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 tank
was grubby and crowded.
Matt
--- Kate Breimayer <kate@munat.com> wrote:
Nothobranchius killies are seasonal fish, they live
in 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 town
next week.
Velvet sucks, don't get it. I got it twice from fish
bought 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 either
but 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 with
good 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, medicating
fish
rarely works. Sounds like a combo of the rising
salt
and 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 than
the
type 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, It
was
doing fine for
probably a year in my tanks, and the person I got
the original cutting
from had hers a year. That is what is so
frustrating. 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 let
the
CO2 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 maybe
I
medicated and forgot
about it. I was using meds for hydra, now that I
recall, that would be
formaldehyde with copper, neither is good for
plants
is 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 establish
in
my
old fishroom. My water was very hard (so,
anubias,
african cichlids and mexican livebearers loved
it).
Was this an attempt to start the plant or was it
established? I think I have seen bolbitis grown
out
of
water and sold to the aquatic trade (much like
those
little pine-tree plants). Plants started this way
generally have a hard time establishing
themselves
when submerged.
Matt
--- "Hess, Clay A" <clay.a.hess@Boeing.com>
wrote:
Hi Kate,
Have you treated your water for any type of
diseases
of late? I treated my tank for parasites awhile
back and had a similar issue with my java fern.
I
was using formaldahyde and found my plants did
not
appreciate 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 not
think
that 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. I
know
it doesn't seem to like
really high light environments. I know you are
not
=== message truncated ===
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