11 16/03/2022: Another anorexic pencilfish who I had noticed for 2 days and hasn't improved, along with a pencilfish who I hadn't noticed with problems before but today had a really gross injury - the gill on one side was exposed like it's face had been eaten away with scales hanging off (hard to tell in the pic how bad it was). I think maybe before this pencilfish had a paler head for a few days before, but that's it. The pencilfish seem the most prone to this illness so far, I've euthanised 5 of the group of 15. I have also noticed at times some pencilfish have stringy poop, maybe 2-3 times but it goes away after a few hours, I have euthanised those fish, though maybe I should on reflection.

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Another option is that my tank has columnaris (the dodgy looking tetra photographed above looked like this) and hexamita parasites (which causes hole in the head in cichlids), which could be a possibility, but with the breadth of symptoms across many types of fish I think the TB is most likely.

Here is a list of symptoms of fish tb/Mycobacterium from <this useful video> & <this link>, I have bolded the symptoms I've seen with my fish in the tank.
Emaciation
Not eating
Reduced acitivity levels
Loss of buoancy/seem heavy on the floor of the tank
Dropsy
Bent spines/deformities
Lack of colouring
Redness on the skin
Skin lesions
White bulging areas under the skin
Pock marks
Loss of scales
Fin erosion
Popeye
White faeces
Areas like mouth rotting away
Mouth ulcers (can look like tumours, usually on bigger fish)
Redness around vent
Swimming haphazardly/spinning

So far I've been feeding the fish well with live food, continuing my 50% weekly waterchanges with an extra 30% one mid-week, a big gravel vac, filter & pipe cleanings. I've also bought a massive UV steriliser - the TMC vecton 600 which I will install tomorrow, and I hope will save some of the fish, or at the very least will save me from catching it getting a nasty rash and save the plants/tank. TBH After being quoted I don't think I can really afford the vet right now on top of the steriliser (which at least will treat things a bit), so will have to wait a while to save up for that.

 

[shangman]

Yesterday I installed the UV steriliser, which is hooked up to the filter between the outlet of the filter and the outlet lily pipe. My hope is that this will mean that the disease won't spread further (in case any fish in the tank aren't infected or have so far been able to fight off the infection and this will help them), and it will stop any future fish that go in the tank from catching the disease, and stop me from catching it too! I am very very far off from buying new fish of course, but it gives some hope for the future that the whole tank won't have to be scrapped, I can just about handle the fish, but everything? I have to try a solution and see. If you haven't read the earlier posts, I am using a UV steriliser as recommended by Diana Walstad whose rainbowfish tank got Fish TB, and she managed to keep the tank running and many of her fish were fine using the UV for several months, with new fish added that never caught it.

I bought a "TMC v2 Vecton 600 UV Steriliser", it's quite massive and sticks out of the back of the cabinet, but needs must. My dad and me organised the cabinet better so it fits fine. The important thing to focus on is the flow rate in the tank, as the UV light has to get enough time in contact with infected waters to kill the pathogens in the water. So I went for one that will definitely do this and more, just in case. Below is a size comparison with by Oase 600, and how it looks in the cbainet now it's installed.

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I read somewhere that people also call Fish TB/mycobacteria "fish zombie disease" and like.... yeah, that's it exactly. Like in a film where the zombies all look uniquely gross and affected in different ways. I think I'm gonna have a good few weeks of a fish dying/needing to be put down every day or two, so that's super fun and not at all soul destroying. 🙃 I'm pretty sure that all of the pencils are gonners, so far they've been the most affected, and yesterday I noticed 2 "healthy" ones with white poo sticking out which I think is probs a symptom. I have got quite good at recognising the symptoms quite early just from shy behaviour and very slight body shape change, but I can't seem to stop myself from watching them for a further few days to make sure before euthanising.

