Poll: Have your fish ever been sick before?

[mandy2936]

Hey guys,
Just a quick poll simply because I'm curious to find out what seems to be the most common disease (if you're fish have ever been sick) among freshwater fish keepers.

•What was the disease?
•Were you able to cure it?
•Did you find/fix the cause?

My answer? Once one of my Von Rio Tetras suddenly got Popeye and Septicemia. I could not find the cause. I bought medicine and dosed diligently for two weeks... but unfortunately he was not saved. He did improve, however, but eventually did not make it. He was a fighter though, poor little guy. It was hard seeing him that way. ~RIP.

Thanks for your time.

P.S. You have the option to select multiple answers in the event that your fish have had more than one illness.

 

[ejaramillo01]

In my actual tank, just 2 months running, I have not had any sick fish, (knocking in wood 7 times),
But my previous experience my fish suffered of ich, but also I would said that was due to a lot of stress and high levels of Ammonia.

In few words, a lot of common newbie mistakes that lead to ich.

 

[tyspot1000]

Ive had ich In both my 20 gallon and 30 gallon. The 20 gallon had bad water quality and giving the fish ich (Treated with tetra ich guard, worked like a charm) . The 30 gallon, before I got rid of the pictus catfish, He had ich. A day after I moved him out and put the new fish in, it spread to them (Cured with PWC's everyday and raised temp to 86F).

I wouldnt consider fin nipping a disease, but I once had a single tiger barb (Long story) in a tank with 10 neon tetra. He nipped them real bad, even causing 2 to die, so now I remain with eight and the tiger is gone. Eventually the fins healed.

 

[mudraker]

my fish suffered of ich, but also I would said that was due to a lot of stress and high levels of Ammonia.

Ich is actually a parsite that lives in the water then embeds in the fish. Stress and ammonia have nothing to do with ich infestations.

Fish that are exposed to ammonia and/or are stressed will die faster when exposed to the parasite than healthy fish will.

 

[dkpate]

My first betta had ich.
They have all had swim bladder issues, not bad, but just bloated.
Every single one (10) of my harlequin rasboras had fungus (the "other" option).
My bettas all had fin rot, and they bite themselves sometimes.
Dwarf gourami had dropsy, and so did one guppy.
Another gourami had the gourami disease.
I accidently killed my black ghost knife fish by not letting the silicone cure long enough.
I treated the betta with QuICK Cure, everything else was cured with peas, salt, Melafix and Pimafix. The dropsy I was not able to cure, since I figured out what it was too late.
The only fish I have ever gotten that were NOT sick were my black loaches.

 

[Jason7894561230]

Jeez Darby and look at you now!

 

[Greenmaster]

Ich is actually a parsite that lives in the water then embeds in the fish. Stress and ammonia have nothing to do with ich infestations.

Fish that are exposed to ammonia and/or are stressed will die faster when exposed to the parasite than healthy fish will.

I wouldn't say stress and ammonia have nothing to do with ich... I believe that healthy fish can often fight off disease and parasites, by the same token a weak fish is more likely to have an infestation and die. Some times when you have ich in a tank not all fish get it, and it's not because the parasites don't try. The healthy ones can stay parasite free some times.

 

[dkpate]

Jeez Darby and look at you now!

LOL, I know. I have a plethora of meds that's for sure!!!

 

[Jason7894561230]

Lol I'm sure you do

 

[mgamer20o0]

mine was a couple different ones but since i have had thousands of fish though my system its considerably low. a bag here or there a year is all for me. if you get fish from good suppliers/lfs/ other hobbyest you have a lower chance of getting something.

 

[mandy2936]

Thanks everyone for your reply. Looks like Ich is the most common illness so far, and injury coming in second. (It's not that I consider injuries an illness, but I thought that I'd include it in the poll considering it has to do with the same genre.)

Wow Dkpate, looks like you've delt with a lot of sick fish before!

 

[dkpate]

Yeah, guess I need to stop going to Pet***** and Pet**.

 

[Innovator]

I've dealt with just about every disease available to fw, which is why I QT = medicate everything.

 

[mandy2936]

Aw whoops. Just realized I forgot to include Fin Rot in the poll. That's a common one.

 

[jessibell]

Ich is actually a parsite that lives in the water then embeds in the fish. Stress and ammonia have nothing to do with ich infestations.

Fish that are exposed to ammonia and/or are stressed will die faster when exposed to the parasite than healthy fish will.

Technically speaking, even though the Ich parasite has to be present in the water to cause disease, the hormones that are released by creatures under long-term stress supress the immune system making the creature less able to fight off infection. Healthy fish exposed to ich don't always show symptoms because their immune system fights it off before it gets firmly established. That's why sometimes you can see perfectly normal fish in a tank shared with fish that have bad cases of ich

 

[DragonFish71]

The worst things we've had hit some of our tanks (other than crashes after a water change) are Lymphocystis and Camallanus worms. Luckily and weirdly enough (knock on wood) we haven't had ich or any common diseases. Then again, we are now more than ever very religious about QT'ing new fish.

 

[XimeD]

I've only kept tanks for 7 months, but so far I have had ich and at the moment I am keeping an eye on one of my giant danios that looks like it might have cotton mouth (columnaris)

As for the ich:
-It happened right before I was going out of town for a week, so I combined high temp (86F for 8 days - I wanted to do 10days but was leaving so I decided to bring it down) with meds (Kordon Ich-attack). I really recommend the Ich-attack for people that have sensitive fish (like catfish, plecos, eels), inverts and plants. I think I caught it pretty early, the two fish that had it only had 3 or 4 "grains" on them.

Columnaris,
-I am not 100% sure its columnaris but I am treating with melafix + pimafix.

Scraping injury and missing scales:
-One time during a PWC I accidentaly knocked over a piece of slate and unbelievably it fell on one of my tinfoil barbs resulting in scrapes and missing scales, the fish was actually trapped under the rock for a couple of secs, I felt so bad!. Treated with melafix and no problem.

 

[dkpate]

I had a dwarf gourami get wedged in between a rock and the glass once too. I don't know how long he was stuck, but with clean water he healed up with little scarring.
My mystery snail also crawled out of the tank and had a 15 hour adventure behind the bedroom dresser, and she also got out for 2 hours and toured the living room. Every hole on the top of the tank is now covered.
Ok, I am getting off track here...LOL

 

[IslandHopper]

4 tanks going for almost two years...
About six months into it, all (a dozen -my entire population) glo-fish danios all got sick and died... I never figured out what it was, none of the other fish in the tank were affected.
Nothing else until the angelfish came down with what appears to be finrot. Treating now with erythromycin and it seems to be feeling better already.

I just wish the cories would have laid eggs while the angel was sick and lethargic! ... They might have stood a chance. (they lay eggs every two weeks or so but the angel eats them all within 24 hours )

 

[Tim Wheatley]

Two bouts of Ich:
Ich from fish bought from a chain store.
Ich from feeder fish.

First time I treated with Rid Ich and the medication killed the fish and gave my tank a lovely blue tint. I drained the tank and started over having left it dry for three weeks. It didn't return to that tank.

Second time (recently actually) came from some feeders my oscar decided not to eat. I had also (before noticing) just moved plants between all my tanks so I had to treat every tank. I actually used marine salt and heat on the freshwater tanks, no losses and it was over very quickly. I breed my own feeders now.