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The Nymph's Spring (EA900)

Hi
Following this thread and hope you will get to the bottom of it and resolve it soon.
Just my 2 cents.
During my latest ich attack on my newly purchased SAP Puffers (They seem to get it almost 100% when you buy (move) them)that took absolutely ages to sort out and the real game changer was using Levamisole medicated food in addition to the Esha Treatment. Not 100% sure if correct but Levamisole apart from being a worm treatment is said to have immune system boosting properties that will help fish to fight off any parasitic infestation.I was treating the puffers for over a month with high temps and saw little effect on the parasites(they were absolutely covered in white spots)before starting with medicated food. Coincidence or not shortly after they started clearing.
Regards Konstantin
 
Konsa said:
Hi
Following this thread and hope you will get to the bottom of it and resolve it soon.
Just my 2 cents.
During my latest ich attack on my newly purchased SAP Puffers (They seem to get it almost 100% when you buy (move) them)that took absolutely ages to sort out and the real game changer was using Levamisole medicated food in addition to the Esha Treatment. Not 100% sure if correct but Levamisole apart from being a worm treatment is said to have immune system boosting properties that will help fish to fight off any parasitic infestation.I was treating the puffers for over a month with high temps and saw little effect on the parasites(they were absolutely covered in white spots)before starting with medicated food. Coincidence or not shortly after they started clearing.
Regards Konstantin
Click to expand...
A few other people I've been chatting to about the problems on Instagram have suggested medicating the food as a more effective way to treat fish, as well as mixing garlic in with the food! I have read that Tricodina hate garlic and that's a good way to treat them. My NDX should be coming today, I will mix it in with some live food in water and leave them for a few hours, or maybe mixed with some defrosted frozen an hour or two and try that. Thankyou for the suggestion, it's definitely something I'll try.
 
Hi @shangman
For good quality food with garlic content I can recommend "New Life Spectrum Thera +A"
It comes in granules from 0.5mm upwards.Im not sure if they do flakes tbh but may do.
Those foods are really well balanced and very good quality.
As for medicating food.Medicating frozen foods works but freeze dried and granulated foods will hold medication better so if your fish are not refusing dry foods I will have a go with that first. Maybe if can find somewhere in UK get some " Seachem Focus "to try to help bind the meds to the food more strongly.Its an useful product whem medicating food and dealing with internal issues. Other options are using gelatine and Agar agar power as binder.
Regards Konstantin
 
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Konsa said:
Hi @shangman
For good quality food with garlic content I can recommend "New Life Spectrum Thera +A"
It comes in granules from 0.5mm upwards.Im not sure if they do flakes tbh but may do.
Those foods are really well balanced and very good quality.
As for medicating food.Medicating frozen foods works but freeze dried and granulated foods will hold medication better so if your fish are not refusing dry foods I will have a go with that first. Maybe if can find somewhere in UK get some " Seachem Focus "to try to help bind the meds to the food more strongly.Its an useful product whem medicating food and dealing with internal issues. Other options are using gelatine and Agar agar power as binder.
Regards Konstantin
Click to expand...
Excellent! Have ordered some of the food, that makes life much easier. Thanks very much for that rec
 
I euthanised the rest of the pencilfish on Thursday, there were 7 left in the end, so actually I don't think any did mysteriously die in the tank. They were very easy to catch as they were so greedy that whenever they saw me they swam straight to the front in case of food. Lovely fish who I will definitely keep again at some point. The tank is much quieter without them. 2 of them already looked like they were getting too thin so I think it was the right decision, I don't think I could've saved them.

A downside is all my cardinals have gone to hide in the back forever again. I wish my schooling fish were less shy. While watching the tank today I also saw 5 baby kuhlis lurking in the shadows, so I think they are all ok too. I have been thinking if the tank and fish can be saved, I might do a slight rescape anyway so I can take all of the kuhlis out, cos I truly never see them. Then I would replace the soil, replace the rest of the rocks with jade stone and add some more plants in various places. I think a big reason for my soil plants fail is that the kuhlis dig them up, so only the biggest plants establish.

