Loaches Online Forum

Partially because I could not locate a reliable supplier yet and identification of healthy specimen cannot be done reliably either, regardless of the level of intellegence. It is therefore a necessity to know as much as possible about various diseases and try to develop ways of dealing with them; besides, there always will be cases when one would like to save a sick but interesting animal.

I chose to take a chance on this loach since I'm interested in watching how it develops, do you see something wrong with it?

Prophylactic treatment with antibiotics is just plain stupid

But treatment of a problem that has a high chance of being bacterial is not either prophylactic or stupid.

identification of healthy specimen cannot be done reliably either, regardless of the level of intellegence.

Nothing is 100% reliable but it doesn't take intelligence to identify good fish, just careful observation. I can look at your photos and see bad fish straight away in many cases whereas you have the living, moving animal in front of you which ought to give you far more information than I'm working with to identify a problem.

There is a difference between intelligence and ability or willingness to learn. If you wish to purchase unhealthy fish and attempt to become knowledgeable about what it takes to turn them around by experimentation that's your choice. It would appear statistically though that you are very often unsuccessful and you might enjoy the hobby more if you weren't continually living in the angst of it all.

I chose to take a chance on this loach since I'm interested in watching how it develops, do you see something wrong with it?

I see nothing wrong in choosing an unusually marked fish to see how it develops......did it myself recently with an unusual Yoyo......but getting one with a highly visible tumour/cyst/deformity is not something I would choose. Or was this factor missed in your initial enthusiasm?

Martin.

hey,
you can't do anything to a tumor. It's either viral or cancerous. You just hope it'll go away.

Martin Thoene wrote:

identification of healthy specimen cannot be done reliably either, regardless of the level of intellegence.

Nothing is 100% reliable but it doesn't take intelligence to identify good fish, just careful observation.

It is not the case. I've seen many cases where there are no warning signs at all, and the fish carries a deadly disease nonetheless.

I can look at your photos and see bad fish straight away in many cases

Next time you do, please take a moment to say so. It is quite possible that you know some factors I don't.

If you wish to purchase unhealthy fish and attempt to become knowledgeable about what it takes to turn them around by experimentation that's your choice. It would appear statistically though that you are very often unsuccessful and you might enjoy the hobby more if you weren't continually living in the angst of it all.

I do. Not much angst for as long as the fish is in a qtank, and the success rate has been steadily improving. There is no way to improve the skills other than experimenting and occasionally failing. And there is no way to experiment other than by buying sick animals once in a while.

I chose to take a chance on this loach since I'm interested in watching how it develops, do you see something wrong with it?

I see nothing wrong in choosing an unusually marked fish to see how it develops......did it myself recently with an unusual Yoyo......but getting one with a highly visible tumour/cyst/deformity is not something I would choose. Or was this factor missed in your initial enthusiasm?

The factor was missed. The growth was not highly visible, it is <1mm and is located on a white stripe, the fish is very small, and the store light was not strong enough. This makes no difference, I'd have taken it anyway, and I still can replace/return it at any time -- not doing this.

mistergreen wrote:hey,
you can't do anything to a tumor. It's either viral or cancerous. You just hope it'll go away.

Lots of tumors are neither, there are also benign growths, but you are right, I cannot do anything about them.
This thing, however, is quite likely to be a bag of pus, and such bags often include bacteria. Thus the antibiotic treatment, targeting the two kinds of bacteria likely to present in such bags.

you're talking about a zit haha
But I don't think you can make that analysis without operating.

If you're set on using antibiotics, i'd use antibiotic foods. The infection is internal if you're right.

ps. a tumor is abnormal growth from uncontrolled cell division... That's what I meant by cancerous (bad choice of words).... It could be benign or malignant.

A zit can kill. Would not happen to humans normally, but here the size of the bag is huge comparing to the size of the fish, their immunity is lacking, especially in juvs, and a broken zit would contaminate water.

Yes, I'm using internals, this has been the consensus of the people who saw this kind of things. There was, unfortunately, no consensus on the best antibiotic. So I'm going with a full course of what I think to be reasonably good, and will switch to what the most experienced person suggests next (was not much of a choice, I did not have her drug on hand anyway).

---

I think tumors rarely obtain a perfect spherical shape. Zit or a lymph node inflammation might.

mikev wrote: Emma, big ooops. Yes, your dojo's lump is certainly of different kind, and it seems to be attached to the spine. I've actually seen this before at a local Petland (I look at dojo's at the stores a lot since I cannot watch them at home), the fish (3"?) was swimming erratically/rolling over. You did not try feeding it antibiotics? (I'm doing it now, but I might be using an insufficiently strong one or it is not eating enough of it..I'll be switching around Wed) [I'm not suggesting your dojo's disease is bacterial, but it is not impossible that it is and maybe worth trying]

We don't have access to medicated foods over here, remember the regulations are ridiculously strict. I don't really want to medicate the tank anyway as the other 2 fish are perfectly healthy and I am providing them with excellent water quality etc.
Anyway, sorry to hijack the thread, just thought I ought to point out that this lump wasn't the same as the one on your loach.

Emma

It is very likely that our lumps of different origin. Yours seems to be connected to the spine, and this makes it much worse than mine.

The problem with these lumps is that we really don't know what they are and if we knew, we can only try to deal with bacteria; any other cause is beyond our ability to do anything.

Even with bacteria, medicating the tank is very unlikely to do any good, drugs will not get where we need them. Antibacterial food otoh *might* do something. It might be possible to prepare it yourself.

According to one person whom I found excellent in fish health issues, three bacteria types that may occur in such lumps (were found) are aeromonas, flex and tb, most to least (this of course does not mean that either my striata or your dojo has any, this is just a laundry list of things to cover). The first two can be dealt with, tb really cannot. Nobody really studied this enough, but it would seem logical that a spine-related case carries higher chances of tb, this sadly makes your young dojo prospects yet a bit worse. I do wish he pulls through.

As for my Striata, it seems to be adjusting fine and slowly getting more outgoing. And, of course, I'm still concerned about the much bigger danger of the repeat of THAT Striata disease, but so far no evidence of it, and it is from SG. It is going to get at least a month of a quarantine no matter what.

There is no way to improve the skills other than experimenting and occasionally failing.

One can do less experimenting and more learning from other's experience.

And there is no way to experiment other than by buying sick animals once in a while.

If experimenting is the object, this is true. If keeping healthy fish is the goal starting with healthy fish is the best method.

shari2 wrote:

There is no way to improve the skills other than experimenting and occasionally failing.

One can do less experimenting and more learning from other's experience.

In the ideal world, one can indeed use others' experience. The sole reason this thread started was in hopes of using some previous experience, having a tested solution is always preferable.

And there is no way to experiment other than by buying sick animals once in a while.

If experimenting is the object, this is true. If keeping healthy fish is the goal starting with healthy fish is the best method.

I consider restoring fish health sometimes worth the effort.

And starting with healthy fish is no guarantee that it stays healthy, cf. recent Ich stories. Of course, starting with healthy fish helps, but ability to deal with diseases is still essential.