mysterious fish disease

[Gracie6363]

Ok... I have posted about this in the past and I didn't get alot of info. I was really hoping some of the folks that have been fish keeping for many years could assist.

I aquired a new 40 gallon tank that had residents already. 5 red minor tetra, 2 cory cats, 1 pl*co.

I observed them briefly but since they weren't my choice of fish I wasn't amazed by them or their behavior so I didn't study them.

I added 2 balas and a dwarf gourami. Started watching the tank more.

2 or 3 of the red minor tetras have extremely swollen areas at the base of their body/ beginning of tail fin. The tail fin I may add is also clear in some areas on those particular fish rather than the bright orange like the rest of them. The swollen area is dark or almost black as well on these fish. The one that is the most swollen, it seems difficult for him to move his tail and has developed like a fuzzy or stringy substance off of the swelling. It did this before and went away. His entire body is a much paler orange than the rest and has some black spots all over his body. I feel like maybe they are tumors and lesions or something but I am not positive.

I am wondering if there is a secondary infection as well because one of my leopard cories has developed a white spot right on the tip of his face. It was just a fuzzy spot and now it's a whitish/clear bubble. Very strange.

I took this quote from a fish disease site when I was searching everywhere for answers... "However, when treatment is necessary, it's generally 9:30 PM on a Sunday.Murphy's Law says you never have anything at hand. Never go for the "general tonic" (my fish have Ich - I have an internal parasite medication, so using it will be better than doing nothing) approach!"

"The wrong medication given to an already stressed and sick animal can be
fatal. For the short term survival of your fish at the onset of an illness, while
you are waiting to get the appropriate medication into your tank as soon as
possible:"

The only med I have is Jungle Ick Guard and I don't want to treat the tank for unknown. Maybe salt would be the first step? I haven't ever used aquarium salt though and I want to make sure I do it correctly if you guys think this is a good first step? I did raise the temp from 76 to 80 about 2 weeks ago when I first noticed all this happening. Are the fish I have in this tank ok with salt is my first concern?

PLEASE LEND SOME HELP! SORRY for the long babble, just want you to be informed on everything.

PS. 40 gallon Ph 7.2 0ppm amonia and nitrite 80 degrees (or so)
no live plants and no algae to speak of.

I add Stress Coat each water change and Cycle at each filter change.

[Damon]

THe bala sharks will not fit in a 40 gallon (especially 2 of them) for starters. You state you have nitrite readings. This is either due to the tank not being cycled (adding balas will do that) or You are grosly overstocked and the bioload is too much. Nitrite is very poisonous to fish. This could be one of the culprits. Stress leads to disease.

[Gracie6363]

please dont take this as being rude... i asked a specific question and it wasn't answered. If you have read any of the previous post I have made in the last month you would know that the balas are only 3 inches currently and my husband and I plan to upgrade to a 125 minimum later this year.

I didnt state that I have nitrites - I stated 0ppm (being none) of ammonia and nitrite.

Now if I could get some advice on how to treat whatever is actually going on with the tetra and cory that would be terrific.

Also I forgot to mention that last night I found a few missing scales on my gourami. will the salt hurt him if I use it as a starting point?

[Lexus]

Salt will hurt the cories

[ijedic]

Hi, Stress and less than optimum water conditions are usually the culprit. Since these fish came with the tank, there is no way to know if they have been in nitrate rich water for an extended period, then put into clean water when the tank was moved to your home. The pH might also be different now, and well, that causes a lot of stress. What I would do is to make sure the temperature is stable (78-80F), don't feed them for a few days, and leave the light off. No light will help ease the stress. Kosher or aquarium salt at 1t per each 5 gallons should be alright with cories (1/3 of the reccomended dose) Do not add any meds right now. The salt, heat, and lack of stress will let the fish's own immune system work for it. Remember with any antibiotic, what they don't kill, they make stronger, and they often cause secondary infections. Take care, Shannon

[drosera]

Hi,

I am no disease expert, but I hope my ramblings here might help you think out the problem.

The symptoms are: dark patches on the body, swelling, stiffness, trailing white "stuff", clear white spot on the head (cory), and missing scales (on the gouramy). Hope I got that right.

The affected fish are 2 Tetras, a Cory, and the gouramy.

You failed to describe any behaviours in any of the fish which might shed some light on this. Are they scratching, have they lost their appetite, do they hang out in different areas of the tank than before?

