disease seems to attack krib complex

[tjudy]

Here is an interesting

problem....



I have been battling a disease that I believe to be bacterial,

protozoan or a combination of the two. The interesting part is that the only fish that it seems to

infect are all in the genus Pelvicachromis.



The disease starts with

a small white or cream-colored spot appearing on the head of a mature fish. It looks a little like

the start of HITH, but it does not develop into that. The fish does not appear to be affected by

the spot, but eventually other symptoms start to appear as well: listlessness, clamped fins,

flashing and then finally a mild bloat just before the fish dies.



So far

this disease has erupted in three tanks, and has killed all of my adult Pel. humilis except

for one female, all adult Pel. sacrimontis except for my breeding group (different tank),

some young adult Pel. signatus and a few F1 juvenile Pel. humilis. Right now I have

some female Pel. taeniatus adults that going through the infection.



The disease has erupted in community tanks with many fish and species other than the kribs.

There are other cichlids in the tanks that are unaffected, including closely related

Nannochromis and Chromidotilapia species.



I have treated the

infected tanks with antibiotics (furan-based meds, specifically Bifuran) with some success, but the

disease erupts again a few weeks later. I have also treated with metrodinazol in case the disease

is protozoan, again with some success but not permanently. At the moment I am experimenting with

mixing those two treatments on the female Pel. taeniatus in a ten gallon hospital tank.



I have never experienced fighting a disease that is as specific as this one

is. Weird... http://cichlid.ipbhost.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif

[Tim]

Is the metrodinazole being

ingested? I have found it to be uneffective if not taken internally. You may want to try to mix it

with the food if not.

You could also try going the drastic route and killing everything

in the tank (except the fish) with a week dosage of clout. Back when I used such measures once,

just once, I used Kanamyacin along with the clout. The treatment killed the bacterial infection as

well as the ich in the tank and the fish all survived if not a little stressed out afterwards. The

downside of course, is this treatment almost always kills the bacteria colonies. And you can't

introduce filtration from another tank unless you know it's not infected.

With your

large amounts of wild caught fish you bring into your tanks, the infection could be any number of

things.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Tim

[fishmaven]

I don't understand

how the disease or whatever got into three different tanks over a period of time. There's

something wrong with your isolation procedure. Can you tie any commonality to why the spread

occurred? Food, nets, filters, syphon hose? There's got to be more to it. There's a reason

it's only affecting your krib complex, besides the fact that they're distantly related.

Give us more info. Dan

[tjudy]

The problems started with some

fish (not wild caught) that I bought from a breeder during the Spring. These were the first fish

to get sick and die, all of them eventually. My room is not huge, so I do not have a ton of

quarantine space. When I get a lot of fish what I will usually do is prepare the tank where the

fish are going to be kept (meaning I remove other fish in the tank and do a thorough cleaning with

large water changes) and keep the new fish isolated in there for a month or more before spreading

them about the room or adding other fish back into the tank. I did that in two of the tanks where

the problems are. The third tank is my large West African display tank that not get any of those

fish until they had been in the room and apparently healthy for at least two months. I should also

mention that none of the fish appeared sick at all during the quarantine phase, and all three tanks

with the problem eventually held fish from that I got from that breeder.



Siphon hoses, algae pads, my hands... its all possible, but only those three tanks and only the

Pelvicachromis in them. One tank is a 65 gallon wide that had six Pel. humilis from

that breeder in it die. Two months after they died, and after a thorough cleaning involving the

removal of all water and allowed to dry, rinsing all interior surfaces with boiling hot water, then

filling up the tank and putting in new sponge filters I put 50 Pel. humilis fry in the tank

to grow out. A month later, when the fry were larger, I put in a bachelor males P. taeniatus

'Moliwe', P. taeniatus 'Wouri' and a sp. 'Blue Fin'... all wild. They were

all in there a month and then the Moliwe and Wouri contracted the disease and eventually died. The

Blue Fin and the all of the F1 P. humilis fry are fine, and I have not removed them from the tank

either.



I do use metro with food... the bifuran as well. I dissolve the

amount of med needed for the tank in the presence of food, then dump it all in. The fish eat the

food and the tank is treated at the same time.

[Tim]

One of the draw backs to keeping

wild caught fish is the introduction of disease into your tanks. Many wild caught fish carry

bacteria, parasites, and other illnesses that do not affect them because they've built up an

immunity to them. It's the other fish in your tanks that will typically show first signs of

infection and effects from what the wild-caught fish brought in, never having needed to build an

immunity from the diseases they carry.
Not saying this is what happened in your case however.


You may want to try mixing the metro with the food then partially freezing it, then feeding

it. It's important to carry on treatment past the time it's appeared to have helped the

fish as a partial treatment can help strengthen a disease and make medicine ineffective. I'm

sure you've already taken all the normal precautions, lights off, any carbon removed, etc, but

I figure it's worth mentioning in case anyone else is reading the thread for the same reasons.


