Loaches Online Forum

On the offchance, I was looking into disease information on fishbase.org to see if they had anything listed for any hillstream species. The 'closest' I could find was for Beaufortia leveretti, and this is what was listed...

List of diseases for Beaufortia leveretti:

1. Sporozoa-infection (Myxobolus sp.), Parasitic infestations (protozoa, worms, etc.)
2. Metacercaria Infection (Flatworms), Parasitic infestations (protozoa, worms, etc.)
3. Bacterial Infections (general), Bacterial diseases
4. Velvet Disease 2 (Piscinoodinium sp.), Parasitic infestations (protozoa, worms, etc.)

Here are some more details for each of these, also on fishbase:

1. Infected fish shows signs of dark body coloration and/or accentuated coloring, whirling motion, emaciation, fin and tail rot. Also signs of secondary bacterial infection is exhibited. The spores can block the internal organ preventing their normal function. Ref. 45600 cited symptoms of locomotory disturbances, accompamied by emaciation, and sunken eyes in brain infection (Dykova et al. 1986), anaemia and haemorrhagic dropsy. Cardiac infection is another complication in acute stage of the infection.
Treatments: Sporozoa-infections in most cases is incurable. The infected fish should be remove in the aquarium as soon as possible. If infected area is still small (any part of the body), treatment is possible by bathing the fish 3 times a day in a strong Methylene Blue solution (1gm/100ml.). Also Acetarson, Amprollium or Fumacillin treatment has been suggested but it doesn’t claimed to have a curing effect but rather infection was reduced.
Prophylaxis:
Remarks: Also Ref. 45600. In Ref. 055543, it mentioned the parasite infecting the gall-bladder, urinary-bladder, fins, spleen and liver of the host fish. .

2. Can be recognize in the skin and muscles as small black dots or larger white inclusions. Sometimes we can find the metacercaria as a little bumps in the muscular tissue.
Treatments: Mixture of Niclosamide (Dose: 0.5gm to a bit of food (100gm) and mix it thoroughly. This can be done with gelatine or vegetable oil), Praziquantel (Dose: 100mg/25gm of food for 7 days (for metacercaria), or Piperazine (Dose: 0.5gm to a bit of food (100gm) and mix it thoroughly. This can be done with gelatine or vegetable oil).
Prophylaxis: Fish should be managed and kept healthy as possible.
Remarks: Metacercariae are larvae of digenetic Trematodes that can be found in the skin, eyes, muscular tissue and in the internal organ. This worms, in various forms use one or more intermediate host to complete their life cycle. Metacercaria infections can occur as or in: internal organs, black spot (usually Neascus sp.), white or yellow grub (usually Clinostomum sp.), in the eyes (blind), encapsulated worms in the gills, and encapsulated or free metacercaria in the intestines.

3. Infection can be recognized by reddish patch on the skin or fins (hemorrhage), whittish or yellowish patches on the skin (necrosis), fin- and tailrot, 'white mouth', abnormal swimming behaviour (e.g. whirling, 'wobbling').
Treatments: Can be treated with some anti-bacterial medicines like, Neomycine (Dose: 2-4 gm/100 l for 3 days, with a 30-50% water change afterwards.), Pennicillin (Dose: 1, 5-2gm/100L for 24 hours), Nitrofurazone (Dose: 250-500 mg/100 l for 3 days, with at least 50% water change after treatment.), Nifurpirinol (Dose: 10-15 mg/100 l for an unlimited time or as instructed), Furaltadone, Sulfonamide or Quinolones (Oxilinic Acid/Naladixic Acid/Ciprofloxacine/Flumequine; Dose: 500 mg/L for 1 hour, 100-200 mg/100L for 1-2 days. Mixed in the food: 250-500 mg/100 gm food, to be fed during 5-7 days); Tetracycline (Dose: 3-4 gm/100 l for 2-3 days) can also be effective. Start the treatment on the first signs of the disease that can be observed. In the beginning stage of the disease, the use of Copper Sulphate or a short bath with Benzalkonium Chloride or Salt could be effective.
Prophylaxis:
Remarks: Infection may be caused by different kinds of bacteria or mixed bacterial infection instead of a single type.

