Apistogramma Fish TBS?

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semistro

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Oct 8, 2015
Messages
7
Hi,

My girlfriend has a 120 Litre tank with apistogramma in it. 1 male 3 females and 2 females have become sick, one worse than the other. One has a curved spine sideways and is a little darker than normal she can't swim in open water anymore and just lay on the bottom, the other one has a curved spine downwards and also has less color but instead of blackish she is a little lighter than normal. But of them don't eat anymore and got sunken bellies over the last days and are gasping for air. Symptoms could say Fish TBS, but I am not sure yet because of some reasons and because it is supposed to be rare.

Those reasons are:
-They have been removed from the tank and the other fish (1 male apisto 1 female apisto, 2 dwarf gouramies and 3 loaches) are perfectly healthy. If FTBS is highly contagious why are they fine?
-I dont know how long it takes before FTBS shows signs / how long it takes to develop.
- One female also got a crooked mouth suddenly a few months back (thought this was from a fight or something, could it be FTBS or genes?)
- We recently added 2 dwarf gouramies from a locally well kwown aquarium pet store, so I need to know if they might have brougth a bacteria with them but for that I need to know how long FTBS takes to develop, and they are perfectly fine themself (breeding behavior and all)
- only 1 female of the 3 ever laid eggs (signs of genetic defficiency?) The one who laid eggs is still healthy
- I feed them bloodworm, flakes and an Frozen Shrimp/peas mix (a nutritional diet)
- tank was very dirty for a while (about 3 weeks) but that was 3 months ago.

So there are some indications of FTBS and some indications of genetic defficiency, while I am not sure about indications of nutritional defficiency or bad water quality.

If it is FTBS does it mean we have to start over again with the tank and disinfect everything?
I am sort of hoping it is genetic defficiency.
I need to know if there is anything left to do for the two females and what to do with the main tank.

Female that is lighter
http://imgur.com/6PWyuwG

Female that is crooked sideways and darkish
http://imgur.com/a/n8wE5

So much thanks for reading and helping!!
 
Generally it is my understanding that fish TB takes some time to develop (although there have been threads of it faster acting or thought to be). If it all developed very quickly then may just be any old bacterial infection.

If the crooked spine was with lumps in the fish, caved in belly and gradual decline could be just TB.

Just some thoughts, I've never seen a really definite way to know apart from a culture.
 
Hi thanks for your response,

Unfortunately both fish died by now (the seem to recover for one day but that was shortlasted)
In the end both fish developed a fungal growth (one had a fungal lump on his head) although is it very possible that that wasn't the initial problem but a sideaffect of a damaged immune system since they weren't eating for a while. Wrapping up this post for future readers. I recommend any future readers that has a good diagnosis to respond.

But yeah,
It was probably TS or genetic defficiency, although I don't have the stomach to go play surgery and find out myself.

Both fish lived for about 3 weeks from the moment of the first symptoms and were only laying still and breathing. I think they died of starving instead of their dissease.
 
Sad news :(

I only looked into this as I had neons with columnaris. Variable symptoms by fish though. Some looked like TB, some saddleback, some cottonmouth, some had lesions at base of tail. They lasted several weeks but meds treatment seemed to slow it.

As you mention surgery seems one way as well.

Once they get internal issues like dropsy and crooked spine I've had little luck unfortunately.
 
UPDATE: other fish have become sick too, last female also is acting strange now, gourami has a yellow white lump growth from the inside, two other symptoms that confirm it indead is Fish Tuberculosis. I am so sad, since I only wanted my GF to like aquaria too and then she gets this in her aquarium. Only thing I can advice is to quarantine any gourami you buy since they seem vurnerable and apparently not all fish stores quarantine..
 
I would remove and put down fish you know won't make it as soon as you see them. Some fish I will try treating, others I've tried before and know I have no hope.


Did you try treating with anything?
 
Tried treating witg esha 2000, just incase it was something else than TBS, but it wasn't so treating was of no use. Although it is hard to put down fish I must agree that putting them down indeed is the best thing to do potentially save other fish and keep them from suffering.
 
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