Help looks like bacterial outbreak in tank!

[LoachOrgy]

as soon as i went to change the water toward the tank. my upside down catfish that usually hides came right up to me. hes double the size and bloated. ive never had issues with this catfish.

anyone have any idea what i can do? is it too late?

[LoachOrgy]

i have some kanamycin. the gills are very red and look open. bloody joints near the fin. bloody streaks on the body.

this is the first time ive seen this cat in a few days. wish the fish had shown itself earlier.

[LoachOrgy]

didn't know how long i had. treated with kanamycin. all chemical filtration removed. poor guy he looks bad. wish i had seen him earlier.

[LoachOrgy]

well he passed away. nothing i could do. poor guy.

[Diana]

Several things there suggest a bacterial problem, but when a fish hides until it is too late there is not anything you can do.

[LoachOrgy]

help me out. i saw a few other fish with bloody streaks on them. my rasboras.

what can i do to treat this. ive had similar symptoms in the past and lost all the fish. i treated with kanamycin and also tried a separate treatment maracyn.

maracyn killed the filter and killed all the fish after 3 days. it killed the filter and i didn't realize this until it was too late.

kanamycin didn't seem to work.

let me know. id hate to lose the rest of these fish.

but the bloody streaks and body bloating seem to be a common theme.

bloody streaks and bloody spots near the fins..

help please.

i have methalyne blue but that hasn't seemed to help any of the diseases ive had in the past.

im agreeing with you that i think its a bacterial issue.


i have something called fungus clearn from jungle. says it treats bloody streaks and bacterial disorders.

[LoachOrgy]

ok so i placed all the rasboras and one glass fish in the quarantine tank with one of the aquaclear 70's waterfalls from the main tank. going to do 2 treatments then assess from that point.

treated with jungle fungus clear. says its antibacterial treatment.

anyone know if this product crashes the filter?

if i recall correctly i never had issue with it crashing the filter but didn't want to take the chance in the main tank. all other tankmates seem fine and happy. the tank is not overstocked and the feeding has been lowered quite a bit in the last few days.

only two rasboras were showing symptoms but i just placed them all in qt just in case. the other 3 healthy looking rasboras looked a little light colored and were swimming a little lower than normal. so i decided to isolate those few as well.

[Diana]

Yes, the Jungle product line has weird labeling. Some fish diseases are commonly called 'fungus' but are really bacterial in origin. Some antibiotics also seem to have some anti-fungal properties, so the problem of what medicine treats which disease can be tricky, especially when the actual disease is not fully identified.
Do a little research into which medicines you have used before. See which diseases they treat. Then look for other fish antibiotics that seem to treat other bacterial diseases of fish. Try one of the Tetracycline group of antibiotics, for example; these work against different bacteria than Maracyn (Erythromycin) and Kanamycin.

Yes, some medicines will kill the nitrifying bacteria.

There are a couple of things you can do about this:
1) Treat in a quarantine tank, so the bio filter in the main tank is not dosed with antibiotics.
2) Have some Tetra Safe Start or Dr. Tim's One and Only on hand. When the medication is cleared from the water add whichever of these you could find to quickly re-establish the bio-filter.
3) Do enough water changes to keep the ammonia under .25 ppm and the nitrite under 1 ppm until the bio filter is reestablished. This will mean re-dosing the medication, too. Follow the label directions.
4) Keep a lot of thriving plants in the tank. Plants will remove a lot of nitrogen (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate) from the water.

[glenna]

This brings to mind the general dilemma of the Qtank: when you are in the midst of treating new (or sick ) fish in the Qtank, and the filter starts to crash, what should you do?....keep treating and just up the water changes until treatment is done? What about those products that remove the ammonia and nitrite/nitrates?...if the biofilter is already toast, can you just use those until the treatment is overwith so that the fish don't have to deal with the stress of such toxins?

I know I am tacking on to somebody else's question, but this is one that will help them too!

[Diana]

I wonder if the various filter media that remove chemical will also remove medications.

I know activated carbon will do this.

I do not know if the others will.

Zeolite/ ammo-chips and other names: A clay-based product that is noted for removing ammonia.

Various resin based products are often ion-exchange products. Nitra-sorb, Cupri-sorb and others.

Purigen

and so on.

If all these are removed, and the bio-filter crashes then you do indeed need to worry about rising toxins. Ammonia is the most obvious, and a good indicator of when to do water changes in the Q-tank. Remember to re-dose the medication with every water change.

Live plants will help a lot if they are thriving. Good light is the best way to help them. Some floating plants like Anacharis and Duckweed are good at removing nitrogen, and do not require a substrate, so you can run your Q-tank bare bottom if you want. Plants also give some hiding places to sick fish, so they feel some safety, perhaps somewhat less stress in this new, bare tank.
Live plants that are cuttings from stem plants grown in another tank can simply be floated, or wrapped with a plant weight and can help, even if they have no roots. Most aquatic plants take in nitrogen through the leaves.

[LoachOrgy]

This brings to mind the general dilemma of the Qtank: when you are in the midst of treating new (or sick ) fish in the Qtank, and the filter starts to crash, what should you do?....keep treating and just up the water changes until treatment is done? What about those products that remove the ammonia and nitrite/nitrates?...if the biofilter is already toast, can you just use those until the treatment is overwith so that the fish don't have to deal with the stress of such toxins?