New fish species are succumbing, my female sparkling gourami has lose her sparkle, become thin and has greyed eyes like cataracts. My single "leopard oto" I also found yesterday upsidedown on the floor of the tank heavy breathing. When I netted him he put up a bit of a fight and was trying to escape, but he seems to have lost the ability to hold onto glass or objects and just slips down and lay on the bottom doing nothing but breathing. He doesn't have any other visual symtoms, he is quite slim but not extremely. I think another regular oto could be sick too, it has more of a hump that it used to like it's bent and hunched. I have read that the micobacteria lives in biofilm, so I guess it's not surprising that the otos are being affected. This oto is was one of original very first fish though, honestly this is all pretty harrowing. I've sort of emotionally closed myself off from the tank as I'm anticipating that all the fish will die, even the apistos idk, I'm suspicious about how the female apisto looks atm.

For the future (which I have to imagine rn even if it's a long way off to give me some hope), I will make my 23L desk tank <seen in this journal> a quarantine tank for any new fish. 🙂 Currently it has ricefish (none of whom have died or got sick in this tank so I think it's ok) who are waiting for me to plant the little above-ground pond a bit more in April before they go out. This way I don't have to set up a new tank and have the family moan at me, it's already stable and thriving, easy to remove all the hardscape if needed, and I think will be a much nicer place for new fish to enjoy that doesn't stress them out. Plus is lowtech so no CO2 worries. Before I always struggled with the idea of a quarantine tank which the fish would be stressed out in, it wouldn't be properly established with the filter, etc. So this is the best of both worlds. It's small so I can only keep a small number of fish in it to quarantine, which I think is good as it limits me from rather than thinking "Oh my tanks massive, let's just get em today!". I will also keep them there for 6 weeks, this disease has taught me that it can easily take more than a month for some nasty symptoms to begin to show.

What I have learnt so much form this hobby is that yes, you might get away with not quarantining or doing best practice, but eventually something bad will happen, and if you didn't follow these guidelines you're f***ed. Or rather, your fish are. I read once that basically nobody quarantines until something goes horribly wrong, so I guess it's that time for me!

Fingers crossed one day soon this journal can go back to being positive. Really hate the whole death side of life! Hopefully this is useful to someone else.

 

[Hufsa]

Keep your heart closed for now, I think it is the only way to endure such an outbreak 💗
Sending all manner of positive vibes to your tank, fingers and everything crossed the UV will help!

Keep us updated if you can, I think its good to have more information about this terrible disease

 

[The Miniaturist]

I was going to hit "like" but it's not appropriate.
I think you have a huge task ahead of you and despite losing your lovely fish, seem to be determined to work through all difficulties you will encounter.
I'm sure everyone is wishing you well and hoping your Aquatic Eden is restored to near it's former beauty.
Sending supplication to the Naiads of the Aquarium to give you help and support. 💗

 

[tacy k]

Thank you for keeping up with your journal. I am someone who has never had a quarantine tank and has been lucky enough to get away with it over the years. But after hearing what has happened to you, and knowing how well you care for your fish, I'm not going to risk it any more. No more fish until I have some where safe to quarantine them for a few weeks. So you have protected my 7 clown loaches, bristle nose ancistrus, 6 cory sterbei, 3 pearl gourami, 10 congo tetra, 7 angels and 11 hatchets from any future exposure to this or any other disease. Thank you.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

No more fish until I have some where safe to quarantine them for a few weeks.

I think <"quarantine is essential">, it is only a matter of time before something grisly happens without it. I keep a <"spare planted tank">, rather than a bare quarantine tank.

cheers Darrel

 

[mort]

I'm so sorry to hear of your troubles. I haven't looked at the thread for a while because it's one of my favourite journals and I like to catch up on it in big chunks. It really sounds like you are going through it at the moment and it's so sad to hear about your beautiful cat and now the fish.
I've not dealt with tb and I'm sure with your research that you are probably the most knowledgeable of us now so I'll just say good luck and I'm sure when things improve you will get your mojo back. I had a huge, long fight with vibrio in our seahorse breeding system and the enthusiasm drained but came back. Last spring the demented idiot child thats our back neighbour poured something into our pond filter barrel and killed all of our fish (most in their 20's) because our neighbour called the police on him and he thought they lived here. It was the most heart wrenching day of my life draining the pond the burying all those beloved fish but I'm now getting some motivation at creating a wildlife haven, so we can all heal.

