mystery "illness", help! (finrot etc)

"sophie" wrote in message
...

or: "Do Fish Get Viruses?"

For quite a while now I have had three loaches (misgurnus mizolepis,
very similar to the dojo) in quarantine. I've had one for a week longer
than the others and it has never had a problem. I have posted about
them before and I'm now even more puzzled than I was.

When I got the second two they were very shy initially - unlike the
first one, which enjoys chewing/feeling fingers - but one fairly
quickly became very active, feeding happily, swimming about in a mad
loach-y kind of way, etc. The other one hid. And hid. And was generally
very lethargic, eating nothing, lying about with occasional rapid and
erratic breathing. I wondered about parasites, flukes, stress, etc.
This went on for quite a while - at least a couple of weeks - and
eventually it started to eat a little if handfed. After another week it
perked up and started behaving normally, eating normally etc. However
the other loach I bought with it then started to become very pale and
developed pink thickened pectoral fins one of which frayed and split.
I'm doing frequent water changes and I've treated with (waterlife's)
myxazin, which in all honesty doesn't seem to have helped a lot, though
the loach has its colour back and is now using its fins properly -
though they are still pink. I suspect that its friend - the one that
was originally unwell - may have a small split in one pectoral fin,
though it moves too quickly to get a good look in the water and I don't
want to pull its fins about out of water to have a look in case that
exacerbates the problem. There is very occasional flashing - or it
would be flashing in any other fish; with these I'm inclined to think
it might well just be general loach-y lunacy as it only happens
occasionally and usually at feeding time.

I can't think of any disease that fits these symptoms. I know finrot is
often a water quality issue; ammonia and nitrites are nil. I don't have
a nitrates kit but I don't have any algae which I think would be an
indicator for high nitrates? What I did have for a while is a pH
problem as we have very soft, high pH water which drops rapidly, but
buffering with a lot of coral gravel has stabilised it.

Do fish get viruses?

If this is likely to be a virus, when might it be safe (if ever!) to
introduce these fish to my main tank?

Is there anything else I can do? (I'm thinking salt). The man who owns
my favourite LFS (not where I got these loaches) said that the reason
he has stopped stocking weather loaches is because for the last few
years they have come in in a mess with a low survival rate for no
specific reason he can pinpoint.

any ideas? all will be received with huge gratitude...


--
sophie

How much water can you change and how often? Aggressive water changes
can be successful when a persistent but non-lethal contagion seems to
just hang around. It sounds bacterial in origin, but if the fish are not
doing that badly, then their immune system might be working on it
properly. The water changes will dilute the contagion's concentration,
sometimes giving the upper hand to the fish. Having no gravel also helps
during this w/c strategy as the stagnant water and the substrate surface
can act to 'house' nasties.

As for fish viruses, yes, and I've found that loaches (like Dojos) are
particularly susceptible (perhaps a combination of their being scaleless
and sitting on the substrate). The early indicator is always the colour
changes. I've seen them with cyst-like protrusions quite often (usually
along their flanks). You could add medicated foods to your w/c regime.
It's too bad that there isn't a marketed automatic water change system
readily available for consumers, as this is what would work best for
aggressive w/c's.

FWIW, in my limited experience, I've never seen loach 'virus' symptoms
expressed on non-loach tank-mates, but I wouldn't take that to the bank.

Best wishes sophie.
--
www.NetMax.tk