Sick Danio
Aaron
I have uploaded an out-of-focus, motion-blurred picture to the
files section. It is titled sick.danio and shows a white spot on the
lower jaw. I noticed this fish (a giant danio) had poor appetite today
because it didn't eat with the other fish. Instead it swam around
relatively slowly and after a while it spit out some food...then tried
to eat what it had spit out. It did this routine two or three times
but seemed to have little interest in the new food in the tank.
Context. I have a 26 gal. tank (90.5 cm L X 30 cm W X 36 cm H)
(2.54 cm = 1 in) filtered with a whisper 60 power filter. I don't know
the current nitrate concentration but I expect it is between 30 and 50
ppm. I have 5 neon tetras, 5 three-spot gouramis, 5 pearl danios, and
two giant danios. This is probably an overcrowded tank and I need to
do more frequent water changes. I keep the filter media clean by
washing in aquarium water. I plan to do a change of about 5 gal today.
Beyond that, what do you folks recommend? I have a feeling that the
problem is some sort of fungus since 'ich' is a parasite and I have
been running this tank since June with no new fish introduced. I would
have thought it would turn up before now, especially since I have had
this same cohort of fish since about March or April of this year.
Any advice you can offer would be much appreciated!
--Aaron
Norbert
>It is titled sick.danio and shows a white spot on the lower jaw.
Are there not two white spots (above the eye and on the mouth)?
> plan to do a change of about 5 gal today,
Water changes are always good, especially if fishes are ill. Sometimes
this helps already.
> I have a feeling that the
> problem is some sort of fungus since 'ich' is a parasite
seems to be too thick for ichthyo, but it is difficullt to see exactly
what it is.
Here are some pictures:
Ichthyo: http://www.drta-archiv.de/wikidis/index.php/Diseases/Ichthyo
Fungus: http://www.drta-archiv.de/wikidis/index.php/Diseases/FishFungus
Maybe it is a bacterial disease. In overcrowded tanks for example
cotton wool disease appears often:
http://www.drta-archiv.de/wikidis/index.php/Diseases/CottonWoolDisease
Maybe the pictures help to identify or to eleminate some dieseases.
Norbert
Aaron
The other two white spots seem to be reflections. I think I took
about 15 pictures before I got that one. Danios move around too much!
It appears most likely to be bacterial disease: cotton wool
disease. I'll wait a day or two to see if anything further develops.
--Aaron
Javadan
On Aug 14, 6:57 pm, Aaron <aaron.a.kel...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Norbert,
>
> The other two white spots seem to be reflections. I think I took
> about 15 pictures before I got that one. Danios move around too much!
> It appears most likely to be bacterial disease: cotton wool
> disease. I'll wait a day or two to see if anything further develops.
>
> --Aaron
OK, I just played fish doctor on one late night post, why not
another.
Aaron, you say that you think it might be disease, but that you're
going to wait a couple of days. That could be a bad call. You took
the time to post, so you should at least take the time to do a partial
water change & rinse out your filter media in the water that you
siphon out of the tank. Add some salt, too. These are both safe
bets. Search TFA for 'salt' to find out what Altum has advised in
fairly recent threads & watch this thread for the experts to post
advice.
Hope that Danio will be fine.
Javadan who is currently practicing fish medicine without a license.
Marco Schwarz
It's a small world.. ;-)
Norbert, welcome to TFA..!
cu
Marco
Altum
As if any of us have one. LOL! Salt, a water change, and a good tank
cleaning are great advice. Add 1 tsp/gallon of salt.
I agree that it looks like Flavobacterium aka cotton mouth disease.
It's not likely to be a true fungus unless the fish was injured.
Unfortunately, it's kind of difficult to treat and can be contagious.
Isolate the fish in a hospital tank if it's possible. I don't like
putting antibiotics in the water, so I usually try 1 tsp/gallon of
salt and acriflavine in the hospital. You can put acriflavine in a
display tank if there are no live plants but it sometimes stains the
silicone.
The other option for treating in quarantine is antibiotics in the
water, a mixture of kanamycin and furanace. I'm not a fan of
antibiotics because you can grow nasty strains of resistant bacteria
in your tanks that can cause you and your fish problems in the long
run.
You probably know this, but once a fish has stopped eating it's pretty
sick. Waiting a couple days to see what happens isn't generally a
good plan at that point.
--Altum
Aaron
Thanks very much for the advice. I didn't end up waiting...I went
down to the pet store and looked around at the various available
products. They recommended salt and a generalized fish health aid
(copper sulfate). I'm not sure it will help because it does not appear
to be intended for use against bacterial infections. And that does
seem the most likely cause of the problem.