4. Symptoms consists of fine spots on the skin of the infected fish. A fine granular film that covers the fish can be observe. It can infect the gills and the fish has clamp fins, show signs of nervousness, scrape at the bottom, produce extra mucus and has breathing difficulties. In the advanced stage of the disease, the fish b ecomes lethargic, emanciated, loss their appetite, and eventually dies. Secondary bacterial infections can also occur. Also in Ref. 056207, it was reported that the infected fish exhibited a rust-colored body.
Treatments: Treatment can be Copper Sulphate (Dose: Stock solution: 4gm/1L; 20ml/100L or 4 drops/liter) and/or Salt (NaCl) (Dose: 5-10mg/liter aquarium water, 10gm/l for1-2 hours or 5gm/l for 5-7 days.). For the treatment of secondary bacterial infection, Nifurpirinol (Dose: 10-15 mg/100 l for an unlimited time or as instructed) is recommended. The treatment should be continued for at least 5-7 days in a tropical aquarium to completely kill all the spores. The fish should be in quarantine and the aquarium should be empty for 14-21 days so that all spores is completely irradicated. Plus the temperature can be raised to 28-29°C to speed up the cycle to release the spores, so that the disease can be treated quickly.
Prophylaxis: Quarantine the infected fish for 3-4 weeks, making sure the water quality of the is optimal. Avoid stress and other environmental factors that can promote the onset of the disease.
Remarks: The parasite can remain attached to the gills and skin of the host fish for 3-6 days for tropical aquarium and for low temperature it can remain for 10-12 days. It can develop into a cysts as soon as it reaches its host fish, producing 250 spores that will also look for new host fish. The spores would die within 48 if it hasn’t found a host fish. Also Ref. 56207.

Not sure if this helps, but you said crazy ideas were welcome.

Also wanted to point out that the medications and dose rates above are the opinion of those on fishbase and are not my own recommendations!

Emma

Emma Turner wrote:

mikev wrote:It is also apparently not just a hillstream disease -- I just lost a rasbora (?!) -- again, no symptoms, and no symptoms on the remaining dither. This is perhaps an indication back toward bacteria, rather than parasites.

Does the shop have any other species in the tanks with their affected hillstreams? If so, have they lost any other species there? Just wondering if it is actually affecting other types of fish, or whether the loss of your rasbora is from something different.

Emma

Thanks, Emma,

I've been tracking the exposed fish all the time (was worried exactly about this question):

Gouramis (Pearl and another spec) -- about 1 month with the chenis -- no losses. Golden Barbs -- about 1 month with that erromyzon that started all of it -- no losses. Well, erromyzon itself -- this is the only fish that had definitive patchy symptoms -- seems to be slowly recovering w/o treatment. (==> it is not clear if one or two diseases are involved here: perhaps patchy+something else, but even if two, they both came with chenis).

H. Zollingeri was exposed to this as well with nearly 100% losses at the store which are *probably* not connected to this disease (they had ther problems). While they are died out in the store, I still have four of them here, in another tank, doing fine *so far* (I lost two -- but likely not to this bug). According to Jim, disparis is immune to patchy, and my "Zollingeri" is something very close to disparis.

On my end, unfortunately other fish are also exposed (my Q-tank crashed due to Maracyns). The only other loss so far is a Gastro (within 10 days of the exposure).

This is all I know so far.

Rasbora absolutely does not make sense to me either way. This is about the hardiest species that exists and surely in this tank. It should be the last one killed by whatever bug is there; and it should not die for no reasons either (and it is not a new fish). ... Unf., it really has to be the "cheni disease" striking out....

Not sure if this helps, but you said crazy ideas were welcome.

Also wanted to point out that the medications and dose rates above are the opinion of those on fishbase and are not my own recommendations!

Thank you!

Crazy ideas are very welcome and appreciated at this time. This is informative, and 3. may well be connected to the "classical Jim's patchy disease", but in the current situation I have no symptoms!--so even if one of these is applicable I don't know which one.

I guess I must have not made myself clear but L. disparis is definitely suscpeptible to "patchy disease". In fact, it seems to be more so than is P. cheni.

