L095 disease help

[MarcW]

Hi Everyone,

If you've been following my fish room thread you'll know I've been having some issues with my

L095

. From 8 I purchased originally 2 have died and I think 2 more are on their last legs (fins).

They appeared to do well for a month or so but then started to go down hill and stop eating again. The crud/plaque came back and their eyes which weren't great to start with have got cloudy/look scratched. The fish with the crud on are also losing the fin membranes as they deteriorate.

I've treated with one course of Flubendazole, to try and get them cleared out if they have any parasites but it doesn't seem to have done anything, regular big water changes don't seem to have done anything either.

I just tested my water, readings below:

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 10ppm

pH 7.35 which is the highest I've seen in that tank maybe due to the calcium carbonate in the worming medication, it's usually between 7 and 7.1.

TDS 43 ppm
Temp. 27.5c

I've attached a few pictures, I'd be really grateful for any advice I don't want to lose any more of these great fish. Thanks for your help!

[bekateen]

Hi Marc,

Wow, what is that crud on the eyes? It looks a little like fungus or oodinium. But I really don't know. In the USA, I'd use a medication called ProformC for anything on the skin like that.

Fish diseases can be very frustrating to treat. I hope you find a cure.

Good luck, Eric

[Andrewjw]

I agree with Eric....Proform C might work. Don't recognize the pathogen here.
L-95 seem to really thrive in higher temps for me....I would raise it to 30 degrees

and use the Proform C....make sure you have good oxygenation during treatment.
Good luck,
Andy

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric and Andy, it seems the main ingredient in proform c is malachite green, with formalin.

I have malachite green as the main ingredient in 2 medications I have to hand, one additionally has copper sulphate, the other has acriflavine hydrochloride. I think the one with copper sulphate is more geared to skin issues. So maybe I should try that.

Yes Eric that crud is growing on its eye too, they did have it for a while, but then it went away.

Andy it's funny you mention warmer temperatures, they were kept at 30/31c for a long time, but as the weather here has warmed up I've had the door/window open to cool the room down a bit. The reduction in temperature does seem to tie in with when the issue re-occurred. I'll raise the temperature now, then see how they are in the morning before treatment.

Thanks for all the help.

[MarcW]

Hi Everyone,

Unfortunately that fish didn't make it through the night .

In more bad luck I think that now leaves me with with a single sex group.

I've found a medication in the UK which appears to be the same as proform c, Kusuri Formalin and Malachite Mix.

I'll see if anywhere local has any before I treat with anything else.

The temperature is at 29c now.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

[bekateen]

Sorry for your loss Marc. I hope you get more success with these.

Regards,
Eric

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric,

I spoke to the shop I got them from and they recommended a treatment for me. If it works well I'll report back. Unfortunately one medication which I thought was common here isn't available in my local shops, so I have ordered it to arrive tomorrow. In the meantime I've done another 50%+ waterchange.

I've also ordered a microscope and will take a scrape of the crud before I start treatment, hopefully allowing me to put some pictures of the visible issue up here. Maybe someone will be able to figure out what it is.

[MarcW]

I have treated the tank as recommended by the shop I purchased the fish from after performing a ~60% water change last night, they said I should start to see improvements in 2-3 days. I have also heavily increased aeration by adding two golf ball sized air stones each run from its own dedicated pump.

In the meantime my microscope arrived and I took a couple scrapes of the crud patches on the fish, the crud itself didn't look particularly interesting, maybe its some sort of scab/reaction to the underlying problem. I believe all pictures/video was at 400x magnification.

I did find a few moving things (can you tell I'm not a scientist ), the first 2 videos appear to show a similar 'thing', the second half of the third video appears to show something different which is a bit more lively! Videos below taken with a phone through the eye piece so not incredible quality. I also noticed some triangular things which appeared to be hollow in the middle, maybe just bits of dead fish 'skin'?

Thanks for everyone's help!

[MarcW]

Unfortunately I found another L095 dead this morning. It had hardly any visible crud, the only external sign of something wrong were very ragged fins, most of the membranes were gone. It wasn't a sudden overnight loss of the membranes they had been slowly eroding over a few days/week.

I have frozen all the dead fish, and when I get the time I will dissect one to see if there are any obvious internal issues.

[bekateen]

Oh that sucks. Better luck with the rest.