My first thought is tank aggression, which I believe you say you don't see. OK. However my first suggestion is to try to watch the fish at night. This is not an easy task, but if you set up a small light, even a night light beside the tank, you may (or may not) notice different behaviours in the fish. Tetras in particular would be susceptible to night time attacks because they actually sleep. Cories are still active, but a night active fish may find his intrusions upsetting, and let him know how he feels.

Are there any rough decorations in the tank? I doubt you are using coral, but perhaps your gravel or some rocks are too rough for the fish you have. What kind of filter are you using as well? Sometimes tehy can be a source of accidents.

Are you giving them a varied diet? I have seen a deficient diet cause the same type of head spot the Cory has on other fish before.

A couple of notes on diseases:

Sometimes diseases can manifest themselves differently on different fish species, or in different cicumstances. Ick almost almost always appears the same, but things like Tubercullosis and Dropsy may not always have the same effects on each fish.

A topic that is often acknowledged is that there are many diseases out there that area not generally known by the regular fish keeper. The ones we hear of are the common ones, easy to diagnose. There are many many other disease out there, some that do indeed only attack certains species or groups of fish.

And pictures are worth a million words when asking for help. I'm guessing you don't have a digi-cam since you haven't already put up a picture, but if you could borrow one, it could be really helpful for the rest of us.

FWIW, I do agree not to medicate the fish when you don't know what's causing the problem. It can really worsen the problem.

Finally, I have a page listing non-disease related reasons for sick fish. I don't think anything on it applies to you, but you never know. I believe the link will be at the end of my post. If not check my profile.

I hope something in all that helps you figure out what's going on.

Good luck!

Chris

[drosera]

Hello again,

I didn't want to add this until I could find the source, but I thought I had heard of "black spots" somewhere before. An old book I have mentions a disease called just that. Do a web search for Cercaria and Metacercaria, also known as Black spot disease. This disease invloves snails and birds, but the cysts can lie dormant for some time. No cure is listed in my (old) book, but the disease is not always fatal.

Good luck!

Chris

[Gracie6363]

wow... what resourcefull information you guys have shared! Thanks so much for your help on this topic.

To answer a few questions that were addressed in the replies... I have had the tank in my home for over a month now. The fish have if nothing else appeared more active since I have had them than they ever were at my sister in laws house.

They all have healthy appetites as well! Thats a good thing. Their diet consist of tropical flake, shrimp pellets, and algae wafers. I feed in the morning and before bed. '

I haven't observed any agression. The sharks are afraid of anything that moves, the gourami is solitary for the most part and the tetra chase everything away... The healthy tetra have been chasing over the 1 that is the most severe sick one, but only chasing.

I have regular pea sized aquarium gravel in there and no real jagged decorations. The cories I understand prefer sand, but my sister in law had the tank with gravel for a long time, so I assume they are used to it.

I do have a camera... I will take some pics in a few (downloading a portrait sitting I shot today currently, so will take some when I am done)

The light has been off today and a few weeks ago when I went to oklahoma I had my fish feeder keep it off except during feeding time to keep stress down. But like I said they all seem ravenous over the food, so that doesnt seem to be an issue.

I bought at the store today some aquarium salt and Jungle Fungus Meds. But wasn't sure if that was proper med, so I may try the salt first. Just wanted to make sure it was safe for all fish involved first. I am nervous. Will post pics if I can get some good ones shortly. They are all fast buggers!

Thanks again for your generosity of info!

[Gracie6363]

here are some pics... I will wait to dose with the salt until after you guys have some time to review the pics attached.

Hope it helps out in diagnosis and treatment options.

[drosera]

Again bearing in mind that I don't feel like any kind of expert....


The cory really seems to me to be suffering from an injury. It's the placement of the problem (on his nose) that says this to me. So either the gravel is too rough for him, or he is bumping hard into things, probably from being frightened by something. From what I see, I wouldn't treat him at this point. If it gets worse, you could try an anti-bacterial med.

The Tetras are a little harder for me to see. I really think they are suffering from a bacterial infection. But whether that is the main problem, or it is being brought on by another disease, I can't say. You could try treating for bacterial infection. It might possibly solve the problem.

