VIDEO--skinny clown--UPDATE-4 MONTHS-1Year

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FranM
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VIDEO--skinny clown--UPDATE-4 MONTHS-1Year

Post by FranM » Sat Apr 25, 2015 12:56 pm

By my own fault I added unquarrantined additions to my tank. Few days later clown loaches were flashing and ich spots appeared on silver dollars. Did a ten day treatment of Rid Ich Plus. All were out of the woods except for one clown who was no longer flashing, yet very lethargic except for feedings. Also lost lots of bulk and is knife back skinny, ( not belly skinny ). Has had this before and was cured with medicated food. Food not working so I added Prazi pro (after huge water change and carbon and a day of rest in between). Prazi brought about immediate energy to clown who is behaving normally except for the weight loss. Weight has improved but not fast enough.

I have both medicated flakes of metrodizanole and fenbendazole. Wondering if I have a fluke issue? In which case the fenbendazole would be a better food option than metro, no? Second round of Prazi just in case occurring now.

Is it overkill to feed medicated food while Prazi is in tank? Which should I feed? 55 gallon, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5 ppm nitrate. Highest it will get is 20 ppm. Using Nitrazorbs quite effectively. Weekly 50% water changes.

Thank you. Hope the video loads properly. Video will show the condition of clown since getting a still pic was quite difficult.

http://s1381.photobucket.com/user/franm ... f.mp4.html

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Last edited by FranM on Sun Aug 28, 2016 2:15 am, edited 2 times in total.

Loachloach
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by Loachloach » Sat Apr 25, 2015 1:41 pm

Hey FranM,

I would presume feeding medicated food won't be a problem while doing prazi.

Also, skinny disease is often caused by spironucleus vortent/hexamita. The easiest treatment is food soaked in magnesium sulphate solution/Epsom salts and it is harmless to the fish. I'd do this one first while treating with prazi.

To make the solution in which to soak the food:
For a 3% solution of Magnesium sulphate, add 1 level tablespoon (15 grams) magnesium sulphate to 500 milliliters of distilled water. Stir, and it's good to go.

Use an eye dropper or pipette to add to pellet food (or any other food that will readily absorb it), and stop dripping water once the pellets become saturated. Use only enough water to saturate the food, with no excess water, so that the water soluble vitamins in the food remain intact. Feed twice a day, for 5 days.


I would presume it will take time for the clown to gain back weight after cured. I've treated livebearers with it and it took ages. I didn't even know if I was successful or not until one day they were back to full body which would have been a couple of months after.

FranM
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by FranM » Sat Apr 25, 2015 7:15 pm

Thank you for the suggestion. I'd never heard of the Epsom salt treatment in food. Since I have the metrodizanole flakes already I will feed those. Usually the medicated food should be fed exclusively according to the instructions. Maybe I can cut your recipe in half as it seems like a lot. I have heard of treating with an Epsom salt bath, but never ingested. If I see little improvement in the next five days I will give your suggestion a try.

Loachloach, I just want to make sure you saw my video. My fish's skinniness is not in its ab area but it's upper body (above lateral line). Would that still constitute spironucleus? Anybody?

Fran

Loachloach
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 26, 2015 4:23 am

Yes, I saw the video.
When I last treated, one of my fish was so emaciated, it looked like a hook, way worse than your clown. It fully recovered which made me a believer because at that stage when I dealt with this before no meds worked. But my fish was still eating vigorously, although it couldnt' hold it's balance right and I had to hand feed it.
The full info I got this idea from is here:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... ironucleus

I prefer Epsom salt soaked food because it's harmless to the unaffected fish where metro isn't. And for me metro didn't work because fish didn't like the taste of the food and spit it out.
If you have one fish with hex, all have it, just most of them can supress it with good immune system and live a normal live for years, but stress brings it out, even bullying from tank mates can bring it out, or a mini ammonia spike, moving the fish, or another disease killing the fish's immune system, like in the case with your clown.
Some dewormers maybe partially effective at supressing hex, but are not able to fully eradicate it, hence the fish improves a bit but gets it again with more stress. But without testing your fish it's hard knowing what it has so maybe cover it all.

I don't know what type of prazi you are using, here they sell one called "Fluke solve". It's a new formula, fully dissolvable in water and harmless in the tank. Here is the link for more info:
http://www.fish-treatment.co.uk/fluke-solve.html



If Epsom salt twice a day for 5 days doesn't work(it may take another few weeks to see the clown filling, and a few months until it fully gets its shape back), then you know you are dealing with worms and to cover them all, it's prazi and levamisole which treat the entire range of flat/round worms, or flubendazole which "mikev" suggested here in another thread. However, I have not tried the latter on fish myself but it's worth researching it. I am not convinced it fully eradicates hexamita but maybe very effective against other worms by what he's saying.