I know I am tacking on to somebody else's question, but this is one that will help them too!

id agree with this. i did this one using a 10 gallon aquaclear on my qt tank. had all the fish die from the maracyn 2 treatment. i now have some live bacteria in a bottle. ill keep a close eye on the levels. but how does one discern if the filter is crashing or not?

i found last time i added as much of this bacteria that was suggested on the bottle that a bacterial bloom started in the qt tank when i was treating it. so i think it actually made the issue worse at the time.

sorry this is a 10 gallon qt tank. i have an aquaclear 70 on it. i did this because last time i had issues regulating appropriate levels with the smaller filter. so now i just took off one of the aquaclear units for this small tank.

this seems like something similar i have had in the past. ive treated with maracyn and also kanamycin. both maracyin 1 and 2. with no luck. all fish died.

hopefully this jungle clear will be ok and not crash the filter.

the media in the qt tank is the biological white media standard with aquaclears. and i have zeolite as well. the carbon filtration has been removed. there is also a sponge in the aqua clear unit.

i also have superbac nitrifying bacteria on hand.

diana from the link you gave me.

it sounds like this is what the issue is.

Bacterial hemmorrhagic septicemia

One fish, or many fish appear to have red streaking through the body and/or fins

is there something i can get fast to treat this?

besides Doxycycline -or-Oxytetracycline. that is what is suggested.

something quick at a local store?

so far i only have the fungus clear treatment.

i am going to see if i can find any medication at the fish store with these ingredients.

ok so i read the back of the jungle fungus clear. it says it treats hemorrhagic septicemia.

the active ingredients are nitrofurazone, furazolidone, potassium dichromate.

although i don't see any tetracycline in it. just read a few random forums saying something about treating with tetracycline.


this is what i found

Maracyn TC, Maracyn 2, Triple Sulfa, Trisulfa, TC Tabs, Metronidazole, Flagyl, Hexamit, Kanaplex, or similar gram negative effective drugs. Be sure to remove any activated carbon from the filter and if using Maracyn TC, TC Tabs, Maracyn 2 or any other tetracyclines, be sure to treat with the lights off, as these drugs degrade with exposure to light.

doesn't seem like the maracyn or kanaplex worked last time. it appears to be the same thing that ive had in the past. this is just by the bruising and similar behavior observed. i don't have any microscopes to do samples. so i could be wrong.
[/quote]

also this and the catfish did have his eyes bulging out. i also thought it was dropsy. and this descibes that dropsy can be a symptom of it. im looking on google for pictures. and it seems some of these images appear to be what i have.

The clinical signs of VHS include hemorrhaging in the muscle tissue and internal organs, pale organs, and bulging eyes. (Credit: Copyright Dr Jim Winton (USGS, Seattle WA), Dr Mohamed Faisal (MSU, Lansing MI) and Dr Paul Bowser (Cornell, Ithaca NY))

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 075355.htm

ha google also lead me here.

http://aquaweb.pair.com/forums/archives ... read=55155

There has been something "lingering" in this tank for quite a while now, I just never could put my finger on it. I'm 99.9% sure I have it figured out.

The symptoms from all the fish deaths I've seen over a period of 7 months make sense (and I have tracked them through the other tanks as well)

- Sudden unexplained dropsy in good water conditions (Internal Septicemia infection of kidneys)
- Cloud Eye
- Fish suddenly becoming lethargic and dying within days (Internal Septicemia infection of the cardiovascular system, dead fish seem to have blood splotches in the abdomen)
- Sudden occurance of popeye in good water conditions

this sounds exactly like my symptoms. all water conditions have been very good for the last 6 or more months and still these very same issues.

i also ordered something called aqua-doxy. in case this happens again. anyone have experience using this?

think im getting some furan 2 tomorrow.

[Diana]

Good for doing all the research! I sure hope something works for you. Please keep posting your results.

[LoachOrgy]

well ive treated them for 1.5 days with furan 2. which says it treats all these symptoms. however, the bloody spots look worse. and all fish are starting to act a bit crazy. hope they make it.

also 2 other rasboras have the bloody streaks.

[Diana]

I do not know if 2 days is enough to see any improvement. Does not sound good, though.

[LoachOrgy]

well today 4th day of treatment. the fish are looking much much better. the one with the worst looking problems of all the fish has a tiny red streak still. but all the other fish have no bloody streaks anymore. the color is back and the fish are looking more energetic than before. not scratching on the bottom of the tank and all swimming in a group!

woohoo!

this was the entire treatment. going to filter out the antibiotic and change the water. then see how they look after that....

excellent!

used furan 2. was skeptical bc it didn't work in the past. i fed the bio filter some live bacteria one time after the first day of treatment but they seem fine. ive also transferred a few pieces of bio media from the main fillstar into this 60 filter on the qtank.

ordered a mess of antibiotics just in case anything happens again. furan 2 is the only thing i can find locally that doesn't kill the filter.

got formalin 3, metranazidole, erythromycin, methyl blue, acriflavin.

does anyone know if erythromycin will crash the bio filter?