I haven't ever seen symptoms that you're describing, but when salt and temp, then

mild meds like metro don't work, I usually resort to using clout.
Good Luck,
Tim

[fishmaven]

<div

class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>The problems started with some

fish (not wild caught) that I bought from a breeder during the Spring... I should also mention

that none of the fish appeared sick at all during the quarantine phase, and all three tanks with

the problem eventually held fish from that I got from that breeder.</div><!--

QuoteEEnd-->
<span style="color:#3366ff"><!--

coloro:#3333ff--><span style="color:#3333ff">Question? Do you have a way to contact

others that bought fish from this breeder to see if they had similar experiences?
<!--colorc-

-></span>
</span> <div

class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>Siphon hoses, algae pads, my

hands... its all possible, but only those three tanks and only the Pelvicachromis in

them.</div>

<span

style="color:#3333ff">Question? How did you remove the fish from the tank? Net, by

hand?? Do you use a net dip solution? Until you get a handle on the problem I'd recommend it. I

use the gallon jar from Jungle. Soak EVERYTHING for several hours before hanging to dry. Leaving

nets in the solution all the time will weaken the material and they'll rot. Or buy some cheapy

nets from Blue Ribbon and throw them away after use. Most of my nets are hand-made on stainless and

I can't replace them to my knowledge.

Because we don't really have a clue as to

the cause of the problem we could flip Tim's idea and say you "brood" stock caught

something from your other fish. Remember missionaries and Hawaii.

It's also

possible that the problem is temp related. That's what they've found in the koi and

goldfish lately. The breeders that know they have a problem keep their fish at much higher temps or

much lower temps. The diseases don't show in their ponds, so people buy, thinking they're

disease free, only to have the problem show up in the new environment. I've told people to only

buy koi from breeders that have introduced NO NEW FISH over the last ten years to their breeding

ponds. I'm not accusing your breeder of this but there are importers and farmers that I

wouldn't buy from on a bet.
</span>
<div

class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>I do use metro with food... the

bifuran as well. I dissolve the amount of med needed for the tank in the presence of food, then

dump it all in. The fish eat the food and the tank is treated at the same time.<!--QuoteEnd--

></div>

<span style="color:#3333ff"><!--/coloro--

>When I make medicated food I only make enough to last for a couple of days.

<!--colorc

--></span><span style="color:#3333ff">Unlike Tim,

I'd probably never grab Clout for any reason. It's like shooting a Finch with a shotgun.

IMO, if the fish dies it could have been the Clout.

I do have a good link to using metro

from the Florida Ag people. I'll look for it.

You may have to have some of these

dead or sick fish examined by a good vet. Didn't you say you have one you have used previously?

Dan
</span>

[bobrfish]

Do you have access to a

microscope, slides and some basic dyes?

[fishmaven]

Here's the link to

using metro in food or in a bath: <http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/VM053> Dan

[number6]

I strongly suspect you have

one of the rarer gram positive pathogens. Bifuran can assist in battling the gram positive

bacteria, as it does interfere with the bacteria, but it is far from effective in eliminating it.



I would try amoxycillin or erythromycin for a full 8 days in the fishes food and treat

all fish exposed if you can afford it.

Pelvicachromis are one of the fish that have

been found to get strep infections.

Hope this helps

[fishmaven]

<!--quoteo

(post=3374:date=Dec 22 2006, 10:53 AM:name=number6)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(number6

@ Dec 22 2006, 10:53 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3374"><{POST_SNAPBACK}

></a></div><div class='quotemain'>I strongly suspect you have one of the rarer gram

positive pathogens....
I would try amoxycillin or erythromycin for a full 8 days in the fishes

food and treat all fish exposed...
Pelvicachromis are one of the fish that have been found to

get strep infections.</div>
RE Amoxycillin and Erythromycin:

your post would imply that these 2 are ONLY used in treating gram positive disorders. Actually,

they're used on both gram negative and positive. Also, there are numerous studies arguing about

treatment strengths. Since you brought it up, what dosage do you recommend?

Usually when

gram positives are brought up Maracyn 2 is the drug of choice. I'm curious, why did you zero in

on or skip to these two?

Re prone to strep infections: reference?
Dan

[number6]

<!--quoteo

(post=3375:date=Dec 22 2006, 01:43 PM:name=fishmaven)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fishmaven

@ Dec 22 2006, 01:43 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3375"><{POST_SNAPBACK}

></a></div><div class='quotemain'>your post would imply that these 2 are ONLY used

in treating gram positive disorders</div> it does? I never said this

was the case...
I tried maracyn 2 once and was far from impressed. I have had far more

success with amoxycillin, and that is my 1st choice. (I have access to the 2 so $ isn't an

issue)

I got the dosage from here: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/FA/FA05700.pdf (this makes ref. to strep

being isolated from Pelvicachromis, though I didn't mean to imply they are particularily prone

to it) and I back calculated 1/8th of a 500mg pill for the size of fish I was treating so I opened

the capsule and divided it into 8 parts. Mixed 1 part into a soft paste food and used that. Fish

fully recovered.

My story with strep began with my kribs dead, followed by tetras and

it was when the Discus (in another tank) become ill that I tried maracyn 2. Fish became ill again

in a few weeks, went for the amoxycillin, Discus made it.

No other tank mates became

ill... not even apistogramma in with the Discus, which really surprised me at the time. I've

been told by experienced aquarists that this isn't unusual for strep infections. So ted's

story of the behaviour of his "Bug" sure sounds like what I went through. 2 tanks,

certain fish, etc...

enough to make me suspect the same type of culprit...

lots of luck Ted! fingers crossed for you and the fish!