For the gouramy, things look a little grimmer IMO. Where the scales are missing, it's kind of like a bump right? And the area looks dark? If so, I believe this is some kind of tumor, and I don't think it can be treated. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong!) I had a Betta with the same kind of thing. I did not treat her as she was the only one in the tank with the problem, and it just never spread. It started with one bump, and eventually became another elsewhere on her body, and so on. The upside is that it took a very long time to kill her (9 months I think) and she was otherwise fit until about a week before the end, when I dispatched her. So your gouramy still has much time to live if things progress as they did for me.

So there's my 2 cents. Hope it helps.

Good luck!

Chris

[TheOldSalt]

The cory looks to have the usual abrasion damage that cories suffer from bumping into things, with just a wee infection.
The gourami has hexamita, if anything.
The minor has either a weirdly slow version of columnaris or other bacteria or a fungal infection. In either case, the fish should have been dead by now, but apparently they are able to just barely keep the infection at bay. The root cause of the infection may be cysts of parasitic worms or something, but don't worry about that yet.

The salt treatment won't be much help.
The fungus stuff from jungle might work. If it doesn't, switch to mardel's Maroxy and Maracyn Plus.

As for the Hex, get something with metronidazole in it which you can either put into the food or add to the water. Come to think of it, "Clout" works fairly well and does a lot more, plus it's cheap.

These treatments will work much better in a separate treatment tank. While the fish are in that tank, dose the main tank with heavy salt to kill what remains. Conduct massive water changes after a week to remove the salt and improve the conditions in general.

[Gracie6363]

gosh, so many things going on and so confusing.

The gourami just appeared with these missing scales (no bumps) a couple days ago. When I first got him a few month ago I actually had 2 of them. He constantly chasing, ramed and nipped at the other one and one day I came home to that one missing a bunch of scales (red spots all over) so I returned him to the pet store upon their advice. I just assumed he was being picked on by someone else in the tank now.

So the best advice would be to set up additional tanks (I do have 2-10 gallon tanks that arent being used, but I don't have good filters, or plants or anything for them. I have a heater, and one of those sponge filters and air pump) So put the tetras in a tank and medicate it with the Jungle Fungus treatment and put he gourami in another tank and treat it with Clout? Do I have that right. While they are out of the tank does the origional tank with salt and a week later do a large water change?

Gosh I hope this all works. I havent ever really experienced disease and this is stressfull on me! Do they make stress coat in a bottle for humans too? LOL. Some may say liquor is just that. LOL.

[TheOldSalt]

You almost have it right. Don't separate the fish. Go ahead and treat them all for each thing. You don't want to treat the gourami for Hex and ignore any secondary infection brewing on the wound, for example. Treat the Cories, too. A sponge filter and heater will work just fine.

[Gracie6363]

so move tetra, gourami and cory to 10 gallon with heater and sponge filter and treat them with the jungle fungus and clout? Sounds like I am moving practically my whole tank! LOL.

And the reason for moving them is to not kill my benifical bacteria in the origional tank?

When treating the fish for both things, should I do the treatments together or start with one first and then move on to the next?

[Gracie6363]

Just wanted to share some bad news. I was going to have my husband get the 10 gallon ready for me this afternoon to transfer the sick fish to for treatment....

I got home and the tetra that is pictured with all the issues was in the back of the tank vertical and very pale, barely breathing. I euthanized him.

[TheOldSalt]

Treat one thing at a time. The trick is figuring out which to do first.
The usual order is infections first, then parasites. This is because the infections kill faster, and the antiparasite meds sometimes trigger explosive growth of the infections. Many bad-guy bacteria, for example, LOVE copper.

Treating in the separate tank is done to :
- preserve your main tank's bacteria
- let you use less medicine in the smaller tank, saving money
- let you make water changes between treatment phases with less hassle

Sorry about the problems you're having. Rest assured that this won't be the last time you have to fight diseases, but know also that it will get easier each time until it's nothing.

[Gracie6363]

thanks old salt for all your help and kind words. It is a stressfull time taking care of your pets when they are ill. Cats and dogs are much easier it seems. I have treated them with the first treatment of the Jungle Bacterial/Fungus medicine. This seems to have them looking more active and healthy already. They seem to be responding. It says to wait 4 days if you want to do a second treatment.... before treatment do a 25% water change. Do you think the second treatment is wise or move on to the clout at that point. Oh yeah, the gourami seems to be healing as well before adding clout.

Thanks again to all that posted here. I really appreciate your knowledge, help and worries!

[TheOldSalt]

Oh, yes, by all means, if it's working, let it work; do the second treatment.