Help ID this disease.

[Xeraika]

Hello,

Need some help IDing this disease... I purchased 12 Sparkling Gourami from an LFS 3 days ago. Upon arriving home about 20 minutes later I inspected the fish and noticed that one was looking a little weak with some discoloration on its tail... I assumed it was bullying while in transit so I separated the injured fish from the rest and added some salt and stress coat to the water. I proceeded to temperature and drip acclimate them over an hour.

I added all of the other 11 gouramis into a 30g QT tank with sponge filter, no substrate and temp set to 78F. I generally do large water changes every day for a week before putting fish into a new tank. The sick fish was left on a hang on back critter container and I had noticed that the discoloration was spreading up the fish's body. Within the hour it had passed.

The next morning I noticed a fish with the same symptoms that started at the base of the tail, clear vertical separation of color that would slowly spread up and the fish would die by the time it reached the middle of the body. This fish was separated and treated with erythromycin and salt before it had passed. Now I've noticed a 3rd fish and have started the same treatment.

At this point I'm guessing that the issue had come from the LFS as my QT tanks tend to be sterilized between new inhabitants and I noticed the sick fish before it even entered my tank. I would like to save my current population of fish if this is some kind of extremely hard to kill outbreak and if any insight could be given.

The photo may be a little unclear but the discolored part is not fuzzy, raised or appear to be attached. The fins are slightly tattered as the fish were overstocked in the LFS tanks and were nipping at each other. This is the 2nd fish in question and it was swimming rather well and the fins were not clamped in early stages. Whatever it is, it progresses fast once the symptoms show and the fish die rather quickly.

Thanks in advance.

 

[coralbandit]

Sounds like columnaris.
The quickness of death after any symptom leads me to think it is the internal strain .
Columnaris does not have to be fuzzy.
Fish Columnaris | Fungus & Saprolegnia | Treatment & Prevention
Good luck and don't cross contaminate any other tanks!

 

[Xeraika]

Thanks coralbandit for the link. I ordered a few different medications and vitamins last night that should be in by tomorrow morning. I have some methylene blue laying around from my killifish eggs that I'll use as a bath and will keep up on the salt. All of the other gouramis in the tank look fine at the moment but it's hard to say since by the time I see a symptom the fish ends up dying a few hours later. Best to treat everyone and the tank for now.

 

[Delapool]

If ok, would you mind keeping us updated on the meds used and progress?

Kanaplax & furan 2 is favoured for treatment but it seems any success on this fast acting disease is worth sharing as so difficult to treat.

 

[coralbandit]

If ok, would you mind keeping us updated on the meds used and progress?

Kanaplax & furan 2 is favoured for treatment but it seems any success on this fast acting disease is worth sharing as so difficult to treat.

I too am interested in the outcome.
I had a similar issue with my swordtail breeders and cured it with PP and euthanizing.
I would never know who was next till less then 24 hrs before death.
I would also strongly consider ever adding any of these to a community tank(or other fish) as if cured some believe the fish is /could now be a carrier of the bacterial issue.


You may medicate a beloved sick fish if you wish, but don't return to a community aquarium a fish that has "recovered" from symptoms of bacterial disease once its outward symptoms have been alleviated. "Dropsy" is a case in point. Sometimes a fish recovers enough from a bout of severe ascites to lead an outwardly-normal life. Then the "cured" fish is returned to the community aquarium, where it may become a sub-clinical carrier of bacteria, free of visible symptoms. A sub-clinical carrier remains a source of infection for all your other fish. When it dies quietly among the plants, a couple of months after the episode of "dropsy," the two events may not seem connected. Initial quarantine, even a full four weeks' time, may not be long enough to identify weakened fish that are bacterial carriers before they enter your system. It's quite probable that all your fish have already been exposed to a variety of bacteria that could be pathogenic, given the right circumstances

^taken from^

Bacterial infections | The Skeptical Aquarist

 

[Xeraika]

Yeah I'll try to update as much as possible.

I've salt and meth blue dipped all of the gourami and they're in a more than normal salted QT tank right now. I ordered Bifuran+ (with is Furan 2 without the meth blue) which should arrive tomorrow. The site was out of kanamycin.

