Defected fins On L046 fries

[edlund]

Hi ppl.I have had 2 batches now with defect fries.All have been defected.
First batch i took in a frytrap without any gravel or sand.I thought i that was problem but now this batch i let be in the maintank until the they leaved the cave by they own.

I cant understand what the problem is!

Some parameters

Ph 7,8 - 8
Temp 28 c
Kh 2
GH 3
nitrates low

Im thinking of two things:

To high ph values or something wrong with my tapwater.Maybe some trace elements is missing
All my other hypancistrus species are doing fine but the zebs not.

Thinking to try:

Add 1 teaspoon coralsand in to the external filter or have 50% tapwater and 50% RO but i dont know the sideeffects in the long run!

Plz help me! This is really frustrating and sad for the fries

[Mazrim Taim]

I am no expert by any means, but maybe it is a bad genetic trait that skipped the parents.

[Barbie]

Odds are much better that you need to provide the fry with more cover, IMO. Genetic issues don't just spring up in large numbers from unrelated parents, IME. Fry are quite aggressive with each other and survival rates can even have a lot to do with how much cover they've got to hide in where noone else fits. I'd start there for solving the issue. Sandwiches of slate with gaps in them where adults can't fit seem to be readily used by the fry. I'd start there, if they were mine.

Your water parameters are softer than mine. It's nothing in your basic conditions causing the issue, IMO.

Barbie

[edlund]

But they were in the cave with the male.They started to leave the cave yeasterday and about hiding places i have alot of slate in the tank.
222 liters with slate .

I bought a carbon filter that i will start to use now in every wc.
Any other suggestions ?

[Janne]

If your water parameters is really good but you change a lot of water (your high pH shows that you change a lot of water) I would suspect something in your tapwater, maybe chloramine. We have discussed this issue many times and the nitrogen level, bacteria level could as well be one of the reasons for this problem but maybe it's not only them. Many people in Sweden seems to have had many problems with their tapwater lately where their fishes react negatively and even died, the use of chloramine in our tapwater have increased the last years and is today the most common method to chlorinate the water.

Carbon filter will help, even if it not removes 100% of the chloramine it will decrease the levels.

Janne

[Dieter]

Hello,

Carbon filter will help

Yes, they do. A lot of discus-breeders have hat these problems as well and they use carbon filters.
Some chemical residua (pharmaceuticals, agriculture fertilizer or other pesticides) are responsible for the defected fins.
But another reason is possible, the high ph-level and therefore some ammoniak (NH3) in the tank water.

[edlund]

Dieter u and me are on the same track.I breeded discus before.Alot of gills and fins defect was showed.Had to kill over 1000 fries beacuse of that .I have added peat in the external filter now for lower the ph a bit and added little coral sand to get the hardness up to 4-5 DH.

Tnx for every reply! now i have more clues what i could be ;)

[Proteus]

What's the parents diet?

[edlund]

Dr basslers biofishfood,O.S.I shrimp pellets,NLS H20 stable wafers and bloodworms pellets

[Mike_Noren]

I do not believe pH has anything to do with the defects, at least as a primary effect. It may be involved indirectly, e.g. like suggested via ammonia poisoning. The primary effect of slightly too high pH would be unfertilized eggs, not deformed offspring, although I do find mention that fluctuating pH during development may cause deformity.

It would be helpful to see photos of the deformities. Are all fins eroded? Is the spine affected? Is the fish otherwise normal (no bleeding etc)?

The cause of the deformed fins will be either genetic, dietary (e.g. vitamin C deficiency) or environmental (poisoning, low oxygen during development, or physical damage/crowding). Or a combination of several factors.

Dietary seems unlikely given that the adults are fed three different feeds. I might still be worth replacing those feeds with something else, and in any case it is probably wise to make sure the fish get more vitamin C.

Poisoning is a possibility. Heavy metals (lead, tin, copper...), herbicides/insecticides and some hormones will produce deformities in fish fry. It might be a good idea to critically evaluate the decorations in the tank (in case they're contaminated with, say, copper or insecticides). I suppose the tapwater might be to blame, but you dilute it 50% with RO water which would lessen the risk of e.g. herbicide or copper poisoning, and your fairly high pH should make most metals insoluble.
Activated carbon is a good idea, it will take care of many possible culprits.

Low oxygen and/or high CO2. Is the cave deep and completely sealed at the far end? Possibly a good idea to drill a few holes in the cave to improve circulation. Maybe, depending on setup, also improve circulation in the whole aquarium. See however next point.

Physical damage/crowding. Fish eggs are sensitive to disturbance shortly after fertilization, and larvae are sensitive to trauma, but it seems unlikely to affect a whole batch. One thing to watch out with is if the water movement is so strong that the eggs or larvae start swirling around inside the cave - that could well cause damage.

However, we can't just dismiss the possibility of a genetic cause for the deformities. It is true that deformities are more common when closely related individuals are bred, but even distantly related individuals may carry the same recessive disease. Various deformities are extremely common in intensive fish-breeding, and fin deformities are known to have a genetic base in Clarias.
If changing feeding and environment does not lead to these fish producing normal offspring, I think one have to consider the possibility that the parents are not suitable as broodstock.

