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Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to read my forum post and I appologise in advance for its length.

My Analysis and Attempts

This fish started to get a cloud over the left eye and after doing research, identified it as a fungus or possibly bacteria (but everything was pointing to fungus (using Handbook of Fish Diseases by Dieter Untergasser). So I tried Melafix and within a day it was gone. I continued the 7 day course of Melafix without any problems. Two weeks later the cloud in the same eye re-appeared, so another 7 day course of Melafix was used, but to no avail. It now had no impact.

I'm upto the stage now that nothing seems to have any impact on this and I'm at a loss. Each medication I use according to the dosage for the specified time. If there is no improvement, then at the completion of the dosage regiment, I water change over two days (results in about 80% water change) then try another.

The cloud in the eye has now spread to the other eye and tissue just behind the fin on the same side appears to be torn away from the fish (loss of scales), plus the fin appears to be disolving at the base. There are a few small holes below the eye aswell. Hopefully the photos will help show this better than my description.

Current medications I've tried
- Melafix
- Wardley Fungus-Ade
- Science Products Fungus & Finrot Remedy
- Wardley Promethyasul (ran this for 2 weeks, 1 dose per week)
- Rock salt (1 tablespoon per 20lt)

I've also been using Stresscoat to help reduce any secondary infection.

EFFECTED FISH
Oscar, about 12" long. Had since 1" in size.

TANK DETAILS

Age - Been running for 5 1/2 years.
Additions - NONE just this Oscar and bristlenose (no new plants or ornaments either)
Size - 4foot, with 213 lt of water
Temp - 26 degC
pH - 7.2
NH3 - 0
N02 - 0
N03 - 0
P04 - 0.1
kH - 2 (35.8 ppm)
GH - 1 (17.9 ppm)

NO chemicals or adjusters are used in this tank. the only chemical used has been rock salt and the above mentioned medications.

Test Kits Used are by: Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Master Test Kit, Azoo and Nutrafin.

Water Changes - On average 20% per week using Aquarium Science water ager, or recently using Stresscoat. This will change depending on the dosage regiment of the medication.

FILTRATION - Aquaclear 300 and Resun internal (1000 lph).

DRY FOOD

I feed my Oscar a variety of fish that I change daily. I have about 6 different pellets which I alternate, so it's never the same food (or pellet two days straight).
Dry food are from HBH, Hikari and OSI.

WET FOOD (frozen)

I also use a variety of flavours of frozen food, Fish Fuel make Fish Dinners. I also have Hikari Brineshrimp and Orca Blood worm.

LIVE FOOD

Meal worm, crickets and blood worm. Maybe one of these once per week.

PHOTOS

I don't have a digital camera so I've tried to get some shots with an old analog video camera.

Left Side 01 You can see the damage to the eye and fin.

Left Side 02 Now showing the whole fin and you can see there's no damage to the edges of the fin, only the base.

Left Side 03 Now with the fin extended you can see the white area (body damage) behind the fin.

Left Side 04 Full body shot so you can see there's no other symptoms or problems with the remainder of the fish.

Left Side 05 Close up of left side eye and fin.

Left Side 06 Another close up of left side eye and fin.

Left Side 07 Close up of the left side fin.

Left Side 08 Close up of the left side eye. You can also see the small holes just below the eye.

Left Side 09 Close up of the left side with fin extended.

Right Side 01 Rightside eye. You can also just see a hole (white dot) bottom left of frame.

Right Side 02 Another shot of the Right eye.

I also have other fish tanks (another 4 foot, 2 foot (breeding bristlenoses) and a 6 foot) which all function perfectly for the same period without any signs of disease or similar symptoms. All tanks are fed from the same food sources and all (except the 2 foot) contain other American Cichlids (plus clown loaches etc).

It's quite a task feeding this fish now as it wont (or can't) see any food, so I have to manually hand feed it every pellet (or cricket, worm etc) by placing that in the mouth. 80% of the time it just gets spat out, but I do get success and am able to feed it something atleast every 2 days. Recently I've got it to eat something each day..

It is now spending maybe 40% of the day at the water surface (facing the current) and the remainder sitting on the bottom (facing away from the current). It always has both eyes level irrespective of body position so that makes me think that internally the fish is still functioning fine.

I appologise for the length of this post, but I'm really out of ideas, so I wanted to provide as much detail as possible to help in any diagnosis or possible treatment that anyone may be able to provide.

Kind Regards and thanks in advance for any suggestions or ideas..

Nigel.

*edit*, I just found I had some older photos (smaller resolution though) when this fish was not sick, to give you a comparison with respect to body colour and eye clarity.

Older photo 01

Older photo 02


Last edited by Narler at 25-Sep-2005 00:55

Welcome to FP Nigel.
What a wonderfully detailed post you have made! We can get straight to the help stage.

