'Starving' disease question

[Eric Schreiber]

I have a three-gallon Eclipse that had four dwarf puffers. Perhaps
three weeks ago, I found one of them dead. I'd had them since
February, so I didn't consider it a cause for alarm when one died.
There was no visible sign of disease or injury, and I still think it
was simply a case of natural death.

However, over the weekend another died, and I have a third that I
don't expect to survive the night. These two don't show any external
signs of disease or parasites, but they were/are emaciated. The one
that I expect to die tonight tried to eat when I offered frozen
bloodworms. That is, he approached the food and even darted at it, but
never actually bit into any. I also tried frozen tubifex, which is
much smaller, thinking he might be able to manage that, but without
any luck.

Aside from not eating, they otherwise look fine ("They were in perfect
health right up until they died"). I've read all my various emergency
medicine supply and nothing seems to address this - it's almost as
though their jaws are locked shut.

The only change to the tank recently is a cleaning in mid-August,
during which I added some Java fern (bought for this purpose). Though
I cleaned the gravel and decorations very thoroughly, I kept the same
filter cartridge and bio-wheel, and I've kept up with regular water
changes, so this shouldn't be ammonia shock. All I can figure is that
some disease came in with the fern.

I've got some methylene blue antibiotics in there now (Bettamax,
actually) as a general treatment, but I don't expect it to save the
fish, which will leave me with just one puffer. At this point I guess
I'm looking for education about what the problem might be so that in
the future I can better recognize it and deal with it.

Thanks!


--
www.ericschreiber.com

[linda mar]

HI,

My experience is not with a puffer, but with a danio. It's very similar. no
external sign of problems, and no visible parasite, but one stopped eating,
and kept getting thinner and thinner and thinner. but unfortunately, I
never figured out why this was happening.. but thought I'd relay my
experience. (I have a 37G main tank, and a 5G hospital tank... so my
hospital tank is much larger than your tank..)

also, I assume you already checked the water parameter didn't go out of
whack after you put in the java ferns? (my main tank, the pH fluctuates
between 7.0 and 7.6 daily due to the plant respiration.. it is also very
soft water, so... pretty harsh on non-hardy kind. mine is relatively
heavily planted, so this may not be an issue for you.. but once I think I
killed off all of my otos in a few days when I darkened the tank for 2 days
trying to control algae.. I think a dramatic pH drop due to the plants
probably killed off the otos since they are less hardy over pH range...)

anyway...

First time I managed to get it to eat by isolating it in a smaller hospital
tank, and then subsequently I moved it to a small floating hatchery-type
confinement in the main tank (to take advantage of the small space with good
water circulation in the main tank.. the hospital tank just got fuzzy green
and yucky too quickly), because I found 5G was too large for an ailing fish
to "find" food and eat it.. I needed to confine it even to a smaller space.
I cut pieces of FD bloodworm in small bite-size pieces for it and sort of
dropped it in front of its face and let the food float for few hours before
I suctioned it out (this is where having the floating hatchery-type thing
comes in handy, since it's less likely to pollute the whole tank with just
few small morsels.. and sometimes if it floated out of the hatchery, other
fish gobbled it up quickly, and cleaning out poop was easy too). And over
night, I left a very *tiny* piece of algae wafer on the floor of the tank in
case it felt like eating later... I suctioned those out in the morning if
it went uneaten.. It took about a week of this touch-an-go, but eventually
the fish started to eat more and more normally, and after 3 weeks or so, it
was back to normal. I waited until I made sure it was able to fend for its
own food, but it seemed ok... so I released it into the main tank and was
doing well for a month or so.

Second time, the same skinny danio and another danio became listless and
subsequently developed some sort of hemorrahge in the upper abdomen, near
its dorsal fin area (showed up like a red smear in the middle of its
internal organ area and blob kept spreading larger). This one, I managed to
cure it by using Spectrogram wide-range antibiotics in an isolation tank
(they were already in isolation after being listless, before the red splotch
appeared). I guess I made a wild guess that it may be some sort of a
bacterial infection, and I got lucky. the hemorrage visibly started to
disappear after the second day of treatment, so I'm pretty certain whatever
it was, was defeated by the antibiotics. after 1 month of quarantine after
the red blob disappeared, I returned them to the tank. they were fine for
like, 3-4 months.

the third time, when I noticed that the same skinny danio wasn't eating much
again and listless, it was one day before I was going on a 1.5week long
vacation.. so there was nothing I can do (no time to set up a quarantine
tank), so I had to leave it in the main tank and hope for the best.. When I
got back, the fish was missing (presumed eaten by other fish after it died)

In all three cases, it was similar to yours. you feed them, and they get
all excited about the food and dart madly around, but never really eating
it. sometimes it mouthed it but spat it out. eventually since they're not
really eating, they get emaciated to a point that they don't have enough
energy to move around anymore. then only way to "force feed" it was to
isolate and confine the fish in small container (like those hatchery cage
that you can float in the big tank) and limit its mobility and force it to
stay around any tasty food and hope it eats it.

I never figured out why this happened. I've had this danio for over 8
months now.. and aside from two others that died of similar symptoms
earlier in the tank cycling phase, none other is suffering from this
emaciating problem. (all others actually look completely egg-bound bloated
fat.. from this, I surmise all my skinny ones were male, and they are now
all dead). during all this time, I kept seeing a fry or two occasionally in
teh main tank, so the tank condition probably wan't bad or anything... (fry
got eaten by other fish quickly..)

I'm keeping my eyes open for any sign of distress from the other surviving
fish due to the cannibalistic behavior, but so far, I haven't detected any
change in behavior. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I've tried using Pepso food in case it was some sort of an internal
parasite, but I dont' think that ever really helped. It's very hard to coax
a fish that doesn't want to eat, to eat... only way was to put it in a
well-"ventilated" confined space, give it a bite-size favorite food
(something that will go completely inside its mouth by just inhaling) and
hope for the best...

linda

"Eric Schreiber" > wrote in message
...
> I have a three-gallon Eclipse that had four dwarf puffers. Perhaps
> three weeks ago, I found one of them dead. I'd had them since
> February, so I didn't consider it a cause for alarm when one died.
> There was no visible sign of disease or injury, and I still think it
> was simply a case of natural death.
>
> However, over the weekend another died, and I have a third that I
> don't expect to survive the night. These two don't show any external
> signs of disease or parasites, but they were/are emaciated. The one
> that I expect to die tonight tried to eat when I offered frozen
> bloodworms. That is, he approached the food and even darted at it, but
> never actually bit into any. I also tried frozen tubifex, which is
> much smaller, thinking he might be able to manage that, but without
> any luck.
>
> Aside from not eating, they otherwise look fine ("They were in perfect
> health right up until they died"). I've read all my various emergency
> medicine supply and nothing seems to address this - it's almost as
> though their jaws are locked shut.
>
> The only change to the tank recently is a cleaning in mid-August,
> during which I added some Java fern (bought for this purpose). Though
> I cleaned the gravel and decorations very thoroughly, I kept the same
> filter cartridge and bio-wheel, and I've kept up with regular water
> changes, so this shouldn't be ammonia shock. All I can figure is that
> some disease came in with the fern.
>
> I've got some methylene blue antibiotics in there now (Bettamax,
> actually) as a general treatment, but I don't expect it to save the
> fish, which will leave me with just one puffer. At this point I guess
> I'm looking for education about what the problem might be so that in
> the future I can better recognize it and deal with it.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> --
> www.ericschreiber.com