Regards, Eric

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric, do you have any idea what those single celled looking organisms might be? I'm guessing they are just something naturally occurring as there were very low numbers I think I only saw 3 from two skin scrapes.

One still doesn't look good, but the crud is falling off with the treatment the shop suggested, they haven't started to eat again yet, there is always something in the tank for them to eat if they feel like it.

[bekateen]

Eric, do you have any idea what those single celled looking organisms might be? I'm guessing they are just something naturally occurring as there were very low numbers I think I only saw 3 from two skin scrapes.

Yes indeed they are single celled organisms, but I don't know what kind, or whether they are pathogenic or harmless. Sorry.

Eric

[MarcW]

No problem Eric, I don't think they are the issue, I would expect much greater numbers if the were the cause of an issue.

[medaka]

I saw this about 20 years ago on a very large Royal Panaque (20"+) The guy was a very experienced Fish keeper of some reknown; unfortuneatly he was unable to cure it and if I remember correctly he tried everything. I have never seen this since until now. Hopefully one of todays diagnosis and medication will cure it? BTW nothing else in his tank was effected.

[Lycosid]

Thanks Eric, do you have any idea what those single celled looking organisms might be? I'm guessing they are just something naturally occurring as there were very low numbers I think I only saw 3 from two skin scrapes.

Not much additional information here, but the way they move indicates that they are some sort of ciliated protist. You can tell in one of the videos that the organism is creating a small current around itself on both sides, which indicates propulsion by cilia. There are a lot of small ciliates in pond water, including the famous Paramecium, so I would agree with you that this is likely just some benign tank resident.

[MarcW]

Thanks for the information everyone.

There are 4 fish remaining, one still looks very sick, the other three don't look too bad, but still none of them are eating.

I'll let the medication I've put in on the recommendation of the store, run it's course (7 days) which would be Tuesday. Then I'll perform at least 2, 50% water changes over two days. If the situation is the same, I think I'll try Praziquantel, as the Flubendazole didn't appear to have any effect. My thinking is that there is a bigger problem going on than the external crud, and hopefully its a parasite I can get rid of.

I'll try to find the time before Tuesday to dissect one of the fish I've frozen to hopefully give me some more clues as to what might be causing the issue, before I start any other treatment.

These fish are the only inhabitants of the tank, although I have bought plenty of fish from the same store in the past, including at the same time from the same system and not had this issue before.

[MarcW]

Apparently the cloudy eyes can also be a sign of internal bacterial infections, if I don't find anything when dissecting the fish I'll see if I can find a vet willing to prescribe some appropriate antibiotics.

[MrRRunner]

Gutted for you Marc, hope you can get this sorted.

[MarcW]

Thanks Chris, just lost another, the remaining 3 look in much better shape than the others did, but I'm still yet to see much evidence of them eating.

[MarcW]

The fifth L095 has died, I took the opportunity to dissect a fresh fish rather than thaw a frozen one. I had, earlier today tried feeding this fish some crushed up tablets soaked in water through a syringe, but it just flushed it through its gills.

The first pictures will just be the dead fish but if you read further there will be pictures of the fish being dissected, beware if you are squeamish.

As with the others the fin membranes were ragged, the plates down the side of the fish were slightly raised, due to the fish being skinny from not eating, the belly was sunken, eyes extremely sunken, and gills pale. These pictures were taken no more than 2 hours after death.

[MarcW]

Now for the dissection.

The abdominal cavity was full of yellow/straw coloured fluid, at first I thought urea and kidney failure, maybe it was but it didn't smell much, a little fishy with a slight hint of dead fish.

Once cleared, the intestines were pretty much empty, the white inflated organ, I'm guessing swim bladder or stomach, was very full of air and nothing else.

Towards the back I guess are a pair of testes? Making this a male if I'm right.

No visible evidence of parasites/worms in the intestines, body cavity, or gills.

[MarcW]

I took some samples to look at under the microscope.

First the gills, I saw some black patches, maybe dead tissue? Not a massive amount though, and also another one of those arrow shaped hollow things, maybe it was a bit of 'skin' knocked off when I was taking a gill sample?

I took a sample of the heart all looked uniform and nothing stood out.

Next was the intestine to look for worm eggs/worms, nothing of note there either except a tiny snail like looking thing, which could have been a contaminant it was the only one I saw.

