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Hi,

I have put a batch of new fish (6 Red Phantom Tetras) in a quarantine tank for first 2 days they ate and acted normally. For the last 2-3 days they have been less active and not feeding so well. The fish were all intact when I went to bed last night.

When I got up this morning and fed them before work I noticed that one of the fish had only half its tail fin left (it looked absolutely shredded) so I put in a dose of Protozin before I went to work. I could only see 5 out of the 6 but as I had a bus to catch I had to go.

I've returned from work this evening to find that the fish with the shredded tail fin has hardly any tail left and it has gotten less in the last 2hrs - no tail left now. One of the other fish has gone the same way and has just died. There is a third fish which had no damage to its' fins but is about to dye (probably in the next few minutes so is beyond help).

So I am now left with two fish that look ok but are not active and not feeding and one with no tail left, the fourth one has not been seen since last night (sadly presumed dead - I have moved the plants to try and find it but no luck yet, will look again once the dying fish has died).

So any idea on what has rapidly eroded the whole tail fin of 2 fish in under 24hrs would be appreciated as would any suggestions on treatment, would like to save the 3 remaining fish.

The water in the tank is at 25 degrees celsuis.
pH is 7.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0

So the water quality is good.

Help!

Many Thanks,
Jennifer.

24 hours is very quick for an infection to take hold and kill fish,fungus is almost never that quick but bacteria can be, flexibacter columnaris is one I can think of that can act that quickly, are the edges of the fins white or fluffy?

It would also explain why protozin isnt especially effective, as only the furanace based meds like furan will really kill this infection. Oxytetracycline sometimes works, but its not particularly effective. You can try furan, that works a lot of times when other meds fail.

Ps if the test kit is reading all three ammonia compounds as zero something must be up with it, if the tank is cycled you should always get a nitrate reading of some sort, no matter how small, after all we are talking parts per million here, so you might wanna check your test kit is performing reliably.

Good luck .

Hi,

Thank you for your quick response I found the 3rd fish dead and the one without a tail in now dying. I looked at the dead fish already removed 2 had lost their tails like the one that is dying just now they all have white 'fluff' at the point where the tail and the body meet although this wasn't there until the tails has fully eroded. I will stay up until the 4th fish has died (probably in the next few minutes). I am shocked at how quickly the fish have all taken ill and died.

I am hoping that the 2 remaining ones will be ok, I cannot get to a pet shop until Saturday so I am concerned as the other 4 fish were overcome in under 24hrs. Though I would like to leave at least 48hrs before putting a different treatment into the tank.

Is there anything to do with water quality that might have caused this bacteria or is it more likely that the fish which were shipped last Thursday night to me for Friday morning (1st June) may have already had the infection?

I will get fresh water test kits too.

Many thanks again.

Jennifer.

Its direct contact spread via water from infected fish, it will likely have come from the last fish you had shipped in. Its not a spontaniously occurring contagion,and is not dierectly connected to the nitrates in the cycle of a tank but a dirty tanks with high levels of stocking(often the fish supplier is at fault there!) will increase chances of it taking hold.

There's a lot of it about in the environment generally , and in many watersources, and consequently it gets into aquaria repeatedly with ease,usually thanks to human intervention and poor cleanliness and no quarantines in the fish industry, though good quarantine will prevent most aquarium incidences. Because quarantines of around a month are plenty of time to detect this infection, you can reduce incidences of columnaris in the home to zero by observing the correct period.

You would think this disease would be easy to spot, but shops with UV sterilisers may subdue the symptoms, and when you get them home, reproduction begins, but this is also true of a number of aquarium diseases. Fine in the shop, but get them home and it all kicks off as infected fish can easily affect other fish without the presense of a steriliser cleaning the water. The period of adjustment stress also makes the fish far more vulnerable to invasion.

The fish's slime layer acts as a defence for a few days or even weeks, but when it finally hits its reacts massively and very quickly, and reproduces lightning fast, sometimes within hours.

You also have to be extremely persistant with treatment, basically its an utter swine to get rid of.

Redphantom had similar problems a few months back , but as his case shows, you can win this one, but it is difficult. Take a looky at the thread.

http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/threads/33069.1.htm?32#

and here is the disease profile for a bit more info.

http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/profiles/d100011.htm