Thanks for all the help, Kate throatwarbler mangrove wrote:
What's true in nature doesn't necessarily follow in captivity. If the disease you have is glugea (and Barry Cooper, who you sent the fish to for necropsy would know), my suggestion is to terminate all of them, it's highly contagious to other killies and there's no treatment. Kill the fish, bleach the tank. I believe Barry had to do this at one point and certainly Dan Katz from Long Island had to do this with his impressive collection of south american annuals. It just plain isn't a fun thing to have in your room. I've bred 10 or so different Nothos and many S. A. annuals and fortunately avoided the glugea plague. Isolation is a very good thing - Dr. Brian Watters of Vancouver (I think), who is probably the world's leading expert on Nothobranchius, has a very elaborate fishroom that includes a large area for isolating incoming fish to ensure no nasties come in with them. When I was really into fish I always reserved a tank or two far away from the main fish setup for isolation of suspicious fish, especially anything wild caught. Glugea looks like small white lumps on the fish's body, it seems to be especially bad for annual killies either african (nothos) or south american ("Simpsonichthys" and the ever-growing number of genera that all used to be "Cynolebias") As far as velvet goes, velvet likes dirty tanks and the old timers say sunlight makes it worse. I have had it in small crowded tanks and Nothos are a classic for that - you hatch out 300 of them and have a 2.5 gallon tank available for rearing them :-) Tanks get grubby really fast. The old-timer notho breeders I knew all kept their notho tanks immaculate (and with high levels of salt, killies can withstand very very high levels of salt, seawater strength is no problem as long as its gradually introduced.) I've also used acriflavine for velvet - Damn! That's *two* fish medications I admit to using today. What is going on here... Anyway, I separate out the sick fish, treat with acriflavine (which knocks out velvet boom! but isn't so good for fish eggs) then reintroduce and the fish generally recover. In every case, the tankwas grubby and crowded. Matt--- Kate Breimayer <kate@munat.com> wrote:Nothobranchius killies are seasonal fish, they livein temporary pools and die off every year when they dry up, unless they get lucky and have a wet year. They spawn like crazy and the eggs are buried in the bottom of the pools, where they incubate until next years' rains, some even last another season or two in case of drought. They grow amazingly quickly and are usually gorgeous, supposedly the pools are full of debris and so difficult to see in that the males have to be colorful so the females can find them. Really amazing fish, but they are extremely sensitive to velvet. I apparently don't have a knack for them. I contacted a fish pathologist who studies this group of fish, he was a professor at Cornell and he recommended the flubendazole but also said the case was most likely hopeless and that I would most likely have to euthenize the lot. These fish evolved to live fast and spawn like crazy, and die young, they seem to have really cruddy immune systems. Some people do great with them though. And I have 3 species here, one never got sick, another kicked it after treatment, the third is getting til the end of the week and then it's euthenasia. I can't risk splashing their water into my healthy tanks, or having my fishsitter contaminate other tanks with their water while I am out of townnext week. Velvet sucks, don't get it. I got it twice from fishbought online. Think it's a good plan to stick to buying fish you can actually lay your eyes on first.I don't normally go in for medicating fish eitherbut this notho situation, all the other killie people said flubendazole was a miracle drug and it would be a snap to deal with...Hydra also I have to treat. It really likes my fry. Any other fish seem to recover from most things withgood diet and lots of water changes, and they seem to be healthier and stronger if raised in a tank with healthy plants. So most of my killies are in planted tanks and get regular changes with chemical free aged water, and I have no problems ever with 90% of my fish. Needless to say I did not send any Nothobranchius killies to the meeting and will not be keeping them again in the future, except for any offspring from the species that never got sick in the first place.Sometimes fishkeeping is less fun that it is at other times. Kate throatwarbler mangrove wrote:It could be the meds. In my opinion, medicatingfishrarely works. Sounds like a combo of the risingsaltand the nasties from 'formalin' did in the plant, that's not that surprising esp. salt levels. Also, nothobranchius killies are no less hardy than any other fish - I'm sure there's more to it thanthetype of fish. But, I expect we'll hear plenty about killies tomorrow night. --- Kate Breimayer <kate@munat.com> wrote:It was the mother plant for a bunch of them, Itwasdoing fine for probably a year in my tanks, and the person I got the original cuttingfrom had hers a year. That is what is sofrustrating. Grew beautifully and madly for so long and then bam, it's rotting, and it's doing so in tanks at different temps with different light,CO2,and stocking levels that aren't even in the same room. Granted I lettheCO2 and fertilizer slide lately due to migraines followed by surgery but still, it grew great before I started using CO2 and fertilizer. That additional salt theory sounds kind of plausible though, and maybeImedicated and forgot about it. I was using meds for hydra, now that I recall, that would be formaldehyde with copper, neither is good forplantsis it? Stupid hydra. At least that's gone for now. Now have flubendazole for fighting hydra, anyone know if that is bad for plants?Thanks, Kate throatwarbler mangrove wrote:FWIW, I could never get this plant to establishinmyold fishroom. My water was very hard (so,anubias,african cichlids and mexican livebearers lovedit).Was this an attempt to start the plant or was it established? I think I have seen bolbitis grownoutofwater and sold to the aquatic trade (much likethoselittle pine-tree plants). Plants started this way generally have a hard time establishingthemselveswhen submerged. Matt --- "Hess, Clay A" <clay.a.hess@Boeing.com>wrote:Hi Kate, Have you treated your water for any type ofdiseasesof late? I treated my tank for parasites awhileback and had a similar issue with my java fern.Iwas using formaldahyde and found my plants didnotappreciate that at all. The leaves turned black slowly and then broke loose of the main root and floated away. Just a thought. And, I do notthinkthat this is Off Topic for this list at all. In fact, I think this is a great item for the list. Clay -----Original Message----- From: June Olberding [mailto:jdolb1@comcast.net] Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2003 9:29 AM To: gsas-member@thekrib.com Subject: Re: bolbitis heudelotii (plant) problem Hi Kate, I haven't had much experience with bolbitis. Iknowit doesn't seem to like really high light environments. I know you arenot=== message truncated === __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! 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