Fish TB? Get rid of it?

[K9Kyle]

Hello, I have a 29 gallon tank, which had 2 mollies, a guppy, and 7 head and tail light tetras. A couple months ago I added a medium sized angel from my local pet store.

A couple weeks later one of the mollies died, the next day a head and tail light died, and the other mollie passed the day after that.

I couldn't figure out what was wrong with them. I took out one of the head and tail lights that looked the worst and put him in a ten gallon hospital tank and added some parasite meds. He has been fine since.

After some research I figured it was fish TB. They had flat stomachs and swim crooked. I did 5 gallon water changes every 4 days to maintain high water quality.

But last week, I lost another head and tail light tetra. I am now positive it's fish TB since his stomach had a hole in it like something had eaten its way out.

It's a planted tank, and am not looking to tank it apart and bleach all the decorations etc. I also do not want to euthanize my fish.

I am wondering if getting a UV sterilizer will get rid of the TB viruses and help my fish.

Any other suggestions would be great.

Thanks

 

[aqua_chem]

All things considered, fish TB is a fairly uncommon affliction in aquaria, so you want to make sure that's what you have. I have fought with TB before in my tanks, and unfortunately it is largely incurable. It is mostly resistant to medications, although I haven't heard of anyone trying to use a UV sterilizer before.

TB manifests with a couple of noteworthy symptoms. Fish will first act lethargic or spooky, hiding out in calmer parts of the tank rather than wherever they normally do. Over the course of the next few days the more traditional symptoms of TB start to manifest, including (generally) horizontal spinal deformation and ulcers. They usually waste away over the course of a week no matter what you throw at them ( and believe me, I've thrown the kitchen sink at it from a medication perspective). Kanamycin has been said to help, but I've not seen any results. Platies I've had that came down with the disease tend to take on a shape that I can only describe as an elongated D, with a heavily bowed back but nearly flat inferior border.

I have some nice pictures of some of this, but I'm mobile at the moment and can't post them easily.


In my case, once the disease got into the tank I couldn't really get rid of it. Fortunately, I kept my fish very healthy, so the disease only managed to pick off fish that were older or prone to disease due to some other factor. Good quarantine procedures are essential for the long term to keep the disease out of other tanks.