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Hello everyone, old and new

I have an awful feeling that the fish in my tank are all slowly dying off as a result of fish tuberculosis. One of the most obvious and saddening signs being their wasting away...

Anyway, is it right that this might be tackled with antibiotic fishfood?

Has anyone in the UK sourced this medicine, and treated affected fish with success?

Even sadder is my suspicion that all the fish are infected from the fish shops' suppliers - so seems a certain death knell for all!

I feel rather sad that all the fish in my tank might just die away, I'll be unable/it'll be pointless to re-stock, and I'll be left with a tank full of plants!

Mummy,

Symptoms for fish TB are:

anorexia/refusal to eat, lethargy, hiding behavior, "hanging", clamped fins, loss of appetite, general constitutional signs.

Unfortunately, these same symptoms are manifested in any number of fish illnesses. Just as unfortunately, fish TB can only be reliably diagnosed from tissue cultures by a lab.

Before jumping to the conclusion of fish TB. I would like to know more about your tank, water conditions, fish and your maintenance schedule. So, tell us the size of your tank, water temperature, pH, Gh, KH, your readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. How often do you do a water change? How much water do you change? What type of filtration do you have? How often do you do filter maintenance?

By the way, my standard prescription for sick fish is - "Clean your filter, do a 50% water change and vacuum the tank, then call me in the morning."



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"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

By the way, my standard prescription for sick fish is - "Clean your filter, do a 50% water change and vacuum the tank, then call me in the morning."

Sadly, this doesn't alter the steady progression of the afflicted fish's condition

Tank: 4' 200l.
Fully planted.
Water temp, 79C.
Ammonia, nitrite - 0.
Nitrate - typically around 20-40 ppm.
Water schedule - about a 50% change every three weeks, filter cleaning every other water change.

Filter is a large 1200 l/ph canister.

Fish are an assortment of bronze cory's (these are the most hardy and have not suffered as yet); a pair of german rams (one of which has been getting progressively 'tucked up' and wizened, and has rapidly gone downhill this week); silver tetra's of which a couple have died and there are now currently two looking afflicted; some sparkling gourami's of which two have been lost over the last couple of months, and the newest addition is looking sadly wasted with not much left on it.

I did have a small group of pearl danio's, who have all but one gone after a variety of strange demise's. Also a few diamond tetra's - same story.

There are three guppy's of which one female has been looking tucked up in the belly area recently.

All the fish have not been in the tank together at the same time - they have come and gone over a period of time, if that makes sense..!

Jungle labs antiparasite formula is not widely available in the uk,being that some of the constituents are controlled substances, but you can get metronidazole from a vet.Often sold under the tradename of flagyl 9.This will kill a whole range of protozoan parasites, not just mycobacterium (tb). Standard gastrointestinal protozoa are probably the cause here, not tb, but since this med does both theres no problem either way.

Sounds like what I have going on in my tank. My otos were the first to go they showed no symptoms, just turned up dead in the morning I am down to one. Then a barb went down really fast, then the danios started dropping like flies, I have only 3 left. I want to clear it out before the other barbs, the krib and the SAE start to show signs. Thing is they don't show a lot of symptoms before the end is near. They were looking nice and fat then all of a sudden they were wasted away and dying.

I took LHG's advice, I ordered the metronidazole from Big Al's online. I am dosing mela-fix, pima-fix and the metro to clear out as many pathogens as possible. Today I added a spoon of metro to their frozen bloodworms as an extra shot of it, it is between doses today, the fish I am thinking is next to go is still eating, so it took some, I am hoping having them ingest it will be beneficial. The package says it is very hard to overdose the stuff so I figure it won't hurt them.

I suspect he is right and that it is not TB, the one symptom for TB that my fish are not showing is lesions, and I have my hands in the tank with open cracked skin on my fingers and haven't gotten even a rash from it. There is an article posted in my thread here, TB in my tank? that shows the symptoms of fish TB in humans. Have a look. I suspect mine is worms, which as LHG said could have come from anywhere, even me, and waited for the fish's immune systems to be stressed then they overwhelm the fish.

Hope any of this helps, LHG gives some great advice in my thread as well.

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

Sadly, this doesn't alter the steady progression of the afflicted fish's condition

However, it may alter the steady progression of your fish's condition if you performed a 50% water change. The reason for the water change is to diminish possible pathogens in the tank. A bit like sterilizing or cleaning up a hospital room. Keep the fish in a closed contaminated system and they will never respond to whatever meds you decide that they need!

Since your nitrates are normally 20 - 40 ppm, I wonder what they are today. If you are near to the time that you might normally do a water change, I would expect that they might be somewhat higher. The 50% water change will effectively cut your nitrates in half. It has been my experience that nitrates over 20 ppm have an irritant effect on any wound or infection. In other words, it makes it worse.

So, if your NO3 is 40, you do a 50% water change, you reduce NO3 to 20 ppm. Follow-up with another water change the next day to reduce NO3 to under 20 ppm. All of your fish should perk up. They may well begin eating...

Try it or dose, your choice.



__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

'Normally 20-40ppm' means that nitrates are around 40ppm before a change, they will drop to around 20ppm with a water change and lower with a filter clean.

The wasting fish still manage to eat until very close to Death Day!

The only way I got antibiotic fish food was from a friend in the US sending me some. That was years ago when I had goldfish,

You could try and see if anywhere on line that sells it? The stuff I had was called Romet B, I also had some stuff called medi - gold.

Hopefully it is not TB, there are forms of neon tetra disease that present as wasting/sudden death type things. My platies all went like that and I could find nothing wrong with the water that would kill them like that.

good luck


edited to add this link from zoeandmaria - its very good

http://www.2cah.com/pandora/Disease.html#External

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Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.
Harvey S. Firestone