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Re: bolbitis heudelotii (plant) problem now fish diseases



What a depressing conversation. First I was talking about bolbitis wilting and now I am contemplating euthenizing everything and bleaching the whole setup... :) I think it is ordinary velvet as it was successfully treated in some of the nothos, just this one batch hasn't gotten rid of it. None of the other killifish :(fundalopanchax, aphyosemion, scriptaphyosemion, austrolebias, epiplatys, aplocheilus) nor the angels and cories in the fishroom got it. Raspboras and lampeyes contracted it from a community tank I moved some afflicted fish into before seeing that they were sick, but the many other species in the tank didn't get it ever and the whole tank recovered without meds. Sounds like glugea is really bad stuff, wouldn't just go away like this. Velvet is subtle, it shows up more on colorless fish like females and juvies. If I had glugea I would bleach everything but not set it back up, I would just quit. Too depressing, the thought of euthenizing all the fish. Don't know how people have the energy to recover from a blow like that. Isn't glugea airborn or is that another pathogen?
Kate

throatwarbler mangrove wrote:

Velvet looks like the fish has been dusted with
yellowish powder. Glugea is little white lumps
sticking through the skin. There's no way to confuse
them when you see it. Velvet is curable. Glugea isn't

Good luck

Matt
--- Kate Breimayer <kate@munat.com> wrote:
I clean their tank daily and it looks gross every
time. I think the euthenasia thing is most likely. Don't know the difference between glugea and velvet, either way it's gotta go and stay
gone.
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 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

=== message truncated ===


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