So far the only gourami that looks like there's any problem is one with a little saddle patch on the middle of it's back. It's been isolated from the rest but has had the problem for over 24 hours and doesn't appear to show any signs of weakness. The deceased fish did not have any symptoms other than the tail discoloration but at that point it was already too late.

The patch spreads down a little further on the other side of it's body. There is a little discoloration on the top fin as well but can't be seen well in this photo.

 

[coralbandit]

I see the spot.
Only time will tell(not much time though!).
If it is possible you should ("quietly"IMO) re visit the source of these fish and do a real close look over everything,especially the tank/system the fish came from.
^This is not necessary but may provide valuable info IMO^???
Know anything about Potassium Permanganate?
PP is mentioned in the original SA link(the skeptical aquarist site is huge to me for info!).
I am probably skeptical?
I think columnaris is becoming the "fish flu" of the decade/century(yah century!).

 

[Xeraika]

I know about Potassium Permanganate but finding food grade around here is probably going to be hard. It's always something I don't want to mess with cause I usually have a lot of inverts.

Long story short I'm restarting my fish hobby after moving quite a distance so I have to restock on most of my supplies and hunting for types of fish/inverts I would normally keep. The sparkling gourami is something I have always wanted, mostly for my tub ponds but they are a pretty awesome little fish and I ran by them in the LFS.

I actually personally haven't run into any severe diseases in my own tanks cause I normally order direct from private home breeders. This time I wanted the husband to choose some fish he liked so we also walked into a LFS and grabbed a few different fish including the gourami that day.

From my understanding the direct source that the store got the gourami from is a fish farm in Singapore, pretty much the same place where they would order bettas so the fish themselves do travel quite the distance and probably get pretty stressed along the way. The LFS itself kept most of the gourami with a few honey gourami and most did look pretty beaten up (fin wise, no patches), I was planning on giving them a little TLC and expected a few problems along the way.

I've run into quite a few diseases and parasites while working at a petstore but we would normally just throw in a cocktail of medications and hope for the best. Sadly most of the fish arrive in that condition. The thing I haven't seen before was that strange almost vertical color change pattern in the fish before death (first picture of gourami) which is why I popped into this forum for some advice. I'm guessing it's necrosis of the tail from a disease taking hold (in this case possibly columnaris) and by that time it's too late to really do anything.

 

[Xeraika]

Hello,

An update as requested.

So far everyone's looking ok. No deaths and the gourami with the spot discoloration has completely healed up. I stopped the medicated baths as of 2 days ago but am continuing with medicated food. Slowly removing the medication from the tank itself and keeping the salt levels increased for the time being.

Medications used:
1. Bifuran+ concentrated baths, normal dose in tank, and added to food with garlic guard
2. Salt (lots of it) specifically sea salt, this raised the pH in the tank but was done slowly over a period of time. Also did high concentration salt baths.
3. Methylene blue (baths only).

I don't know if this was columnaris cause I would have many more deaths, maybe some kind of other infection or severe stress (I did find out that the fish I purchased arrived to the store 2 days before I purchased them and they have traveled a long way). Only two fish showed the strange tail discoloration symptom before dying (first photo in post) and one as a spot (2nd photo in post) which recovered.

If any other issues do occur later on such as the same symptoms and/or sudden death I'll put an update but otherwise I'm sure they'll be fine.

 

[Matt68005]

Sounds like columnaris.
The quickness of death after any symptom leads me to think it is the internal strain .
Columnaris does not have to be fuzzy.
Fish Columnaris | Fungus & Saprolegnia | Treatment & Prevention
Good luck and don't cross contaminate any other tanks!

To me it looks more like tetrahyema. NTD. However, it could very well be columnaris. They are very hard to tell apart. This however does look "brown" so it leads me to believe its NTD. COlumnaris is more white fuzzy whhile NTD is brown under the skin near the back of the body type of wound. ANyways, seperate and destroy the fish immediately, hes too far gone, and you don't want that going thru your tanks.