Should get back vet results later this week, will let you all know about it when I find out.

ALSO I was interviewed for the Rumblefish podcast, so you can go and listen to that on whatever your favoured podcast app is, it'll be under the name "Rosehipscapes" 🙂
 
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Well gang, sad news. I got the results back from the vet and it is confirmed mycobacteria/fishTB, the pencils were riddled with granulomas.

I will get a full report later today or tomorrow which I will post so we can see the bigger picture. One of those times where it turns out I was right all along, but I really wish I wasn't.
 
Oh no 🙁🙁 Im so sorry to hear that..
What does this entail for the tank, does everything have to be sterilized? I must admit I don't know if there are any treatments that can be done? I assume its pretty bad news for the fish? Could the plants at least be saved somehow, sterilized?

Im sending you the biggest hug from Norway 💓
 
shangman said:
Well gang, sad news. I got the results back from the vet and it is confirmed mycobacteria/fishTB, the pencils were riddled with granulomas.

I will get a full report later today or tomorrow which I will post so we can see the bigger picture. One of those times where it turns out I was right all along, but I really wish I wasn't.
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So sorry to hear that Rosie,I feared it would be the case 🙁
It doesn't mean you have to destroy everything in the tank unless you feel you wish to,you can manage it as you already have been doing.
 
Oh hon. That is really tough news…..and a tough call figuring out what you do next.

It is possible that some of the existing fish may survive the outbreak and you could run the tank (carefully) with reduced population until nature takes it course….but ultimately this could turn out to be a long road of euthanasia as fish get poorly…..or you could make the difficult decision to shut down, cull and start fresh.

Whatever you decide, I’m sure the folks here will support you and help wherever we can. None of us would want to be in your spot.

So sorry. Big hugs. 🙁
 
Thank you guys ♥️ Christ it's just all very bloody grim isn't it. For goodness sake!!!! What a doozy.

I am really glad we did the test and confirmed it, I was wondering for a while if I was crazy thinking this way the fish TB. It makes things a much clearer, if not easier.

Reading up again, most people just destroy everything living in the tank and start again after thoroughly cleaning the equipment. I think I will do this eventually, it pains me to say. The thing that grosses me out is that I could catch the fish TB myself, so basically I should never put my hands in the tank again (need 0 scratches or cuts and I have a naughty cat), without giant long gloves. It feels risky.

On the other hand, I have the UV which should kill it from the water and keep the levels down. Diana Walstad said that this basically cured her tanks of it. The thing I worry about is that I think -maybe- quite a few of the fish already have it in a subtle way, it's hard to explain but I feel some fish don't quite look right, including my female apisto and quite a few tetras, and my pygmies are subdued too. I can't tell if I'm imagining it but fish seem to frolick less.

I think I will wait a while to see if more fish succumb or if it dies down. I'm not sure though really in just throwing out ideas to delay the inevitable. I don't want to chuck it, I feel like it had a lot more to develop into but this is going to make things much more complicated. It feels tainted. I don't know how long I can hold out and how long the fish will, I don't want them to suffer. The balance between suffering and leading good lives in the tank is still unclear to me, I guess we will wait and see.

It is quite devestating, to spite this sadness I'm determined to make something completely fabulous next, whatever it ends up being.
 
Sorry to hear you’re going through the ringer at the minute, it makes it more incredible the help you’ve given me with my tank.

You mentioned UV, don’t solely rely on this as a method as it’s such a grey topic, by that I mean there’s so many variables, starting with understanding how UV works.
UV won’t kill anything, it sterilises, meaning the cells can’t spread.
Then flow rates play a huge part. Slow turn over is best for fighting disease as it gives the cells more time in contact with the light.
I’d also recommend changing your bulb if you can, this will give the unit maximum effectiveness.
Apologies if I’m teaching you to suck eggs, I know a large portion of people think UV can just be bought and switched on and that’s all there is too it.
 
seedoubleyou said:
Sorry to hear you’re going through the ringer at the minute, it makes it more incredible the help you’ve given me with my tank.