Also, I would recommend destroying all deformed larvae to avoid spreading a possible genetic disease; in fact, I'd recommend destroying the entire brood if more than about a third of larvae are deformed.

[Proteus]

I agree with Mike now that diet has been cleared up.




I have added liquid iodine and calcium to my tanks FOR my freshwater shrimp and they're thriving really well- I dont know about pleco fries as my clown killies had really good batches one after another. (fed all kinds of flake food, live daphnias, and microworms) I never once had to cull any specimen....

I dont know if that would help your plecos or will just hurt them in the long run.

[Proteus]

also forgot to add to research your source of the bloodworms that also could be tainted as well?

[Barbie]

You do realize you're recommending euthansia of fry from an endangered species on the chance that it's a genetic issue, right? While I am not recommending breeding them immediately or anything, there's a huge amount of controversy in this thread alone. I think it would be a lot hasty to kill them until there's more actual information about the cause. That's just my opinion though.

If Janne is saying there's currently an issue with water in Sweden and fish keepers are struggling with it, I'd definitely have to recommend starting working on the solutions there.

Barbie

[racoll]

I think one have to consider the possibility that the parents are not suitable as broodstock

Edlund, you haven't mentioned the source of your adults. The chance of genetic issues in the offspring of F0 wild caught fish is remote, but if you bought a batch of F1 stock from the same breeder, there is a high chance that you now have siblings breeding with one another.

[edlund]

Hi all.The source is from Janne and a breeder in germany so 50/50.But i was so stupid that i mixed all in the same tank so maybe it is genetic problem but im actually more into that the tap water is bad in some way.I havent heard or seen anyone that had got a genetic defect from F1 thats are from the same batch.

[Mike_Noren]

You do realize you're recommending euthansia of fry from an endangered species on the chance that it's a genetic issue, right?

Yes. I gave my advise fully realizing that the species is endangered and that the fry have a pretty significant pricetag attached.

It is precisely because the species is endangered and no new fresh stock will be forthcoming that I feel one must be careful about letting possible genetic disease to spread in the captive population.

But I would also fully understand if the OP decided to not follow my advise in this matter.

[Barbie]

I would be totally supportive of euthanasia if the cause was determined, but to do it because there's a risk of it being genetic without any real proof would be irresponsible, IMO. The fish take years to grow out. We learn more about issues with them every day. I think euthanizing them would be hasty. It's not like they're hybrids or contagious or potentially harmful, even if it is genetic. The solution to that is to just never breed them or let their fry live if they happened to. If they had fry and they were all pristine, it would obviously not be a genetic issue (as it would have had to be a dominant trait to show up to strongly in a group of fry, no?)

If these fish were common, I'd have no problem with just euthanizing them as a precaution. It's just their rarity and the fact that you're removing all those genes from a very shallow pool of them that bothers me. Without proof they need to be, that could prove to be detrimental long term, IMO.

Barbie

[Barbie]

I just realized I hadn't discussed a current problem I've been dealing with in helping a friend of mine with his H. zebra fry. He sent a bunch of small fry home with me when I went to visit because the grow out rate at his house was very low. They don't all die, and he doesn't lose them frequently, just a few, here and there until there's less than 10% of the original group at a year. Those odds were just depressing, so I wanted to try to help. They made the trip home, no problem, even at 3/4 of an inch and not quite 2 months old. One got stuck in a corner of the breathable bag, probably due to my poor packing with them, if I had to guess, but the other 23 handled it great.

The fish acclimated to the tank well, were eating and plumping up considerably, and a week later, when I did a regular water change (my parameters stay very stable here between changes), I lost 5 of the fry overnight. These fish are in my main tank with my breeding colony and my fry, just in one of my condo boxes. Two of my fry are in the chamber ahead of these fry and showed no distress. I took the dead fry to the store and examined scrapings from them with another friend, Margie, and we discovered the fry were crawling with little oodinium. You couldn't see them on the fish, but you could see the damage to the fins, with erosion between the rays.

I treated the tank for 3 days with a 110% treatment of ProformC (a stabilized pond medication using a different form of malachite green with the formalin that doesn't damage your biological bacteria, but effectively kills the parasites). The losses completely stopped. That was more than a month ago. I treated every tank in my house, just to be on the safe side, since the adults had no symptoms at all. I've had unexplainable losses from a few other species and with no visible symptoms but death, it was just worth it to me to be sure I wasn't cross contaminating from anywhere else. I have fry ready to leave the cave from one of the fish I had been losing. I'll tell you if it made any difference ;). My friend also treated every tank in his house. There's no way to know for sure whether they had them there, or if we both had them, but at least now we know neither one of us do. The medication caused no losses at either house, btw. He has more sheer gallonage than I do at 1600 gallons. If I had been able to be patient (yes, I do know it's not my strong suit! ), I should have scraped fish from each tank, prior to treating, but treating and a more careful qt system would solve the problem, so I went with that.

While I'm not saying the issue is the same here, if the fish were strong enough to withstand a parasite, but they were causing damage to a growing fin of a tiny fish, it's possible something like this is happening there. Would it be possible for you to euthanize one of the more deformed ones where someone has a microscope and the knowledge to closely examine it?

Barbie