 

[shangman]

Had to euthanise another pencilfish today, it looked normal from far away but I realised when it moved at different angles that all around the base of the tail its scales were pineconed out, like it had dropsy but just the last 1/4 of its body.

I am thinking that it might be best to euthanise all the pencilfish, they have had the most symptoms and they seem to be fine one day and have some horrible symptom you wouldn't wish on anything the next. I don't want to do it, but maybe it is for the best? IDK, no easy answers right now, I've already killed 6 of 15. Has anyone else done this before? I think probably the pencils brought it in with them, but the thing with this disease is that it could've easily been in the tank before, and just the introduction of a new non-immune-resistant fish triggered it to spread. So sad because my pencils are really beautiful playful funny little fish with bags of personality, but I think they are probably doomed. I will have to keep them again one day, I hope soon but who knows tbh. None of them ever jumped from the tank either!

I still look at the tank constantly, but mostly just to find any problem fish, which I often find. Like every 2 days or so I have to euthanise a fish, and immediately after I look in the tank and all I see are healthy playful fish. Then I look in the next morning, and another one is looking dodgy. And so on and on I guess. I am trying very hard to not find it all so upsetting, I don't get too upset when I have to kill the sick fish as I know it's better for them not to suffer, but I feel along the way of making and looking after this tank I accidentally put a bit of my soul into it and it is so hard to look at it now and know it has such a precarious future. It is rather heartbreaking. I won't quit this hobby because I love it so much but damn, with the love comes real pain.

I'm so sorry to hear of your troubles. I haven't looked at the thread for a while because it's one of my favourite journals and I like to catch up on it in big chunks. It really sounds like you are going through it at the moment and it's so sad to hear about your beautiful cat and now the fish.
I've not dealt with tb and I'm sure with your research that you are probably the most knowledgeable of us now so I'll just say good luck and I'm sure when things improve you will get your mojo back. I had a huge, long fight with vibrio in our seahorse breeding system and the enthusiasm drained but came back. Last spring the demented idiot child thats our back neighbour poured something into our pond filter barrel and killed all of our fish (most in their 20's) because our neighbour called the police on him and he thought they lived here. It was the most heart wrenching day of my life draining the pond the burying all those beloved fish but I'm now getting some motivation at creating a wildlife haven, so we can all heal.

Honestly it means so much to me for you to consider my journal one of your favourites. I really love sharing it all with you guys, when the tank is nice it's fun to show off, and when things aren't going well your kindness makes it all not so bad. I hope I can eventually steer it back into joyful times again, even if it takes a while.

My deepest condolences to you and your beloved fish, what a disgusting evil senseless thing for someone to do, they deserves the police called on them and more. I think you're right to look at it the way you do, a wildlife haven sounds beautiful and is so needed by wildlife everywhere, hopefully nature can do it's magic and be really healing. I think that's the awful thing about all this stuff, this hobby is so relaxing and healing and good for the old anxiety when things are going well, but when they're wrong it's like a stab in the heart. When other stuff is rubbish in life I would just go look at my tank and do some maintenance and that really helps, but now that comfort has been taken away it's just very ???

Hi all,

I think <"quarantine is essential">, it is only a matter of time before something grisly happens without it. I keep a <"spare planted tank">, rather than a bare quarantine tank.

cheers Darrel

Definitely. I'm going to do what you do, and convert one of my small planted tanks into a quarantine tank, it's not very big but it's bigger than an aquarium shop tank and at least a lot more interesting habitat and good water quality. Can just keep shrimp in it or use it as a breeding tank when it's not used as quarantine. I hate the bare tanks and that's what always kept me away from quarantining before but ... yeah, been burned! Won't put my hand in the fire again.