I'm completely stumped now, all I can think of is maybe some sort of organ failure due to the abdomen being full of yellow liquid.

Any thoughts would be appreciated, would I see a bacterial infection as some sort of red patches maybe, that's all I can think of other than organ failure?

Thanks for reading.

[Lycosid]

I haven't dissected any large loricariids so I'm not sure what a healthy one should look like but I have dissected a lot of fish, so here are all of my thoughts. Sorry in advance that they won't be much use.

the belly was sunken, eyes extremely sunken, and gills pale

The pale gills seem odd. Gills are normally bright red, or at least dark. Do you think this is a post-mortem change or is this a clue?
(If it is happening ante-mortem it could be a gill problem or a blood problem - i.e., the blood could be present but not red enough because it's short of hemoglobin. Did you see evidence of blood elsewhere in this dissection? I'm unsure whether I see blood or myoglobin in one image.)

Following on that, when you say the abdominal cavity was filled with yellow fluid is that the blood? And you do mean abdominal cavity (coelom) not inside the digestive tract? A loss of hemoglobin might cause the blood to look yellow and it would definitely be fatal.

I'm not seeing much in your microscope images that looks like organisms. Most of it has the ragged, shredded edges of broken tissue. The black chunks in the first image might even be chromatophores. But I don't see anything that looks like a living organism. However, a scope of this power would be unable to see bacteria, which are much smaller than protists. Viruses are even smaller than bacteria.

One thing that would be consistent with all of this (but not the only thing) would be an infection that destroys the immune system of the fish. This would reduce healing (I once had to take immunosuppressants that stopped me from healing even minor cuts) and account for the fin erosion. (I assume that fins are constantly damaged and regrow - this would stop the regrowth.) The actual cause of death would be starvation caused by the fish's reaction to feeling constantly ill. This would be somewhat analogous to AIDS in humans, except that in that case it's secondary infections that kill the patient.

[bekateen]

Marc, that's a pretty good dissection. Your coverage was as thorough as I would have been in your shoes.

I think Lycosid is probably right - bacterial infection. I don't know about an AIDS like infection, but just a really bad infection.

Again, my regards. I know how excited you were to get these guys. I hope the others fare better.

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

Thanks lycosid, and Eric.

The gills were/are red in the fish which are alive, however they did turn that pale colour either immediately before or very quickly after death. I was surprised how quickly, even when you see food fish for sale on a counter the gills are usually red still, maybe part of that is because they are frozen immediately after being caught rather than being in 30c water for an hour or 2 before being discovered. It was tricky to see well when the fish had deteriorated before death as it didn't move its gill covers. I'll keep a close eye on this in the remaining fish.

The fluid was just inside the abdomen, (coelom), not any organs.

I only saw minimal evidence of blood (or perhaps myoglobin) in and around the heart, nowhere else.

I agree that the fish starved, it would just be nice to get to the bottom of why.

I'm not going to treat for parasites again, and call around some local vets to see if I can find one willing to prescribe some antibiotics.

Thanks again.

[MarcW]

Today was 7 days since I started the treatment recommended by the shop, the three remaining fish seem to be recovering, at least two are eating now.

So today I did a 800 litre ~55-60% water change.I'll see how they get on in the next few days before deciding on any other action, hopefully they'll still be OK and I won't need to do anything more.

I have found a vet who would be willing to see the fish and take some samples, so if the issue re-appears I'll take one of the fish in.

[MrRRunner]

How are the remaining fish doing Marc?

[MarcW]

Hi Chris,

They are eating really well, got them onto Repashy food now too, so hopefully they will get a more balanced diet from that rather than just sweet potato!

Unfortunately one fish has the crud forming on its nose and a few bits on a pectoral fin, the one fish whose gills I've been able to see has very pale, barely light pink gills.

So the behaviour and eating is better, but they still don't appear to be well. I think I'm going to arrange to take the worst one to a vet and see what they think.

[MrRRunner]

Good news that they are eating, fingers crossed for you and I hope the vet can help.

[MarcW]

Thanks Chris, just waiting to find out when I can get one of the fish in to the vet so they can take samples.

Unfortunately there appears to be at least some of the weird crud on all the fish now.

I'm keeping them warm 30 to 31c and keeping up big water changes to try and keep on top of things until I can get to see the vet.