Are they sick??

[adr7]

HI,
Recently my killies seem to be sick. They look very tired and always resting on the bottom of the tank. The colour on their fins have faded and "closed" up. Please advise me what should I do?

Regards

[erikthur]

Not any sign of parasites - ie in particular velvet?

[whuntley]

Velvet can be very hard to see, in many species, until it is beyond a curable level. View the fish from head on in bright overhead light, and the skin/scales will have a dusty, cloudy look compared to the normal sheen.

Usually they gasp at the surface with clamped fins, for the Oodimium or Costia species tend to prefer attacking gills, first, which hampers normal respiration. By the time the skin is heavily involved, the damage is usually permanent, and the ones that do recover may never produce fertile eggs again.

Laying around on the bottom sounds more like an internal infection or maybe swim-bladder problems. Change about 1/4 of the water, daily, for several days running with properly-conditioned tap water (i.e., absolutely no chloramine o/e and same temperature within a couple of degrees to reduce stress). If not already added. add a tsp of salt (3 max.) for every 5G (premix in the change water -- don't add dry to the tank) and a few drops of acriflavin to just barely tint the water pale yellow. Do not feed during this time.

If they fail to appear better in a few days, and don't show symptoms of internal parasites that can be dewormed, then smack them with a strong fish antibiotic such as nitrofurazone o/e (not a common human one like tetracycline or erythromycin), and repeat the partial changes to dilute the med. after following the full label-suggested course.

Medicating fish is a most uncertain process, at our stage of know-how. I have 40-year-old books that give far better advice than modern magazines and Atlases. Most LFS "cures" are very little more than "snake-oil," and don't even give enough about ingredients for a sensible person to use any judgement about them. [Human antibiotics would have to be administered at lethal levels in the water to get enough into the fish to do a bit of good. They therefore just create immune species of other aquarium bacteria to trouble us later.]

The LFS meds appear to be aimed at customers entirely educated in mandatory government schools, and the hyperbole on the labels tends to prove it.

Of those LFS products, I have favored SeaChem and Jungle in recent years. They back their stuff and usually will tell you what's in it, if you ask. [Many famous brands are utter garbage, IMHO.]

Wright

[TyroneGenade]

If you treat velvet with acriflavine your fish well certainly be sterile! Acriflavine has long been known to cause temporary sterility... which for killies normaly means permanent sterility.

For velvet the simplist cure is 1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda pr 4 L. Combined with salt (NaCl) at 1 tsp pr 4 L you can normally force the parasite undercontrol and over time exterminate it from your fishroom but...

I have not seen any evidence for a diagnosis solely supporting velvet.

To me it sounds like Flexibacter columnaris (or what ever they are calling it this week) or perhaps even Costia.

Again, beging with salt treatments of 1 tsp/4L or rahter bath infected fish in a solution of 3 tsp/4 L until they begin to look upset and then move them to a 100% new tank (no old tank water). This will knock the socks off Costia, Velvet and white spot. It will certainly also upset many bacteria but they tend to be far tougher.

If this salt bath doesn't help then lower the pH to about 4 over some hours with acetic acid and do large regualr water changes each day. The low pH will upset the bacteria terribly as well as stimulate the fish to produce extra slime that will help protect it. Eventually its immune system will of caught up with the pathogen.... or so we hope.

I make no garantees that the fish will survive but can almost assure you you that the bacteria (and certainly any protozoan) will be immunse to nitrofurazone.

This is free advice based on few facts and is worth every penny you paid for it.

all the best

[whuntley]

Interesting.

Tyrone, I have been using acriflavin for about 50 years, and have never known it to cause sterility in proper application. It is far, far more common for thedisease to sterilize the fish IME.

[Casual observers then do a "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc" diagnosis and blame the dye.]

BTW, it does a pretty good job on mild infections of Cottonmouth disease (Flexibacter), when used with some salt.

Careful with that baking soda. Since a large number of infections get started from poor water-change habits, the chance of ammonium being present is quite high. Guess what it turns into if the baking soda raises the pH?

Wright

[TyroneGenade]

A good point about the bicarbonate Wright. I always start treating with water changes so I kind of assume this is the way everyone does it.

The source for this issue of acriflavine causing sterilization comes from quite an old book. I forget the author and my photocopy of it is 8000 miles away. It is arguable the best book I've come across as regards treatment of disease. It will not simply state X of this to that but will go through several published papers describing how others have treated the disease with various treatments. A very good book. I will see if I can find the reference.

[whuntley]

Back in the mid '50s, it was common for fish stores to dose any tank of new fish with one of the irridescent green dyes. I can't remember if it was acriflavin, malachite green or what, but the Handbook by Axelrod and Schultz of about 1956 had an article on it, as I recall.

They claimed the dye destroyed the fish kidneys and caused death about 3 months later. Turns out it wasn't true, but Uncle Herbie learned not to say things like that about fish-store owners, if he wanted his books and magazines to be featured. :-)

[That report might have been in a TFH magazine of the era, and I can't find my old Aq. Handbook to check it out.]

Wright

[adr7]

oh ok... thanks guys