Thank you for keeping up with your journal. I am someone who has never had a quarantine tank and has been lucky enough to get away with it over the years. But after hearing what has happened to you, and knowing how well you care for your fish, I'm not going to risk it any more. No more fish until I have some where safe to quarantine them for a few weeks. So you have protected my 7 clown loaches, bristle nose ancistrus, 6 cory sterbei, 3 pearl gourami, 10 congo tetra, 7 angels and 11 hatchets from any future exposure to this or any other disease. Thank you.

Thank you 💗 I hope that people can learn from my mistakes and avoid them cos they are really awful consequences. I know it's tedious and extra work and the family can be annoyed about an extra tank, but it is so worth it long term. The guilt is immense, I really recommend avoiding it.

I was going to hit "like" but it's not appropriate.
I think you have a huge task ahead of you and despite losing your lovely fish, seem to be determined to work through all difficulties you will encounter.
I'm sure everyone is wishing you well and hoping your Aquatic Eden is restored to near it's former beauty.
Sending supplication to the Naiads of the Aquarium to give you help and support. 💗

Aw it's ok, I know that likes are an act of support from people 💗 I really appreciate your well wishes and kindness 🙂 I am so determined to do everything I can to save as many as I can and get my little eden back on track.

Keep your heart closed for now, I think it is the only way to endure such an outbreak 💗
Sending all manner of positive vibes to your tank, fingers and everything crossed the UV will help!

Keep us updated if you can, I think its good to have more information about this terrible disease

I am really trying 💗 but I let myself get too into this tank to close my heart easily. I'm currently trying and failing tbh. Definitely will keep updating everything, at least that feels a bit productive and like I'm doing something useful!

 

[Luciën]

What an horror story! Never quarantined a fish before but now I feel like it's a must, don't know if I could keep up with an other extra tank though. Hope your sterilizer will work, loosing any stock is always heartbreaking.

 

[PARAGUAY]

Quarantine makes so much sense, such a relaxed feeling that new fish not immediately being mixed in a existing healthy set up. Because a lot of lfs don't quarantine, it's best to observe the fish .

 

[Conort2]

Have you treated for any internal parasites? It seems like you have a few issues going on. I would’ve said neon tetra disease but your dicrossus are affected which makes me want to rule that out.

 

[shangman]

Have you treated for any internal parasites? It seems like you have a few issues going on. I would’ve said neon tetra disease but your dicrossus are affected which makes me want to rule that out.

I treated the tank with flukesolve about a month ago as I saw 2 fish rubbing their gills. I've also treated the tank with Esha2000 last week, and about 3 weeks ago with EshaExit when the tank got ich, which was really when everything else started going downhill more quickly. The ich has gone, but the other treatments didn't seem to do anything. I think probably the ich outbreak was due to the lowering immunity of the fish from the other things they seem to have.

Happy to try anything else that you guys can suggest that isn't very expensive!

It looks like neon tetra disease is another non-treatable mycobacterium disease like Fish TB, and tbh I could see it with some of the symptoms I've got. As you said, the dicrossus being affected with a completely different kind of symptom is what is particularly hmmm, but Fish TB does including lesions which are often around the head. Maybe I've got 2+ diseases in there, like maybe neon tetra disease and hexamita or another internal parasite? I did look at Hexamita treatment but it's not shrimp-safe, and I do have a lot of cherries in there which I worry would screw the water quality even more if I killed them all with a treatment, they're impossible to get out. Plus the dicrossus just looked bad quite quickly, I think they were too small to last long and recover. I wish I had the extra cash for a vet confirmation but I decided to spend what I had on the UV that could treat and help the tank instead just in case. when I can afford it I will do it so we can know wtf is going on.

