Is it TB? The puzzle comes together.

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nirbhao

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I have two separate threads about the two fish who have had health issues this week.

The first is a pregnant female guppy from the community tank. She had white tape-like poop and blew up like a balloon. I moved her to the quarantine tank on Tuesday.

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Today, this morning, I noticed what looked like a burst blister on our blue ram's head. After just a few hours, it deteriorated dramatically.

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Thinking it was trauma, we gave him a salt bath. He has since been put back into his tank.

Just a moment ago, i removed this unfortunate soul-
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The rams and Harlequin rasboras share a tank. I use the same nets and cleaning stuff for both tanks.

Is there any reason to NOT think all three of these fish have TB?

How many of my fish do I need to euthanize?
 
TB causes the undersides/bellies to sink in, the dead fish has a fat belly.

Guppies get, and die from internal parasites often. I lost a pair of Prize winning Guppies (I was not the prize winner I just bought the fish after they won). After that, I started treating all fish which come to me with Praziquantel flake food. As a preventative measure.

Does your water conditioner treat Chloramines? I just wonder why your tank keeps having issues (cycling). Do you use tap water with no treatment for cleaning filter pads? Sometimes doses for treating Chloramines are double what the normal dosage is, not all water treatments can treat Cloramines.

Does Stubby have any tiny black or holes around his head. Check out hole in the head condition if so.

Yeah it suckes when you realize you could of possibly cross contaiminated a tank with using nets or water change buckets andf stuff.

After an issue I started using one bucket only for clean / fresh water going into the tanks, no water which could be contaminated that way and I got a spray alcohol -90% to spray the nets till dripping in the sink and let them dry after use. People use a bleach water solution too.

Here is possibly some helpful info.
 
Honestly looks like he caught an edge just right?? Peeled his scalp a touch. As for the other fish? Not sure?? Sometimes they just die?? Doesn't have to wipe out the whole tank, a few drop and the rest live on. I'm not all that advanced with the illness game though. Bandit is the man there.

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Thank you, guys. I went to sleep devastated. I really, really appreciate you responding to this.

Anna didn't make it through the night, but everyone else is alive!
Honestly looks like he caught an edge just right?? Peeled his scalp a touch. As for the other fish? Not sure?? Sometimes they just die?? Doesn't have to wipe out the whole tank, a few drop and the rest live on. I'm not all that advanced with the illness game though. Bandit is the man there.

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And the Harlequin rasbora being bent up in a C is just one of those things? I ask sincerely.

Stubby's head looks so painful. It shocked me how he could be 100% fine Wednesday night and then look so terrible the next day. But that's trauma, right?
Yea!

TB causes the undersides/bellies to sink in, the dead fish has a fat belly.

That makes sense. A couple of sources say that sometimes fish with TB get bloat.

Guppies get, and die from internal parasites often. I lost a pair of Prize winning Guppies (I was not the prize winner I just bought the fish after they won). After that, I started treating all fish which come to me with Praziquantel flake food. As a preventative measure.

That's miserable.

Does your water conditioner treat Chloramines? I just wonder why your tank keeps having issues (cycling). Do you use tap water with no treatment for cleaning filter pads? Sometimes doses for treating Chloramines are double what the normal dosage is, not all water treatments can treat Cloramines.

YES my water has chloramines. Ugh. Detroit is supposed to have prize winning water!

I use Prime, and I double dose. (I had a dream last night that I used my Prime when I thought I was using Excel) I'm really careful with my filter media, and I only clean it in water that I just took out of the tank.

I know that I've been pretty noisy about my cycling issues, but really it's just been, for the 29 gallon, 1. initial cycle, 2. after removing a lot of substrate, and then 3. the first chloramines episode.

Does Stubby have any tiny black or holes around his head. Check out hole in the head condition if so.

Nope. Just the gash.

Yeah it suckes when you realize you could of possibly cross contaiminated a tank with using nets or water change buckets andf stuff.

After an issue I started using one bucket only for clean / fresh water going into the tanks, no water which could be contaminated that way and I got a spray alcohol -90% to spray the nets till dripping in the sink and let them dry after use. People use a bleach water solution too.