My apologies, Jim, I've interpreted you saying "exception" on May 10th

The sucker belly types seem more sensitive to this disease than do the lizard fish types, but both can die from this. L. disapris are an exception.

as exactly the opposite of what you intended to say.

In all cases, whatever I'm facing is likely not the patchy disease. Patchy disease was there all right (erromyzon), and probably was reliably taken out by antibiotics. There is something else there. (are not this amusing: this HK supplier is very diversified: nematodes, your patchy thing, and *something else* too.... )

Oh no and I just had hillstreams shipped to me from New york. I hope they`re not infected. Sorry to hear about your loss.

Well, after reading my quote again, I can see why interpreted it the way you did.
That HK supplier certainly does seem to offer not only a variety of unusual hillstreams but a variety of unusual ailments.

Jim Powers wrote:Well, after reading my quote again, I can see why interpreted it the way you did.

Not just interpreted, but acted on it as well (even if it seemed to me very strange that something that affects suckers and schistura would leave alone the lizards): I decided not to treat SpA's with the 2nd round of antibiotics (since they are probably immune anyway...why stress them?). It appears to be the right decision after all.

Anyway, rethinking the sit. here in light of this change, I'm now positive that I'm not dealing with your patchy thing anymore. It is something else, and perhaps not hillstream specific.

That HK supplier certainly does seem to offer not only a variety of unusual hillstreams but a variety of unusual ailments.

Yeah, at least two plague-level, plus your Patchy thing (Actually, I never understood if it is a wipe-out disease or not -- given the case of spontaneous recovery, it may not be). The surprising thing is that they do look great when they arrive here; diseases always strike a couple of weeks later....I wonder how they manage to time it so well. Bastards.

OK, do you have a guess or a general approach on a related issue: how long should I wait (after the last problem) before deciding that a tank/fish is more or less safe? I am approaching 2 weeks with the Q-tank that has the SpA's only. There are 4 there now, two losses: one right away, one about two weeks ago, but probably from yet different causes: the body was bloated and floating--clearly a symptom of something else. But the remaining four seem to be doing quite well (all actively fight for food if I am late with the breakfast). What is the safe time in your opinion: 3 weeks/4 weeks/6 weeks?

---

Finally, on that erromyzon: I could not make it to the and probably missed the great shot. The fellow had a very unique appearance: a gray stripe diagonally across his face, over one eye, making him look like a pirate. The gray color was his natural pattern restored.

I'm not sure, but I think, given the problems you have had, that I would give it another month to be on the safe side.

Mikev,

New fish passing within or over a few weeks without major symptoms: this sounds like how reef marine fish die when they've been collected using cyanide.

Find out about the original source including methods of collection. Chemical stun-agents in collecting would greatly facilitate the live collection process, particularly highly agile fish in fast water: harder with a simple net then most people would realize.

May be treatable (question to forum?) but i doubt it. Those that are still a live will probably make it.

Again, this might be a drive for the industry to take on as they've done in marine collecting.


Andyroo

How about the use of aluminium compounds as de-floccing agents in your water supply (usually in summer) these are normally safe but become toxic to fish at low PH. I found loaches are particularly sensitive to this poisoning.

An interesting note on patchy disease. I was keeping some loaches in a tank with guppies. the loaches developed patchy, at the same time most of the guppies developed both 'saddleback columnaris' and bacterial dropsy. saddleback is a very agressive strain of columnaris, usually caused by overfeeding, high temps and/or poor water. temp was dropped, water was changed and no more became infected or died. It causes patches of necrotic tissue on the guppies, similar to the patches on the loaches. Also internal disease and bloating if the fish picks at or eats a diseased fish.

victims of the patchy were both hillstreams and a few lizards.

Thanks for the answers,

@Andyroo:

I'm positive that what I have is an infection, not a poisoning. However, you got this correctly on one part of the dieout --- H.Zollengiri near 100% losses at the store are very likely connected to Meth.Blue treatment (in fact poisoning) done there; lizards, at least this type, appear to be very vulnerable to Meth.Blue. Not suckers, however. I did not have *this* problem since I took the fish before the lfs treated them.

My question is what types of infections have such a long delay? I'd think that nearly all bacterial illnesses will manifest themselves somehow within two weeks.---I had no deaths/symptomes for the first two weeks.

