Whirling Disease

[cee219]

Background info: 55 gallon, 7 danios (now 6), 1 female swordtail, 4 platys, 4 platy/swordtail fry

I'm going to try and give the quick version here before I head off to school. I've been running my tank (in this house at least, had to tear it downa nd set it up when we moved after running it with a few danios for a few months) since June. I lost all of my danios in the move, and bought seven new ones for my tank when we moved.

After I'd say a month one of my danios got really skinny, and kind of took on a boomerang like shape. He would start swimming, but not going anywhere. I was a new aquarist and I had noooo idea what to do, I think I ended up later identifying it as shimmies. He was the only danio affected by it. Well the whole swimming/not being about to swim/swimming again episode continued on for about another month, and then one day he just starting twiliring kind of like those helicopter seeds that fall off trees. He crawled off somewhere and died later that day, because I looked everywhere for him but couldn't find his body. Now a few months later I am noticing one of my other danios getting skinny. I thought maybe he wasn't getting enough food, but today I was on about.com's aquarium section and read the link for the disease. Is whriling associated with any other diseases or is it pretty unique to this certain protozoa? Any advice is welcomed

 

[TCTFish]

Anykind of neurological damage caused by whatever can put a fish into a spin...including hitting their heads hard enough. Your fish though have other symptoms that coincide with the parasitic cause of this behavior (thinning and curvature of the spine).

This parasite responsible for the disease is commonly found in fisheries. Not just aquarium fishies, but more commonly in wild stock fish too such as salmon and trout.

There is no known cure.

The infected fish should be isolated...or if you want to spare the little guy a wasteful death, you could always whack him. Sounds mean, but the fish is a threat to the rest of the population and is doomed to die anyway. One good slam of his head to the floor or counter and it's lights out immediately. There are other methods, but I prefer it to be quick instead of drawn out by chemicals.

I don't know of any preventive measures that would protect your other fish. Being these parasites enter from the outside that I know of, maybe an external parasite med. could help. That's just a guess. You can ask experts of products that are made for external parasites...even internal, though most if not all internal parasite meds are generally limited to intestinal parasites. These guys are in the head and spine.

 

[cee219]

Thanks for taking the time to write some lengthy advice, I think I'll try and get some photos of him and see if it inspires any more thoughts on the matter.