You mentioned UV, don’t solely rely on this as a method as it’s such a grey topic, by that I mean there’s so many variables, starting with understanding how UV works.
UV won’t kill anything, it sterilises, meaning the cells can’t spread.
Then flow rates play a huge part. Slow turn over is best for fighting disease as it gives the cells more time in contact with the light.
I’d also recommend changing your bulb if you can, this will give the unit maximum effectiveness.
Apologies if I’m teaching you to suck eggs, I know a large portion of people think UV can just be bought and switched on and that’s all there is too it.
Click to expand...
Aw it's ok, it's nice to imagine beautiful new tanks right now!

I have done my research and bought a powerful UV steriliser - the TMC vecton 600 which is for a tank double my size, and for double the flow - as a hightech tank I was worried about flow too so just went with something as powerful as possible that would fit in the cabinet, and attached it to my filter which has a lot of media in and so is slower. I know it doesn't kill, but it does stpo it breeding and spreading so eventually the population is hit hard. For Diana Walstad she said it "cured" her tank. It is new too so no need for a bulb change yet, before this problem I never knew an UV at all tbh. I also bought a powerful one in case all these fish were doomed, so I could potentially convert the tank to marine/macroalgae, but we'll see about that it was 99% for the TB. Maybe we'll swap and you'll give me marine tips and I'll give you freshwater ones!


Waking up this morning and I just feel like.. idk what to do you guys. The idea of just killing everything is so grim, I don't think I can do that yet. But the ideaa of a new beautiful tank is tempting though to leave this sadness behind. I feel a big urge to do SOMETHING, idk maybe I will suck out all the substrate and replace with sand to help get rid of a lot of the tricodina and MB that's around there. Just fill with root tabs and see how that goes maybe.

Tell me what you guys would do, I need ideas!! You can tell me to euthanise, I am interested to know what you all would do in this situation.
 
Hi Rosie,
I've just been catching up on your journal, I'm so sorry to hear about everything that has gone on, what an absolutely terrible time you've had.
Like you, I have worried about fish TB in the past as fish gradually die from nonspecific symptoms. I have just never had it confirmed. I'm currently running a plant only tank so it's less of an issue!

UV will denature the DNA/RNA in the cells that pass by the light in effect killing the TB provided the exposure time is long enough.

However, between Diana's mycobactum document and this aquaculture document, I feel like UV may beg some more exploration. I certainly need to do some more reading.
It sounds very much like MB is endemic in ornamental fish culture, pet stores, and commercial aquaculture (even in fresh watersupply owing to its chlorine resistance).
It makes me wonder if running our tank water through UV sterilizers (at the correct flow rates) at least a couple of times a day might not be a very good prophylactic and it is likely better for fish than medications. This probably applies to all fish diseases especially as fish tend to actively shed disease before showing signs. I wonder if a discussion on UV sterilizers might not be warranted in its own thread?
 
To answer your question as I was typing while you posted! I think I would immediately euthanase any obviously sick fish but I'd probably keep anything that looks ok for now.

Truly sterilizing a tank and filter will mean stripping it cleaning it and then running it with diluted chlorine bleach (we seal and fog areas in healthcare as well as using UV) for a period of time to get into every little crevice, but that would include nets, pipes, buckets the works and throwing away pretty much everything that is living or hard to clean like wood. Even then if there is any reservoir you've missed you will immediately reintroduce it at low levels or it could come in on the next fish that you buy...
Changing the substrate out and giving everything a good clean, filters pipes etc to try and get rid of as much biofilm as possible would be ideal but it will place huge stress on the fish which are already fighting MB, unless there is another tank they can go straight into?

I'm also wondering if twinstar reactors and or ozone may be of use?
 
@shangman let me know how you get on with the UV, I’m debating over the TMC one or the Eheim one as I like the fittings on it.

As for the fish, I’ve been there and had to euthanise using clove oil, it’s probably the best thing you can actually do for your fish now. Then claim yourself a fresh start.
Whichever you choose will be what’s best for you, just know that there’s no judgement if you decide to start all over again.
I bet most of us would in a heartbeat.
 
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