Good luck. There are many options out there. Mine definitely had hexamaita as Epsom salt worked for me. Yours could have something else giving the same appearance. I am only suggesting as it's one of the possible culprits, and people start treating with de-wormers on emaciated fish, which don't have much effect on fully eradicating hexamita and the fish dies anyway, so covering all options is best.

Good luck.

FranM
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by FranM » Sun Apr 26, 2015 8:12 am

My clown doesn't possess that hole in the head look and its belly isn't sunken in. Plus it's perfectly stable swimming and I hand feed the medicated flakes too since they become useless in ten seconds according to packaging. The clown eats everything willingly. No white stringy feces either typical with the type of diseases you speak of. I don't feel we're dealing with the same thing but I certainly may be wrong. Bethany you again for your input.

Loachloach
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 26, 2015 8:47 am

Yes, it may not be the same thing. Please do what you feel is best and I certainly don't want to put you in the wrong direction.
My clown doesn't possess that hole in the head look and its belly isn't sunken in.
It takes them months untreated to get to that sort of look and sunken belly. They just lose mass initially.

Hole in the head is different when manifesting in smaller fish because they don't develop "hole in the head". They just get emaciated and it can take months untreated to get the knifeback look...I would presume other parasites can do the same so not saying your has hexamita for sure. How would I know.....
They normally don't lose appetite at all until just before they die and even then they don't tend to.... and only have balance problems in very late stages and it's because they get so thin they just can't fight the flow, not that they cant' swim. They do line up for food no matter what....

I've never seen stringy feces on bottom feeders so I don't know how it would look on them.

I managed to find an old picture of the last fish that I had with hexamita. It's a platy, the small skinny one near the big one.
Both platies are the same age so the sick one just "shrank". I treated this platy quite after I took that picture and it made a full recovery. It's still alive today. I'll take a picture of her later on so you can see after Epsom salt treatment.

Image

FranM
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by FranM » Sun Apr 26, 2015 9:17 am

Thanks, Loach. How the hell do I know either? Lol. It's a best educated guess without doing scrapings etc. It's helpful to see a pic. I will stick with metro only for five days. If no marked improvement I will move on. I'm sure the clown was harboring whatever it is that affected it. It had it before several years back. The Ich brought it all back out. The clown didn't show any weight issues until the breakout. I really love the clown(s). Yoyos are fun too.

Thank you again. I will look forward to seeing your other pic. :D

So I just fed and is it possible that the clown looks improved from last night? I think it does. I will take more video end of week to compare. :)

Loachloach
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 26, 2015 9:57 am

That's her below. I may manage a better one later on but now she won't stay still on a brighter side of the tank.
She's about 4 years old at least so despite the deteriorated condition to which I left her succumb, it didn't affect her overall lifespan. I know for sure because all the platies in this tank were moved 3 years ago as adult large platies from my other tank as I was thinning out the population in there and she got sick soon after. I've been monitoring her since I treated her and it's been a nice learning experience with her. She's not the best looking of platies and never got as large as the others but I shouldn't have left her get to the state of a "hook". You nearly can't tell now she was that bad.

Image

Image

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mikev
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by mikev » Sun Apr 26, 2015 10:00 am

FranM wrote:My clown doesn't possess that hole in the head look and its belly isn't sunken in. Plus it's perfectly stable swimming and I hand feed the medicated flakes too since they become useless in ten seconds according to packaging. The clown eats everything willingly. No white stringy feces either typical with the type of diseases you speak of. I don't feel we're dealing with the same thing but I certainly may be wrong. Bethany you again for your input.
Unfortunately, your video is not of sufficient quality to really see the fish, so i can only guess based on your description. The likely diagnosis what is called "skinny disease", and in majority of cases it is caused by internal parasites, specifically worms, and most commonly nematodes rather than other types. (I've seen tapeworms too). About a decade ago I did a number of necropsies on loaches that had skinny disease and worms -- of different types -- were detected in nearly every case. The infection rate in wild caught botia, whether they are symptomatic or not, appears to be above 1/3.