Sounds like you have tried lots already, and that you maintain your tanks well. Maybe its time to try antibiotics? You might be able to find tetracycline on the shelf at some lfs's but its all luck unfortunately. (guesssing you reside in Aus) Where in Aus are you? We dont have alot of choices in Aus as far as off the shelf fish meds.

Perhaps its time to get a fish vet involved? They will have more drugs available to them to help your fish. If you are in Melb I can give you contact details of 2 that I know of here.

---

Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Hi Lindy,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Welcome to FP Nigel.

I use to have an account on here years ago, but it seems the site may have changed software since my last visit to the forums as my account / username didn't work.. Ahwell no dramas though.

Sounds like you have tried lots already, and that you maintain your tanks well.

That's what makes it so frustrating. All my tank have been nice and stable for so long that for this to occur has me baffled and I've been trying to resolve this issue for almost 3 months.

try Tetracycline

Can I assume by that suggestion you feel this illness is bacterial ?

I almost feel that there's 2 illness going on at the same time, because I can't identify any particular disease with all these particular symptoms.

Where in Aus are you? We dont have alot of choices in Aus as far as off the shelf fish meds.

Brisbane.

I found an online store (which I've not used before) selling Bio-Tec and it states: A broad spectrum antibiotic for the treatment of disease caused by the tetracycline susceptible bacteria in fresh and saltwater aquarium fish. But it's a tablet so would you just disolve x number of tablets for x lt of water ?

I was tempted to try Triple Sulphur tables, but couldn't find enough information on their effectiveness.

Perhaps its time to get a fish vet involved?

I wonder if they can diagnose anything by photos ? Or would slides / smears or cultures be required ? I've not had any dealings with fish doctors before.

If the two you've had dealings with can operate via email then that might be a good place to start, to get a trained eye to see if they can recognise the disease from my supplied photos.

Thanks again for the reply and I'll start looking into Tetracycline.

Regards
Nigel

*edit*, just found this online shop /shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=58&topcat=&cat=Antibiotics" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Aquarium Shop which has Aquarium Science Tetracycline tablets for $9.70 aud (inc gst). So I might give that a try.

Last edited by Narler at 25-Sep-2005 01:45

The reason I suggested antibiotics is that the illness isnt responding to antifungal treatments. Sometimes after an illness is treated (fungal) the area becomes infected again as the fish is weakened.

Its very possible that there are two illnesses causing your fish the problems. Parasites can also cause the damage to eyes and gill area that are in the pics. Parasite treatment has always fustrated me as alot of the medications available here have not done my fish any good in the past.

I'm chasing up some Brisbane fish vet info for you. Will get back to you on that. The two that I know of in Melbourne require seeing the fish/cultures first hand.

---

Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Poor oscar I agree with Lindy, something stronger than what you can get over the counter here is needed.
I can give you the details of a koi vet we have here in Murwillumbah (around 90mins south of you) that is very good with fish including oscars but he's away for the week so that wont help you right now though.
Have you got a good LFS near you that you could speak to? Perhaps they might know of somone that could help?
I've sent a PM to you with more details Narler

Hi Narler...

The hole I am seeing makes me think this is potentially Head and Lateral Line Erosion. Which is something that Oscars are e to get. There are two theories to what causes this condition. One being that the fish has a Vitamin C deficiency. To treat for this you would need to supplement the diet with a vitamin-enriched diet making sure that it contains Vitamin C.

Another thought is that the "hole" is also a sign that the protozoan Hexamita is present. This infestation is usually brought on by stress and - or - poor water quality. I doubt your water quality is poor so it is more than likely the stress if it turns out to be a protozoan infestation. A medication containing metronidazole is what normally helps this. There are some "over the counter" products available here in the States but I am not sure about Australia. As suggested, you may need to contact a vet.

As for the cloudy eyes, I am also going to take a guess that this may be a bacterial infection. I'll go one step further though and say that it is more than likely gram negative in nature. See if you can get an antibiotic from the vet specifically for treating gram negative infections. Not all antibiotics will cure all infections. Freshwater fish tend to get gram negative infections while saltwater fish tend to get gram positive.

I sure hope you find what is ailing the fish and that you can take care of it. He is a handsome fella.

Good Luck..

Narler

Another avenue is to try a "Good" GP I had no trouble as the GP's husband also kept fish. Since then I have a vet that had a script written out for me. I hate to say this but the cost of getting a script and buying it it was about four times the value of the fish concerned which finally died.

Also be extremly careful with some antibiotics unless they are a selective it could/will kill all the good bacteria in you tank.

If you can contact a fish Vet this might be the only way to go. Also ask you LFS you never know what they have that might help remembering they also have problems.

