help please

[Mel]

I am posting on behalf of my husband who has a major disease outbreak in his
established community tank. All water parameters are excellent (0
ammonia/nitrite, 10 nitrate), not overstocked at all, good filtration, bi
weekly water changes of 25%.
The fish aren't flashing at all, but are breathing very heavily and a lot
are at the surface. They have patches of fungus,mouthrot, and big white
areas on the body, and chunks out of their fins. Some of their scales are
falling away. We have been treating for columnaris (with Interpet anti
fungus and finrot - it claims to treat columnaris/flex on the bottle - we're
in the UK) since yesterday but today even more fish are affected so this
doesn't appear to be working.
It's all happeneed in 2 days and is moving very fast indeed. The way things
are going it seems we're going to lose the whole tank unless
someone here can suggest anything please?
Mel.

[Eric Schreiber]

"Mel" > wrote:

>The fish aren't flashing at all, but are breathing very heavily and a lot
>are at the surface. They have patches of fungus,mouthrot, and big white
>areas on the body, and chunks out of their fins. Some of their scales are
>falling away. We have been treating for columnaris (with Interpet anti
>fungus and finrot - it claims to treat columnaris/flex on the bottle - we're
>in the UK) since yesterday but today even more fish are affected so this
>doesn't appear to be working.
>It's all happeneed in 2 days and is moving very fast indeed. The way things
>are going it seems we're going to lose the whole tank unless
>someone here can suggest anything please?

If this were happening in my tank, after the initial panic I'd do all
of the following:

- Raise the temperature to about 85 degrees F.
- Increase water changes to 50% daily (2 x 25%).
- Add a bubbler to get extra oxygen to the fish.
- Maybe add salt (unless you have lots of live plants, scaleless fish,
cordydoras, or tetras, none of which like salt). No more than 1/2
tablespoon per gallon.

I'm no expert in fish diseases and haven't had the bad fortune of
having to deal with any severe ones. The above are just 'general
wisdom' I've picked up from hanging out here, and should be of some
help until the real experts chime in with specific medicine
recommendations and so on.


--
www.ericschreiber.com

[0rion]

"Mel" > wrote in message
...
> I am posting on behalf of my husband who has a major disease outbreak in
his
> established community tank. All water parameters are excellent (0
> ammonia/nitrite, 10 nitrate), not overstocked at all, good filtration, bi
> weekly water changes of 25%.
> The fish aren't flashing at all, but are breathing very heavily and a lot
> are at the surface. They have patches of fungus,mouthrot, and big white
> areas on the body, and chunks out of their fins. Some of their scales are
> falling away. We have been treating for columnaris (with Interpet anti
> fungus and finrot - it claims to treat columnaris/flex on the bottle -
we're
> in the UK) since yesterday but today even more fish are affected so this
> doesn't appear to be working.
> It's all happeneed in 2 days and is moving very fast indeed. The way
things
> are going it seems we're going to lose the whole tank unless
> someone here can suggest anything please?
> Mel.
>


it might be too late, but at this point since its all out war you can always
resort to the Maracyn/MaracynII/MarOxy bomb.... a concoction that should
pretty much destroy anything infecting the tank apart. worked for me in the
past. only problem is your tank might be very large, meaning you'd need a
lot of medicine to treat it for the 5 or so days required.

[Graham Ramsay]

"0rion" wrote
> it might be too late, but at this point since its all out war you can always
> resort to the Maracyn/MaracynII/MarOxy bomb.... a concoction that should
> pretty much destroy anything infecting the tank apart. worked for me in the
> past. only problem is your tank might be very large, meaning you'd need a
> lot of medicine to treat it for the 5 or so days required.

Those aren't available in the UK.
Follow Eric's advice & also give the gravel a thorough
vacuum and reduce feeding.

--
Graham Ramsay
Learn about the work of the JREF
www.randi.org

[Flash Wilson]

On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 08:47:06 -0000, Mel > wrote:
>The fish aren't flashing at all, but are breathing very heavily and a lot
>are at the surface. They have patches of fungus,mouthrot, and big white
>areas on the body, and chunks out of their fins. Some of their scales are
>falling away. We have been treating for columnaris (with Interpet anti
>fungus and finrot - it claims to treat columnaris/flex on the bottle - we're
>in the UK) since yesterday but today even more fish are affected so this
>doesn't appear to be working.

I would do the following personally....

- Check the filter is working well. When I had an outbreak of
mouthfungus, I later found the pump had got clogged and needed
a good clean around the impeller and outlet tube. This meant
that only about half the usual rate of water was coming out.
Although my nitrites, ammonia etc all were 0 too, when I cleaned
the pump so the filter was running at full efficiency it made
a real difference.. the fish started getting a lot better. Maybe
there were lots of dissolved organic compounds or some kind of
pollution (fumes from roadworks/tar boiling outside has caused
my fish to be unwell too, and it's not something you can detect).

- Do a large water change, such as 30-50%. Although your water
params read ok there must be something wrong; the diseases you
describe often break out in dirty water etc... can't hurt. Will
also remove some of the meds. I dont think the interpet ranges
are that great myself, havent had much luck with them. YMMV!

