Travis wrote:
Dick wrote:


As to diagnosis, I don't have one, but the condition is not lethal if
your fish is the same as mine. I have a young Platy in a community
tank that was born with the twisted spine or developed it early on,
whereas the swordtail was about 2 years in my tank before developing
her problems.


Well, the thing is that this curved spine thing may be contagious.

When I got the pristellas I bought a whole heap of them at a cheap
price. The fish shop was clearing them out because for some reason
they had masses of them and they weren't selling.

One of the pristellas they gave me (I bought 10) had a badly curved
spine and I returned it and swapped it. The remainder of my fish
appeared to be ok. This was over a year ago.

However over the last twelve months two more have developed twisted
spines and an upright swimming posture. They don't merely swim
vertically, they actually seem to be really struggling to stay afloat.

The two new twisted spine fish appeared one after the other, the first
a few months after I got the fish and the other not too long ago. The
first new twisted spine fish died a while ago and I suspect the second
is going to go as well some time soon.

So I do suspect it is some sort of disease or parasite. Its mildly
contageous, though not instantly fatal to the whole tank.

(NB: Most of my neons died about 6 months ago, all pretty much
overnight. I don't know if this was linked or whether there may have
been something wrong with the water. None of the pristellas died back
then and the neons which survived are doing well today.)

Travis

When I wrote the last post, I went through the charts in Untergasser's
book to figure out what could cause a non-developmental curvature of the
spine. Of course, exact diagnosis is impossible without a muscle biopsy
and microscope. Untergasser also says that sporozoans like neon disease
spread when one fish dies and others pick at the carcass. That would
explain the rather slow spread and lack of contagion to all the fish in
the tank. Only those that happened to nibble at an infected corpse got
the disease.

Another option besides euthanizing is to separate all of the fish with
twisted spines, any showing abnormally light color, and any showing
abnormal swimming patterns into quarantine. That way your other fish
won't nibble at them if they die while you're not watching the tank.

--
__ Elaine T __
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