Here is possibly some helpful info.

I haven't watched the video yet, but I will. I will do a better job cleaning my nets and stuff. I had been rinsing them in tap water because that apparently kills all of the microbes I want to have. ?

Again, thank you for responding. Almost everyone who has sent me a private message has apologized for doing so, and so I realize that tagging you is pretty demanding. I really and truly went to bed in tears. This is helping me feel much better. Thank you thank you thank you.
 
I couldn't tell you for sure?? I've seen tetras bend, barbs bend, think I had a rasbora distort a bit too .. it only affected one and the rest lived on. Best advice I can give is keep them well fed and the water very clean. If the tank seems stressed you can leave the lights off for a few days. Rams do not like getting shuffled around. I've lost one every time I've moved them. He may have just gotten spooked, he's probably pretty stressed on top of it all. Next few days will be crucial in getting him healed up. Frozen foods should make him happy.

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I couldn't tell you for sure?? I've seen tetras bend, barbs bend, think I had a rasbora distort a bit too .. it only affected one and the rest lived on. Best advice I can give is keep them well fed and the water very clean. If the tank seems stressed you can leave the lights off for a few days. Rams do not like getting shuffled around. I've lost one every time I've moved them. He may have just gotten spooked, he's probably pretty stressed on top of it all. Next few days will be crucial in getting him healed up. Frozen foods should make him happy.

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I can do that. I will coddle this tank until he is healed.
 
Maybe play a little soothing music, light some candles.. no bubble bath though!!!!

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Really? My sister has told me all kinds of great things about those bath bombs.

Now that my quarantine tank is empty, do I consider the filter contaminated?
 
If you're doing a true quarantine than you should be nuking that filter after each use. I keep a sponge going in my 75 that can be pulled at any time, I also have ceramic media in every tank that can be pulled for instant cycling a tank.

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Yep. This one was running on the 29 gallon just in case. I removed the ceramic media and left it in the 29 before putting the filter in the QT.
 
Just adding extra - I had always thought fish TB was generally slower acting (although a few people have thought it can be fast acting). A few bad links below but had lately been looking at infection rates. Rainbow fish I've heard may be more prone to it.

I've still had common bacterial infections cause bends in fish (possibly internal swelling?) and parasites can also cause this. Here a fish lost within a couple of days from bacterial infection is largely thought to be columnaris (or one of those anyways).

Also been a bit of debate about raising temperature, lowering it or leaving it the same. Still debating that one. People are reporting success on lifting temps but I've never found that useful. So idk.

Fish Tuberculosis

A lot of aquarium problems can be fixed by performing frequent water changes, increasing the water temperature and adding some salt to the water, but fish tuberculosis is not one of them. Raising the water temperature may even worsen the problem since Mycobacterium marinum prefers warm water (their ideal temperature is 30°C).

Should you be worried about fish TB? — Practical Fishkeeping Magazine

M. marinum is unusual as pathogenic bacteria grow. Normally germs like to hunker down in the log fire of our bodily warmth and start reproducing at a rate that would make the Daily Mail start a hate campaign against them. However, M. marinum likes things cooler. No 37°C/99°F tropical oasis for these guys, they prefer to ride it out at around 30°C/86°F or so. That’s diagnosis problem number one. Stick them in a nice body temperature culture as you would other pathogens and they don’t grow. The test reveals very little indeed about what you have in your body.
And that leads to diagnosis problem number two. Because it’s not fuelling itself on your volcanic organs, M. marinum is slower to grow than many other bugs we catch. Incubation alone can be two to four weeks before you even start to see your first lesion and several months before a full-blown outbreak. By then, you’ll have forgotten all about that run-in you had with a catfish’s spine or that cichlid that gave you what for after you got too close to its fry.
 
I euthanized Stubby. He was swimming horizontally in circles and then crashing, face down, in the substrate. He did that a few times.

I'm glad it's not TB - and I really hope it's not columnaris! It blows me away that we've lost three fish in the past 12 hours.
 
I did find the sharp edge Stubby hurt himself on, so at least that's not a mystery.

I set up some new plants this evening and took the light down while doing so. All of the fish stared at the incandescent room light until I put theirs back in place. Now the Harlequins are all traipsing in a tight school.

