unknown disease killing really fast

hi prof.im writing to you as a last resort.since friday i have lost almost my entire tank of fish.ive posted on various sites on the net and no one seems to know what the problem is.the fish themselves act normally,they eat and swim and play as if nothing is wrong.it starts with a greyish patch somewhere on the fish,and within hours the fish is coverd with this stuff and then they die.so far ive lost 2 baloon mollies,a red tail shark,2 algae eaters,14 neon tetras,6 pretty tetras,10 emperor tetras one silver tetra,5 fighter females,2 fighter males(1 i replaced before i realised there was a problem) and 1 white tipped tetra.i now have 1 catfish,4 white tips,4 silvers 1 neon and 2 pretty.also have 3 angels.my angels have bleeding around the head(so did the red tail,next morning he had a patch around the head,my female balloon had on the mouth,looked like lipstick)most of the fish died over the course of 3 days.my water is perfect at ph of 7.5 and temp of 28.ammonia at 0,nitrite at 0 and nitrate at 25.did a 20%water change just to be safe and water is still fine.ive posted pics here:http://hubpages.com/hub/unidentified-fish-diseases.please have a look,even if i cant save what i have left,i can at least prepare if it happens again.i raised all my fish from tiny babies,so this is hitting me really hard.ive had them all over a year.please help asap!

 

the correct link is http://hubpages.com/hub/unidentified-fish-diseases

just had a good look at your photos - might be in the line of Oodinium

 

Hi Ladybug,

This is not a nice picture that you sketch here, looks nasty, you and your fishes have my sympathies. From what you describe your tank sounds fine, so one must suspect a disease here and not a tank problem.

If you take into account how fast this disease appears to infect the fishes and spread, I would think that it is a bacterial disease. Such diseases are not easy to treat as all of the LFS medication does not contain really strong antibiotics. I would think that you need something like chloromycetin (chloramphenicol) or floxacillin to treat these fishes with. Where are you based? You would have to obtain these meds either from a vet or a pharmacy. As chloromycetin is one of the last medications to which some nasty human bacteria are not resistant to, the use of chloromycetin has been used much less frequently as a human medication, so you might have some problems in getting hold of it. I do not have the dosages for these meds with me here at work at the moment, but could check them this evening. I think you should enquire from your pharmacy or vet whether they may have them in stock or if they can obtain them rapidly. Please enquire and then reply about what you can obtain, and then I can give you the dosage this evening.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

im in atlasville boksburg,and unfortunately dont have a car.might only get to a vet(if i can find one open on a weekend)on sat or sun.same with the pharmacy.i will try.no one else has died.could the disease be dead?maybe what i have left is somehow immune,or are they just taking longer to die?how do i prevent this from happening again and what causes it?how would i go about disinfecting my tank deco?obvioously ill throw all the plants away before i restock.how long should i wait before i can be safe adding new fish?

 

Hi Ladybug,

I am glad to hear that the deaths have stopped. I would not suggest that you try to disinfect the tank and that you throw out all your plants. Those fish that have survived have clearly been able to develop immunity to the disease in time. Now what will happen is that the bacteria will die off because they will not be able to infect anything else.

My suggestion would be that you do not introduce any new fishes for at least 4 weeks, and that you do some careful maintenance on your tank. Do a 50% water change per week and feed the fishes that remain carefully and well without overfeeding them. After 4 weeks these bacteria will be gone and then I would buy just a few fishes and see if they become infected again.

So, my suggestion is that you do not do too much cleaning now and just let things stabilize and then start off slowly again after 4 weeks.

I hope that the fishes that remain will continue to survive.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi Ladybug,

I have done a little more homework about this disease and I think that you have had a columnaris infection in your tank. This is caused by the bacteria called Flexibacter columnare. As you have described this is a vicious disease resulting in rapid deaths of your fishes.

The following links give a lot of information of diagnosis and treatment so you can perhaps benefit from this.

http://www.aquatic-hobbyist.com/profiles/disease/freshwater/columnaris.html
http://network.bestfriends.org/friends_of_fish/news/5401.html

It is clear to me that you must have brought in the disease with new fishes.

Hope that things have improved by now though.

Kind regards,

Dirk Bellstedt

 

btw, the plant in pic 3 is anubias barteri var.nana....it shouldn't be planted else it'll rot & die. The plant on the left of it looks like normal mondo grass...it shouldn't be in your tank but outside in the garden

Apologies for going off topic

Cheers
Dale

 

:bigsmile: We all see a sick fish and you see PLANTS! :blink1:

 

:damnmate:

Sorry bout that
Thought I'd just help to prevent a plant from dying too

 

Your comment was clearly well meant, Dale, so it is fully justified. I am just interested to know how the fish are now doing, Ladybug?

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Yip - it takes EVERY living thing in the aquarium to maintain the correct balance and the plants therefor play a vital role in that too

 

Theyre all good thanx dirk.ive put them in my smaller tank till the 4 weeks are up.looks kinda silly having so few fish in such a large tank.bought new gravel and ornaments and plants and last week redid my 5ft.bought some fish this weekend and started from scratch.lookin really beautiful.got 2 clown loaches(havent had in a while,being prone to ich scared me off for a long time),3 of the most beautiful angels ive ever seen,a fighter female(the only one i can find absolutely anywhere!any ideas where i can find more?)and one platydoras costatus(been looking for one for about a year now).the others are still healthy,kinda feeling sorry for my neon being a schooler and living alone.will take a pic or 2 and post on a forum or somewhere.thanx for all your help and support.

 

Ladybug, sent you a pm on where to get a female