- If you can find it, get a bottle of Esha2000. I think it's
great stuff. I don't know where in the UK you are, but I can
tell you where to find it in East London if that's any good!
Or try the company - http://www.eshalabs.com/esha2000.htm
I swear by it. It treats more than one illness at once, great
if you have an outbreak, it doesn't harm fish or filter, and
it's helped when I was having a crisis in similar circumstances
to yourself... cleared up my finrot and mouth fungus while I
was hunting for a cause. So you can use it for all the illnesses
you describe.

If it was me I would treat in this way at once, but keep looking
for a cause - tankfuls of fish don't often get ill like this.
Is the tank overcrowded? Has the pH crashed? Just some thoughts.

Good luck!

--
Flash Wilson Webmaster & UNIX SysAdmin
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Solaris / FreeBSD / Linux
Apache/Bind/Exim/Sendmail
http://www.gorge.org Perl / Shell / SQL / HTML

[Mel]

Thanks for all your advice. We beleive the disease came form a fish
introduced 2 weeks ago. he had been quarantined for a month and appeared
fine but obviously not. He died yesterday.
There are lots of salt intolerant fish so that wasn't an option and being a
Saturday night last night we couldn't get hold of any more meds,and the only
good shop round here is closed on a Sunday, so as all the fish were at the
surface, breathing very very hard and looking terrible, obviously near
death, we took the extreme measure of doubling the dose of the Interpet med.
We left it in for 3 hours then did a huge water change as the fish took a
turn for the worse. We added loads of extra oxygen, turned the lights out
and hoped for the best. This morning all the fish are much brighter. There
have been no more deaths and the white patchy areas haven't got any worse.
In fact they might look slightly better. The tank has suddenly gone like
milk so it seems the meds killled all our bio-bugs so there is the hope that
if it killed them it might have killed the nasties.
They have eaten for the first time in 2 days tonight and are swimming about
allmost normally. Fingers crossed we're out of the woods but who knows.
Mel.


"Flash Wilson" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 08:47:06 -0000, Mel > wrote:
> >The fish aren't flashing at all, but are breathing very heavily and a lot
> >are at the surface. They have patches of fungus,mouthrot, and big white
> >areas on the body, and chunks out of their fins. Some of their scales are
> >falling away. We have been treating for columnaris (with Interpet anti
> >fungus and finrot - it claims to treat columnaris/flex on the bottle -
we're
> >in the UK) since yesterday but today even more fish are affected so this
> >doesn't appear to be working.
>
> I would do the following personally....
>
> - Check the filter is working well. When I had an outbreak of
> mouthfungus, I later found the pump had got clogged and needed
> a good clean around the impeller and outlet tube. This meant
> that only about half the usual rate of water was coming out.
> Although my nitrites, ammonia etc all were 0 too, when I cleaned
> the pump so the filter was running at full efficiency it made
> a real difference.. the fish started getting a lot better. Maybe
> there were lots of dissolved organic compounds or some kind of
> pollution (fumes from roadworks/tar boiling outside has caused
> my fish to be unwell too, and it's not something you can detect).
>
> - Do a large water change, such as 30-50%. Although your water
> params read ok there must be something wrong; the diseases you
> describe often break out in dirty water etc... can't hurt. Will
> also remove some of the meds. I dont think the interpet ranges
> are that great myself, havent had much luck with them. YMMV!
>
> - If you can find it, get a bottle of Esha2000. I think it's
> great stuff. I don't know where in the UK you are, but I can
> tell you where to find it in East London if that's any good!
> Or try the company - http://www.eshalabs.com/esha2000.htm
> I swear by it. It treats more than one illness at once, great
> if you have an outbreak, it doesn't harm fish or filter, and
> it's helped when I was having a crisis in similar circumstances
> to yourself... cleared up my finrot and mouth fungus while I
> was hunting for a cause. So you can use it for all the illnesses
> you describe.
>
> If it was me I would treat in this way at once, but keep looking
> for a cause - tankfuls of fish don't often get ill like this.
> Is the tank overcrowded? Has the pH crashed? Just some thoughts.
>
> Good luck!
>
> --
> Flash Wilson Webmaster & UNIX SysAdmin
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Solaris / FreeBSD / Linux
> Apache/Bind/Exim/Sendmail
> http://www.gorge.org Perl / Shell / SQL / HTML

[Flash Wilson]

On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 18:14:33 -0000, Mel > wrote:
>
>death, we took the extreme measure of doubling the dose of the Interpet med.
>We left it in for 3 hours then did a huge water change as the fish took a
>turn for the worse. We added loads of extra oxygen, turned the lights out
>and hoped for the best. This morning all the fish are much brighter. There
>have been no more deaths and the white patchy areas haven't got any worse.
>In fact they might look slightly better. The tank has suddenly gone like
>milk so it seems the meds killled all our bio-bugs so there is the hope that
>if it killed them it might have killed the nasties.

I've heard that complaint about interpet stuff quite often, even for
things that say they dont affect the filter at all... it was that
that has prompted me to stop using them ;(

Still glad the fish look better!

>They have eaten for the first time in 2 days tonight and are swimming about
>allmost normally. Fingers crossed we're out of the woods but who knows.

Good luck! Keep us informed!


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