The article on this site,
http://www.loaches.com/Members/shari2/l ... chloride-1
is pretty accurate albeit unfortunately is a bit out of date. It appears to have perhaps 90% success rate and many used it as a prophylactic
For those of us who purchase wild-caught fish, it should be part of our prophylactic quarantine tank treatments for newly purchased fish.
at the time the article was written (nearly a decade ago!) this was accurate. Notice that levamisole has no effect on organisms other than worms and in particular on organisms that do not have nervous system, so its high success rate is a proof that most cases were indeed caused by worms. But why not 100%? -- because there are other types of worms besides nematodes and even some nematodes are known to resist levamisole in any concentration. (This is not an acquired resistance). Prazi also works against number of worms and again not all... while no good study has been done it appears that levamisole is overall a bit more effective than prazi.
Now, should one use either -- perhaps, if nothing else is available. However, notice that in human and animal medicine the meds of choice are various *benzadole derivatives... this is because they have wider spectrum action. Among them flubendazole is the med of choice. Good chances it will help in your case.

Now, are all cases of weight loss in botias linked to worms? Probably not, mycobacterious is uncommon but possible. Gill flukes can have such an effect too, again uncommon. I'm not aware of any documented cases of hexamita causing the problem with botias, but cannot exclude that such cases occur once in a blue moon too. No point in discussing less probable causes, one deals with the most probable first. And one most definitely should keep in mind that different types of fish are susceptible to different types of diseases, so discussing molly cases is simply not productive.

Finally about the symptoms of worm infections -- they vary. But loss of muscular tissue on the back is fairly common.

Good luck!

Loachloach
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 26, 2015 10:19 am

so discussing molly cases is simply not productive.
They are not mollies, they are platies :D But they certainly get as big as mollies if kept in large tanks. I've measured females at 7.5 cm (about 3 inches I think)

I hope FranM manages to cure the loach whichever way that is. If flubendazole is the best, then I can't argue, never having tried it, and I'd like to know the outcome. Hopefully the loach gets better soon.
And please keep us posted how he progresses and what treatment you've chosen to take.

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mikev
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by mikev » Sun Apr 26, 2015 10:45 am

Flubendazole is the best shot... but I really would like to see a decent photo of the fish first. Additionally, one important question: did the fish develop the condition recently (at the time of Ich treatment) or had it from the beginning? And how long was it owned?

As for molly/platy -- not going to pretend I know much about the either.... the important thing is that the diseases are really different in different types of fish, even diseases of botiine loaches are not the same as those of balitorids. (And incidentally it is possible that some cases with balitorids weight loss problems are internal protozoan or (gasp!) microsporidia infections.... not common enough for anyone to research seriously, unf., but possibly common enough to be aware of)

Diana
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by Diana » Sun Apr 26, 2015 11:06 am

Just a comment about something farther up in this post-

Best not to mix medications unless both are labeled as safe to use with each other.

Reason: Many medications are low level toxins to the fish, and treatment dosage is based on 'how much does it take to kill the disease organism without killing the fish'. Often this is a pretty strong dose from the fish point of view. Their liver usually detoxifies the medication.

If you add 2 medications at their optimum dose you are often handing the liver twice as much toxin to be detoxified, and it cannot handle it.

So, research the medicines to see what can be safely combined and what should not be.
38 tanks, 2 ponds over 4000 liters of water to keep clean and fresh.

Happy fish keeping!

Loachloach
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 26, 2015 11:40 am

I think prazi in the water and metro in the food are not dangerous together although wrong dosage of metro on it's own can have long term organ damage and then again, exposure amount and time to each may matter.
Tetra Parasite Guard contains both metro and prazi alongside a couple of other ingredients.

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mikev
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by mikev » Sun Apr 26, 2015 1:19 pm

Diana wrote:Just a comment about something farther up in this post-

Best not to mix medications unless both are labeled as safe to use with each other.
There is one more reason not to mix, of a different nature: if we don't have a firm diagnosis (usually the case) knowing which med is working gives us at least some indication of what the problem is and how long to continue the treatment for. Except for the cases when the situation is urgent (the animal is about to die, nothing to lose, try everything at once) best to try the most likely first. And in this case it is not metro for sure.... maybe prazi, but flubendazole is the best 1st option, levamisole is the 2nd.

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mikev
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Re: VIDEO--skinny clown

Post by mikev » Sun Apr 26, 2015 1:30 pm

What bothers ME in this thread is the very first sentence
By my own fault I added unquarrantined additions to my tank. Few days later clown loaches were flashing and ich spots appeared on silver dollars. Did a ten day treatment of Rid Ich Plus. All were out of the woods except for one clown who was no longer flashing, yet very lethargic except for feedings. Also lost lots of bulk and is knife back skinny
It seems to link Ich outbreak and/or treatment to the Skinny condition and indicate rapid loss of weight rather than gradual as more usual. Thus asking for clarifications, we may be actually dealing with something totally different here. (Example: gill damage due to Ick-->oxygen deficiency-->apathy-->... )

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