No other fish in the big tank shows any sign of problems. Kuhlis cuddling and sniffing. Gourami admiring himself. Guppies everywhere.

So three fish down in 12 hours and then everything is back to normal?

I really hope it's not columnaris.
 
Fast death screams columnaris to me?
Many,many disease can have curved spine as a syptom/effect...
Columnaris loves warm clean water so keep temp down around 75 or lower if possible...
Hard core damage causing antibiotics are the cure if it is C.
Baths in potassium permanganate and methylene blue also...
http://www.myaquariumclub.com/columnaris-and-what-i-have-learned...-1689.html
Fish Columnaris | Fungus & Saprolegnia | Treatment & Prevention
Ughugughuguh

The white stuff that flows in the current? Totally have it. Right at the filter outflow. Just noticed it yesterday.

I can drop the temperature. I can add salt, although I currently only have sea salt, kosher salt that has yellow prussiate (i.e. not going in the tank), and iodized salt. That first article sang the praises of hydrogen peroxide even with snails, so I'm tempted to try it but afraid for them.

Tomorrow I can get an antibiotic.

Is there any way to prevent killing the nitrifying bacteria while killing the columnaris?
 
Is there any way to prevent killing the nitrifying bacteria while killing the columnaris?
It is 50/50.No real control. No way to preserve filter as it harbors the C.bacteria .So you just have roll with it.
The PP is good stuff if the H2O2 isn't a good enough oxidizer.
Through culling and PP treatments I cured my columnaris years ago when I was breeding swordtails..They had 8 months clean after NASTY outbreak, before I ended them.
I swear by PP ,but the learning curve is steep...Mistakes kill.

I thought your guppy looked good?:facepalm: I don't pay no mind to color of poop if I have had the fish long enough?
The balloon ram could have dropped with a bad breeze. Our regular GBR are weak, I am fascinated the industry pursues the balloon ram so intently. It really can't be an easy fish to raise?
But put them all together in quick succession....:whistle:
 
It is 50/50.No real control. No way to preserve filter as it harbors the C.bacteria .So you just have roll with it.
The PP is good stuff if the H2O2 isn't a good enough oxidizer.
Through culling and PP treatments I cured my columnaris years ago when I was breeding swordtails..They had 8 months clean after NASTY outbreak, before I ended them.
I swear by PP ,but the learning curve is steep...Mistakes kill.

I thought your guppy looked good?:facepalm: I don't pay no mind to color of poop if I have had the fish long enough?
The balloon ram could have dropped with a bad breeze. Our regular GBR are weak, I am fascinated the industry pursues the balloon ram so intently. It really can't be an easy fish to raise?
But put them all together in quick succession....:whistle:

I love hydrogen peroxide. I use it on my terrestrial plants with a great deal of success. When you say, "if it isn't good enough," are you saying to try it first or just skip to KMnO4?

After losing three rams in quick succession to hexamita, long, white, tape-like poop freaks me out. The bloat only got worse- worse than in that picture. And, aside from being lonely and boring, she had all of her basic physical needs met in QT.

Watching Stubby this morning hit that wound on every plant he swam by made me wonder if he was even actually aware of his size. I didn't even realize that balloon rams were a thing. The person selling them actually told me that they were the males and the regularly shaped rams were the females. You might remember way back pointing out that one of those regularly shaped rams was actually male. I have learned SO MUCH about rams, cichlids, and aquatic critters in general in these past few months.

I would like to replace him, and I intend to purchase a healthy ram like Fast Sparkles.

Hopefully she makes it through this. She's a powder keg, all tiny and full of might. I mean, obviously I would prefer to lose no more fish...

32 days after treatment is done we can start rebuilding? Because we also have only the two kuhli loaches. The plan was to round their group out today actually. I adore them. Their faces look like mice or bunnies with whiskers, and they use their pectoral fins like legs, and they swim like ribbons.... I'm distracted. Anyway, 32 days? Longer?

As for culling, I know you advocate being proactive. At what point do you decide that a fish needs to be removed? I want to keep as many alive as possible, obviously.

And what about the fry?
 
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