Loaches Online Forum

Re update on the „striata trouble“, I forgot to mention, that I skipped quarantine, as I added a lot of fish. I turned my new setup into a q-tank, so to say. I´ve almost my entire “staff” for the big planned tank by now (way to go, eyh first the fish then the tank, I know…) but don´t want put the risk to the bigger tank. I´ve made the experience, a tank with altreday a good starter culture, cycles faster, when some efficient amount of food for bacteria gets supplied –. I´m getting good in excuses… hehe…

So far I´ve lost 2 old kuhli and one new one (added 10 Kuhli), lost 4 striata (added 11), lost 4 Otocynclus (old ones are still here, loss was amongst the new ones). I´ve also lost one old Sewellia – but short before the new setup (before Striatas came in) –absolutely surprising, no warnings, as if it were killed by someone, I added a new young (at least small) one.
Oto´s are a thing for them self and the old kuhli most likely were not used to the bacteria (or whatever) the new ones brought with them from the wilderness… tap-waterfish may loose some of their immune-system due to not enough stimulation – maybe…

I ended up not putting in the medication, which I had prepared. I called the local vetenarian and a friend of mine, working in an internationial medication company – studied Biology… it was, and actually still is a difficult descission for me… I may try an appointment at University in Munich to discuss this… I may still medicate – not sure yet. The remaining Striatas are stabilizing and gaining a bit weight, some of thenm try – still a bit shy– but trying the powerhead-current. Raphael had built up a slime coat but seems better now, slime´s gone again. I´m still not through yet – still very nerviously checking every moment I can… it was a stomach decision, rationally I did not have enough data, but I did put a lot of thought into it… we´ll see…


Now to the pictures, it was quit some work to prepare those, but perhaps it helps finding something, or helps when discussing anatomy. I have no idea really about fish dissecting, so please be aware of that, just wanted to see what´s happening in there. The swim blader appeared quit big, surprising I found the color of the inside, looks like an inflamation to me. The Striatas ate only bloodworms, refused anything else, but the intestines I still would not expect to find the same color as other organs. Found it interesting that there was a big diameter difference towards the empty exit…

Perhaps someone can advise. Thanks.

The inner organs to follow...

At the last posting I´ll show details of the spine too...

More inner…starting with the heart (I guess)

Spine,

Wow! I think you did a very good job opening up such a small fish. Thanks for trying.

I agree the swim bladder looks enlarged, but then again, I've not seen any statistics on the size of one in a live fish, either, so I can't speak definitively about it. Maybe it increased due to death?

The intestines being so red, and also seemingly enlarged, seems abnormal, too. The images I've seen online indicate that intestines are beige to yellowish color, or nearly white. Inflammation causes redness, as does ruptured capillary function. The intestines are full of spidery veins.

See HERE for schematics of fish anatomy. (scroll down to "CLASS Osteichthyes- "boney fish"")

Anyway, doesn't look like I will be much help with any kind of 'diagnosis' of what caused the fish to die, but thank you again for showing what you've found.

Great Pictures! I also is thinking that the swim-bladder looks enlarged with possible other vital organs crushed or suppressed from this.

I think one or two of the images of the suborbital spines should be moved into the species profile. Can we have permission to do this?

I was going to suggest the same thing.
Would you mind, Wolfram?

sorry for your loss. i had something similar looking on one of my big clown loaches a few months back. the belly was 3 times larger than normal.

Tinman wrote:This looks to me to be an infection usually caused by a filter crash or fouled water like the cannisters are full of crud at the bottom or something holding waste in the tank . I had this look with plecos that picked bits up in the gills or ate it because of food and bits collecting in the same spot in my tank due to water circulation issues.They had good color on the outside but had red glowing through the bellys just previous to their demise similar to your pics. This is not a Doctors opinion, just mine. My suggestion is to look over your filters well with eyes and nose, and think about how clean everything was for the 3-4 weeks previous to this as an infection takes some time to kill although we may not see it immediatly.I think that may be more likely than Anthrax IMHO.........

one more thing, i had a filter crash as well out of nowhere. and lost half my loaches. a few had bloated bellies like yours.

Thanks everyone for checking and thanks for the link Shari. That´s what I need, I´ll get some literature and/or links to get smart on those things (but will take a while…). On the Colisa I did check samples of the liver under the microscope , looking for certain shapes, being led by a book, but here the organs were smaller, and I had no idea what to look for. Some bacteria can be made visible already at only 200x enlargement… I´ll keep my eyes and ears open for information…
My scalpel was dull, so I did it with a rasor blade, which was harder to guide. I´m sure with some studying, it will possible to diagnose the one or other stuff…

The swim-bladder may indeed have inflated after death, but the “inner” was still too small, must have been a hungry poor guy. I wrote down the size somewhere, was around 4cm TL, I guess, a small fish.

In case some images from this posting can be used within Loaches Online, I would be glad if I could contribute something. In case you need the full size file, let me know which ones, I´ll check whether there is one and mail them.

The gills, and head I do links only, for esthetic reasons

Gills

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o143 ... ills-F.jpg

Head longitudinal

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o143 ... head-F.jpg

LoachOrgy wrote:

Tinman wrote:This looks to me to be an infection usually caused by a filter crash or fouled water like the cannisters are full of crud at the bottom or something holding waste in the tank . .........

one more thing, i had a filter crash as well out of nowhere. and lost half my loaches. a few had bloated bellies like yours.

Thanks LO, I´ve checked nitrite and ph 3 - 4 times daily, I´m fine there (at least in ph I´m there where I was the last 4 years: 7.3 Not ideal, but that how low I get with keeping Co2 in a reasonable amount, and use tapwater. Tha tapwater itself is higher. Ph was higher when the trouble started (perhaps about 7.8 but that is the same as most Munich stores have in there tanks). My CO2 bottle was not hooked up yet.

Nitrite is very stable at 0.03, so basically 0. Thats what I also always have. I did use my biofilter (with the big Echi. in it), that eats up all Nxx within 6 hours (I testet that a year ago, quit impressiv). However, I´m taking that seriously, as that biofilter only gets cleaned by sucking off the front side of the large sponge, when doing waterchanges. Means there is a lot of clearing sludge already collected... but it´s that what typically keeps the tank stable...
My small Filter, that creates the current is a differnt story, I do clean that twice/week, that one did smell somewhat (the smell again, may come from cyanos though, but I´don´t know...) The plants I got from a friend, whose tank I know very well, they did smell bad, I used them anyway after cleaning and keeping 10 days in a pot. I guess those are cyanos. My cyanos most likely come from my "cocktail glass" experiment... I´ve got to force myself to stop now ...

After reading this thread a few times I keep thinking about this article about bacterial infections. There is some great information in this article.

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/h ... ctin.shtml

Bookmarked that one. Thanks chefkeith.

Hi chefkeith, excellent article, it went into my favourite’s folder. Thanks for the extra effort “working through” my sometimes hard to read posting and the great link.

Unfourtunately, it confirms my fear, treating bacteria ain´t that simple.

I had those Colisa once and there infection lasted more than a year, I just did not know, until their livers were that swollen that it was obviously a disease. Reading a bunch, informed me, that many of them leave the breading-place infected already and that this were a typical Colisa issue, so I staid away since (apart from the fact, that those definitely would not fit any of may current setups).

BTW, a doctor told me once, the amount of cells and bacteria in a human body is equal, I´m still confused… half of my amount of cells should be bacteria well the surface of our intestines is very very large and easily underestimated… whatever…