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I have a zebra danio that is dying, he has always been the runt of the group and just today I noticed that he seemed to be having trouble swimming, swimming really erratically and whirling and was being picked on by the other fish when I was watching them from my living room. I looked at him a bit closer and noticed that his belly was sunken in a bit, his body near the tail seemed darker than usual and I noticed what looked like boils or lesions near the base of his dorsal fin. Around these boils it looks like his scales have been falling off. I had never seen these symptoms before so at first I was a bit stumped but I got my books out and he has all of the symptoms for whirling disease / myxosporidia. Since I moved him into QT the symptoms have gotten worse, he is laying at the bottom of the tank and when he does swim it is very erratic, whirling about. My water parameters have all checked out, NH4, NO2 0 ppm, NO3 ~ 15 ppm. I have done a 30% water change on the main tank and 3 x 30% water changes on the QT tank.

What I do know about myxosporidians is that they are protozoans and have no cure. According to my books, all you can do is remove and destroy the affected fish, do a really large water change of the main tank to prevent the spread of infection and basically pray that your other fish don't get it. I did treat the zebra in the QT tank with metronidazole and salt out of desperation but I doubt it will have any effect and I think I will have to euthanize him soon.

Has anyone else ever dealt with whirling disease and have any advice for keeping it contained? I am really worried I will lose my whole tank to this.

[link=more info link]http://www.ahc.umn.edu/rar/MNAALAS/Fish.html#Parasite" style="COLOR: #00FF00[/link]

It looks like it was imported with this fish any way. I would suggest do as many water changes as possible for some time as to have given the tank a complete water change at least twice. Each time clean the filter out in the old tank water.

Use prepared water every 4-5 days if you can.
It could have also come in via plants or a water change

Keith


Parasite Infections
There are a large number of parasites than can infect fishes. These can only be identified by examining them under a microscope. It takes a trained veterinarian or parasitologist to identify these organisms. Parasites can fall into several categories:
Protozoa are one-celled parasites. These include species that live on the skin or in the gills, such as Ichthyophthirius multifilis ("Ich", Cryptokaryon irritans, Ichthyobodo necatrix, Costia necatrix, Cholodonella cyprini, Brooklynella horridus, Oodonium, Trichodonids, Tetrahymena pyriformis, Uronema miamiensis, Epistylis sp, and Vorticella sp. Internal protozoans include Hexamita and Spironucleus sp, Plistophora hyphessobryconis and other myxosporidia, cryptosporidia and coccidia such as Eimeria. The point being, there's a lot of them and they all have names you'll never remember.
Helminths are worms that like Protozoans, can live in different parts of the fishes' bodies. Species such as Dactylogyris sp, Gyrodactylus and the Turbellarians live in the skin. Other species live internally such as Neascus sp, Clinostomum spp, Diplostomulum sp, tapeworms, Eustrongylides spp, Capillaria and Camallanus spp.
Crustaceans or shelled animals can act as parasites. Learnea and Ergasilus are species that resemble worm, but are actually copepods. They can parasitize the skin, as can the fish louse, Argulus. Another parasite that has been classified as both a crustacean and as a tepeworm, that can act as a skin parasite is Livoneca symmetrica.
Parasites can be treated with a number of drugs. However, as with bacterial infections, parasite problems are almost always secondary to poor water quality. The parasite will live in a symbiotic state with the fish as long as environmental conditions are optimal for the fish. When the animal is stressed, its immune system becomes depressed and the parasites get the upper hand.
Some antiparasitic drugs are specific for a certain category of parasite. Over the counter products are available for common parasites like "Ich". Use as directed on the package. Other parasite treatments such as formaldehyde, malachite green, metronidazole, praziquantel, methylene blue, potassium permanganate, acriflavine, nasoten and copper should only be used by persons trained in their use (many of the products are only available to veterinarians).



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Thanks Keith. I lost the danio unfortunately, there was nothing I could do for him. I may actually tear the tank down and disinfect everything, a few resources I looked at suggested it. It is a huge pain but I don't want to lose my whole tank, it's happened to me once before with NTD and as far as I can tell myxosporidia is similar in some ways. At least it will give me an opportunity to rescape the tank.

myxo and other protazoan diseases have been known to be carried in Tubifex worms, and even freeze-drying does not kill the protazoa.

If you got the fish out before he died, there is a good chance that few protazoa were not released into the tank. I would have to be honest with you, I have not fought a protazoan disease effectively ever, and indeed ended up making the tank which contained fish with the disease a quarantined tank. Even now, I wont put fish back in it. Every time I tried, they succumbed.

However, if none of the other Danios get sick, then you may have escaped as an isolated incident. Personally, I would replace all gravel and all wood, scrub any other ornaments and plants, clean the tank thoroughly and replace the filter media and give the filter a thorough clean. None of this will stop the fish from getting sick, however. So, if you wanted to make this tank quarantined, ie with no new arrivals, for 6 months to 1yr, that would probably be an easier option. If you see no signs of protazoan illness in that time, you can continue as normal with the tank.

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

myxo and other protazoan diseases have been known to be carried in Tubifex worms, and even freeze-drying does not kill the protazoa.

They may have been fed tubifex at the shop, I don't feed it but I think the owner has mentioned using it before. I'm going to let him know about the danio, just so he can keep his eyes open for future problems with it. Not blaming him, it could have easily come from the wholesaler with it. I have had the danios for a while but if myxo is like other protozoans it can take months to show any symptoms.

I got him out of the tank as soon as I noticed he was acting weird, died about 2 days later. I had noticed he was a bit skinny before that but never thought about it too much, he seemed fine otherwise. I am going to tear it down, rescape it with some new plants and substrate, any decorations I keep will be washed with H2O2 or potassium permanganate. This is such a huge pain in the ]:|]:|]:|. So far the others seem ok, I have already done a bunch of 50% water changes and a whole lot of scrubbing. I hope it was isolated but to be safe I'm going to go with your advice and QT for at least a few months. It's really frustrating because I know some fish can act as carriers for protozoans and not show any symptoms, even if I do QT for months there is still a chance of infection later.

*pulling hair out* ]