Fish TB

[Shayna]

Not sure if I'm posting in the right section since it's more a question of morality but.. If you had fish tuberculosis in a tank of yours, what would you do? Leave it be or euthanize all the fish? Everyone I've asked and everything I've read says it's uncurable, that some symptoms can be treated but not the disease itself.

The reason I'm asking is cause I've got a 16 gallon with something that I'm pretty sure is fish TB after ruling out everything else and I'm trying to decide what's the more humane thing to do. After the initial onset about 10 months ago when I lost 6 fish in this particular tank and it wiped out my entire 29 gallon, I've lost about one fish every couple of months. I just had to euthanize the latest, a male apisto borelli. I don't want to add more fish (to keep the shoals complete) and expose them to this disease cause I'm fairly sure every single fish I have in there are carriers of the disease even if they are currently not showing any symptoms, but it also seems wrong to me to just wait for them to develop severe symptoms before euthanizing them or letting them die on their own.

 

[Devilishturtles]

What signs and symptoms are/were they showing? TB is tricky...and what you heard is correct to the best of my knowledge.

The only advice I have is that you can try blasting the tank with strong antibiotics such as kanamycin(kanacyn) or penicillin. Maybe this can kill the infection in the water.

If it is indeed TB there isn't much you can do to help. Sorry.

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

Welcome to AA!
It is probably best to euthanize any that are showing advanced symptoms and treat the rest with tetracycline or kanamycin. Aquarium products makes a tetracycline medicated gel-based food. You may have to add it to a regular food to get your fish to eat it. I had several fish with what I believe to be TB and even had cysts under their skin but after treatment are not showing any symptoms. QT any fish that start looking sick. TB is usually spread by cannibalism, so you don't want to risk letting fish die in your tank.

 

[Shayna]

Thanks for the suggestion. Not sure if tetracycline or kanamycin is even available in my country but I'll go check it out as soon as I can.

What signs and symptoms are/were they showing?

It's usually started with the fish starting to withdraw and stop eating. After a while breathing gets more rapid, sunken stomach, eyes get cloudy and eventually they all lie on their side on the bottom of the tank unable to swim around. Some fish have had curved spine, frayed fins and whittish blotches on body as well. It's taken anywhere between a day to a couple of weeks before they die.

If it's not TB then I don't know what it is. I suspected neon tetra disease at first since the first fishes to die were my 10 neon tetras in the 29 gal but that's not supposed to affect cardinal tetras and my cardinals died next. I have one cardinal left (out of 12), 4 glowlights (had 10), 3 harlequin rasboras (had 7), 1 guppy (had 3), 2 borelli apistos (had 3). I had 10 rummy-nose tetras, one adult bristlenose pleco and a male and female betta as well but they all died within a few weeks of the outbreak.

 

[sudz]

Let me know how things turn out with meds... i suspect i have the beginnings of an outbreak too.