In fact the only disease I can think of with such a delay would be a nematodic (cappilari) infection -- but this is covered by levimisole. Any other parasite (internal or small external) that may be the culprit?

@Azmeaiel:

How does one check for aluminium? (I'm a bit skeptical that this is the case, but may as well check this too).

Your comment on patchy-columnari link is very interesting; we were actually discussing this in PM's a couple of weeks ago, and felt that there is a linkage. Main thing that does not match is that columnari are gram+ (maracyn treatment) while patchy is gram- (maracyn2 treatment); but asaik columnari are usually accompanied by a secondary gram- infection that does most of the killing.

(I don't think that Patchy is something I have here -- I actually never saw a definitive patch in my fish and did treat with antibiotics enough to erase it. I do have something else and probably worse...)

Also internal disease and bloating if the fish picks at or eats a diseased fish.

Thought about it, but my dead bloater was in a separate tank with no dead fish to eat. I stopped giving them bloodworms just in case this was the cause (small fish -- hard to ensure that they eat all of them, and eating a three-day old bloodworm may be a problem by itself).

I am unsure of any aluminium tests. I simply check levels through a local water suppliers website. they usually have water quality reports for each week and ammounts of chlorine present. I thought it might have been the clorine causing the problem but over several months noticed the problems were worst when high levels of aluminium sulphate were being added to remove detritus from drinking water. I asked around the web and a few people said this chemicle was toxic to some fish at ph under 7. At these times I seem to lose a lot of livebearers if I do a waterchange, also lost some loaches that were healthy one minute, dead the next.

as for the 'saddleback' that was in the guppies, it is quite unusual. There seems to be several different types. the 'common' columnaris that causes little white fluffies and finrot, that can basicly be cured with a water change. the 'mouthrot/agressive finrot' types that are more agressive but respond well to maricyn. Then there is the saddle back that is incredibly agressive and can kill within two hours of showing symptoms, usually no hope once the fish is showing symptoms. It never seems to show any threads like the other forms of the disease so people are unsure if it is the same thing. There have been a few miracle cures from people who have thrown there fish into cold 'slop' buckets thinking they are dead, then coming back to find the fish recovered. I would say temp plays a large part in how these diseases work. I know for certain several of the guppies that died of the disease had a snack of dead loach, one that died of patchy that I found half eaten. These got a nasty bloating that formed lesions that ate there way out from inside. nasty.

I just checked the website for my water supplier, and it seems they only publish their annual report there, the last of which is from 2004, which is more than a year ago so...not helpful.

I am very interested in this alum issue, though. They do add it to the water here, too, but I have no way of knowing when there is extra. I have been having issues when doing water changes, especially on my bettas, some of which get 100% water changes a couple of times a week. I've seen slime coat issues and most often fin shredding immediately after a water change. The worst time was last week when I did a 100% change on two bettas, one of which ended up with a split caudal fin and the other with about two dozen pinholes in his anal and caudal fins, along with a split in his anal fin. The pinholes healed within two days and the splits healed within four. But by then it was time for another water change!

So Azmeaiel, what do you do when levels are high? Skip water changes? Do they seem to be higher after a rain? Or have any correlation with the weather?

Do we know if it is 'detoxified' with water conditioners such as Prime?

EDIT: I should add that I put the water through a Britta (carbon) drinking water filter before doing the water change for one of the bettas yesterday. It seemed to help a lot, there was nothing I could see that it did to harm the fish, which is a first. But I feel that once is not much of an experiment. I'll wait to draw my conclusions until I've tried it more. Not knowing what was wrong with the water, I figured it was worth a try, to try to get out whatever invisible toxin was causing the problem. What a polluted mess.

You can call your local water treatment facility and ask if they use alum in the treatment of your local water. You might want to find out about chloramines too. In fact we ALL should know if chloramines are used an treat our tap water with dechlorinators that take care of that...not all do by the way.
As for alum, it is primarily used in surface water treatment plants and not those that draw the water supply from wells.
I agree, you probably do have some sort of infection. However, it is not a bad idea to know this other info so that the fish can be supplied with appropriately treated water.