Have a look in [link=My Profile]http://
www.fishprofiles.com/interactive/forums/profile.asp?userid=6741" style="COLOR: #00FF00[/link] for my tank info

[link=My Betta Desktop tank photos]http://photobucket.com/albums/b209/keithgh/" style="COLOR: #00FF00[/link]

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
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Hi,

First up thanks for all the replies and the suggestions.

Current Status

The Oscar is still alive, is more active (not swimming at water surface or sulking on the bottom), but is back to moving rocks, trashing plants and all the normal activities it use to do.

BUT, the condition is still there and doesn't seem to be healing as I had hoped. The left eye I think is totally blind, but the right eye seems to be clearing up (ever so slowly) and the fish can now see food, which makes feeding a little easier for me as it has an appetite again.

I bought Aqua-cure (Tetracycline HCL) tablets and ran that for 4 days (with 4 airstones on high). This turned the water yellow and caused quite a froth on the surface. I also added 1 kg of salt. I tested Ph, NO2, N03, P04 and NH3 each day, and on the 4th day decided that NH3 and NO2 levels were high enough to cause additional problems, so I conducted a water change over two days (85%). Unfortunately the label on the medication doesn't list the dosage duration (only the quantity required), but reading other literature a 4 day course was common with Tetracycline based medications.?.

The fish was a little better after this treatment. I left the tank a few days with out medication (just salt and stress coat), then started using Melafix again. I though at the least it would help reduce any level of bad bacteria that maybe attempting to re-establish. At the completion of that week, the Oscar wasn't any better, so I decided to run another course of Tetracycline. This time though I reduced the water level to about 60%. I did this so I would require less tablets and filters would operate more efficiently (less water means that volume of water circulates more frequently).

Once again testing each day, the 4th day was all I felt comfortable leaving the tank, as NH3 and NO2 levels were climbing. So another 80% water change over two days on day 5 and 6.

Since this the Hole in the Head issue is much worse, even though the fish is back on a better and more stable diet now that its appetite has returned. I'm not sure what else I can do.

I also contacted Dr Stephen Pyecroft (Supervising Veterinary Pathologist, Diagnostic Services, Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment, Tasmania Fish Health Unit), through a contact at Queensland Museum, and he was helpful in being able to provide some information from my photos.

Here's some current photos to show the extent of the Hole in the head, and the slow recovery of the right eye.

left eye with chronic HiH

Left eye and bit of fin fish did not want to show me the left side so I couldn't get any better photos).

right eye showing some signs of clearing

Regards
Nigel.

Last edited by Narler at 08-Nov-2005 06:40

Those pic's are quite sad.

Have you tried the vitamin treatment on your fish? I've seen this work, as i have previously done it. You soak the fish's food in a good quality multi vitamin until it is just soft. Feed it one pellet at a time to the fish, so the vitamin does not disperse in the water. I'd suggest you feed him Pea's for the same effect, but they sink quickly and if the fish can't see them they'll go to waste. My understanding is that HITH is a 'relative' of scurvy in people. It's a vitamin D (not C) defficiency. It's potentially caused by an infection or hexa's... but more often it's poor water quality and a lack of vitamins in the diet.

The scars on your Fish from HITH will never go away. If the area's are not getting any bigger, then the problem is most likely under control. I suspect it's not under control from your post. Stop trying to treat with anti-bacterials etc. and try the vitamins. I'm sure you're using good quality food and obviously a variety of it... but that doesn't mean it's providing all of the nutrients the fish needs.

I'm not sure what to do about the eye, as neither of my Oscars have had this problem. Perhaps consultation with an experienced vet would be worthwhile to save your fish. I have seen operations to remove the lost eye, and apparently this is beneficial but expensive (>$300).

Your oscar is easily big enough to have baytril injections if youre still having troubles with antibiotics,and you can find a good vet, but the symptoms you describe do sound like hexamita.In the later stages it can be an absolute hell to get rid of, often requiring repeated treatments over months. I dont think flukeworm caused the eye infection, cos they would have completely ruined it well before now.The degradation has been steady along with the holes forming.

Go with metronidazole for the hexamita treatment.Id go with the raw form from a vet rather than rely on commercial meds at this point, youll need a high concentration that wont be available over the counter.

Your fish needs systemic administration now, and that means injections.Dont wait if you want it to live. It will need at least two weeks treatment of metronidazole (preferably repeated in two weeks) and antibiotic support throughout.

You can put both baytril and metronidazole in the water to treat the fish, but injections will be more economical. Metronidazole aint cheap.




Last edited by longhairedgit at 12-Nov-2005 00:29

Last edited by longhairedgit at 12-Nov-2005 00:32