On Tuesday I changed out 5 gal of water and rinsed my filters in
aquarium water only a few days after having changed about 10 gal last
Friday (nitrate was a bit high). Yesterday I added 38 g of salt to my
26 gal tank since the 'aquarium salt' in the store said I should added
15 g for every 10 gal of water. I didn't buy that salt but used some
non-iodized household salt instead. I then removed the carbon from my
filters and added the copper sulfate according to the package
directions. I also raised the temperature to around 84 or 85F (28C).
The tank is well aerated with two bubble stones. The sick danio has
been eating and this morning was not spitting its food back out again,
as far as I could see. The white spot has not gone away or diminished
in size.
I have no 'hospital tank' but I suppose I could use the bucket I
fill with clean water for water changes as a substitute. What do you
think?
--Aaron
> --Altum- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
NetMax
pathogen (?!). At least the warmer water might help. I wonder if a Q-
tip dipped in iodine touched to the lip might solve your problem? ..
though my licence is only to keyboard speculate, not fish doctoring
either.
~~
> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
Altum
and warmth is helping. As I said before, the amount of salt to use is
1 ppt. If you're metric, it's 1g/litre; for US measurements 1 tsp/
gallon comes out about right. Make sure your household salt doesn't
have sodium ferrocyanide or yellow prussiate of soda as an anticaking
agent.
You wasted your money on the copper sulfate. That's for protozoan
parasites. You may as well put your carbon back and filter it out so
it doesn't stress your other fish.
If the fish is eating, you can try the Gel-Tek antibacterial food.
NetMax's idea of antiseptic sometimes works. Neosporin cream is
another that is sometimes helpful.
As for quarantine, it's quite unpredictable as to whether an infection
will spread. Your other danio is in the most danger; I find that
infections spread to the same type of fish first. Should you decide
to quarantine, the sick fish will require adequate heat and water
movement as well as clean water. An airstone is fine for a bucket,
but you'll have to work out the heat.
--Altum
Aaron
The fish does not seem to be any worse...but not any better either.
I have been keeping it at 27C and with 1ppt salt (this is easiest to
do by converting gallons to liters (gal x 3.78 = L) and using that
number to determine the number of grams of salt. I found that 1 tsp of
salt has a mass of about 6 g and would give 1.6 ppt salt if added at
the ratio of 1 tsp/gal.
It still does not seem to be able to keep food down. Is it unable
to hold food in its stomach? Or is its throat blocked? The fish is
definitely interested in food but frequently spits it out.
I changed out 10 gal of water and reduced my NO3 from 25 ppm to 15
ppm. After doing so I realized that I do in fact have a back up heater
and I set up a bucket with heater and air stone. I have moved both of
my giant danios to this emergency 'tank' and added salt to a
concentration of 1 ppt. T = 27C. The larger of the two (the one not
yet showing clear symptoms) is pushy and aggressive toward the smaller
(already sick) one but I can't see taking one and not the other since
both are likely to carry the disease, whatever it is for sure.
I have tried applying neosporin (actually, bacitracin ointment:
generic is best) but the darn fish won't hold still and I can't be
sure I got any of the medicine where it belongs. I may try either
acriflavine or the kanamycin/furanace combination as suggested by
Altum. The fish can't wriggle away from something dissolved in the
water.
My biggest concern is that the other fish do not become ill. It's a
relief to have the affected fish isolated.
--Aaron
On Aug 17, 3:14 pm, Altum <Pt.al...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm glad to hear your fish is doing better. It sounds like the salt
> and warmth is helping. As I said before, the amount of salt to use is
> 1 ppt. If you're metric, it's 1g/litre; for US measurements 1 tsp/
> gallon comes out about right. Make sure your household salt doesn't
> have sodium ferrocyanide or yellow prussiate of soda as an anticaking
> agent.
>
> You wasted your money on the copper sulfate. That's for protozoan
> parasites. You may as well put your carbon back and filter it out so
> it doesn't stress your other fish.
>
> If the fish is eating, you can try the Gel-Tek antibacterial food.
> NetMax's idea of antiseptic sometimes works. Neosporin cream is
> another that is sometimes helpful.
>
> As for quarantine, it's quite unpredictable as to whether an infection
> will spread. Your otherdaniois in the most danger; I find that
> infections spread to the same type of fish first. Should you decide
> to quarantine, thesickfish will require adequate heat and water
> > --Aaron- Hide quoted text -