Fish species that have died:
Pencilfish maculatus(6), cardinal tetra (3), dicrossus (3), sparkling gourami (1), pygmy cory (1), oxyropsis (1). Might be a few more but I think that's it so far, and with many different symptoms including:
Bloating, dropsy, anorexia/thinness, bent spine (not extremely bent it's quite subtle, the tail bends down slightly), head lensions, scales falling off, white grazes on body, odd colouring, fin rot, face rot, paralysis, long white faeces, not eating. Generally fish show 1-2 of these symptoms each. This is over a month, generally one or two fish at a time. I would expect if it was another disease/diseases that more of the fish would have symptoms and be getting sick faster, and Fish TB has all of these symptoms in it's list.

What an horror story! Never quarantined a fish before but now I feel like it's a must, don't know if I could keep up with an other extra tank though. Hope your sterilizer will work, loosing any stock is always heartbreaking.

Yeha I think it is a must tbh, if you don't want to risk everything in the tank. None of my close fish friends quarantine and they have fish from all the shops I've bought from, so I thought I could risk it. We're all at risk of bad luck, anything to mitigate this one I think is really worth it.

Quarantine makes so much sense, such a relaxed feeling that new fish not immediately being mixed in a existing healthy set up. Because a lot of lfs don't quarantine, it's best to observe the fish .

Yeah exactly, I think after this I would have major anxiety for the next few months if I just added new fish to the tank knowing what could happen, especially as nothing abnormal happened for 5 weeks after adding my latest fish. I always thought that disease would happen quicker. So not only will I quarantine, but I will quarantine for 2 months. Makes stocking slow, but worth it in the long run! Plus I think I will only buy from a very few number of high quality shops like the Fish Barn.

What I've realised about this hobby is that my goal is to make long-term (at least 2 years if nto longer) scapes full of thriving healthy fish which I keep for a few years with proper stability. For stability, I need to be careful and do things slowly. I think cos I'm quite new to the hobby I can get overexcited about buying the fish when I saw them, rather than only buy it from a really good source after planning it out. I have to really control that part of myself cos I just end up hurt in the long run. I see this way of doing things not just in me but in my friends too, it's not always a bad thing but it's easy to get greedy when seeing the very shiny things.

 

[Hufsa]

Would anyone else be interested in bankrolling (is this the right word?) as a group to help @shangman pay for the vet? If enough people chip in just a small amount then it could suddenly be much more doable?

Im up for it, let me know what you think guys&girls ?

 

[The Miniaturist]

Hi there,
@shangman, your last paragraph is very true. It is far too easy to get carried away when you see all the beautiful fish available.
Over the years I have learned, having nano tanks, to research well by reading other people's experiences with fish I'm interested in on sites like this, then pick a couple of suitable species to stock the aquarium, obviously scale things up for a bigger volume.
I'm unlikely to ever have a large showpiece aquarium but whatever the size I'd still aim for a stable environment for the fish to live out their natural lifespan.
I've got a couple of Chelsea Pensioner cherry barbs, whiling away their twilight years in one tank!
I've never had a major disease outbreak, though a heater failure (on, unfortunately) nearly caused me to give everything up a few years ago but I think it's in my blood & I simply can't imagine not having a tank to watch, enjoy and sometimes stress over!

 

[Karmicnull]

Would anyone else be interested in bankrolling (is this the right word?) as a group to help @shangman pay for the vet? If enough people chip in just a small amount then it could suddenly be much more doable?

Im up for it, let me know what you think guys&girls ?

I'm in.
Simon

 

[Karmicnull]

For those concerned about the burden of a QT. My 35L one that I got off Gumtree doubles as a potting shed, has a few shrimp in it more by accident than design and gets a 60% WC every 2-3 weeks which takes me about 20 mins to do. It runs off a sponge filter and is pretty much as close to zero effort as you can get.

 

[John q]

Would anyone else be interested in bankrolling (is this the right word?) as a group to help @shangman pay for the vet?

I'd be happy to help in some small way either towards the vet bill or helping with a restocking fund.

 

[Wookii]

Similar to what other folks have said, I have never quarantined any fish and just got lucky - I certainly will be doing so going forward and will set up a dedicated tank.

So how long do new fish need to be quarantined before you can be happy that they haven't got something like TB?