Sorry for my long disappearance

[Kiccoro]

Dear friends (if you still remember me), I sincerely apologise for my long disappearance from killies.com. I know this isn't exactly a 'killies-related' topic..please forgive me. I have just made a career switch a few months back and everything is driving me nuts. Sad to say, I have stopped my killi breeding and hobby for the past few months as I have been travelling around and am unable to devote my time to the little precious ones. Actually I had some traumatic experiences with my previous batch of killies. They all got some undefinable illness which eventually wiped most of them out. I am so terribly sad with the loss. Still trying to recover from the trauma...

[timebomb]

Good to hear from you again, Esther. For a while, I thought you left the planet

When you have recovered from the trauma of losing all your fish, drop over and I'll give you some nice Killies to start again.

Loh K L

[Kiccoro]

HI KL!!

So happy you still remember me. For a while I almost thought I was leaving this planet cuz of my constant business trips. I just returned from Japan last friday but I am again flying to HK tomorrow morning and will be flying off to Brunei the following Monday. I need a break man.
Yep yep, will go look for you soon. Need some advice on what could have happened to my fish. Feel like a murderer.... poor fishes......

[keehoe]

Hi Esther, Glad to see you back. Myself and Selena were talking about you some time back as someone was looking for AUS to start off and both of us didn't have any ready then.

But now i have quite a lot of AUS with various sizes.

Also collecting eggs from Simp. Magnificus and Simp.Igneus. Let me know if you have time to handle more species ^^

[hobbit6003]

Hi Esther,

I think before anyone can tell you what happened to your fishes, perhaps you'd like to give us a run down on a brief history of your setups, the water parameters if possible, and the clinical signs and symptoms you saw on your fishes, tank husbandry and perhaps the dietary pattern too.

Cheers,

Kenny

[timebomb]

Feel like a murderer....

Esther, you're a murderer but we miss you just the same. Kee Hoe misses you the most though. He's been drowning his sorrows by ordering as many species of Killifish eggs as he can

Kenny, I've seen her tanks and mostly, Esther uses small containers to house her fish. No filters and no aeration but she usually has some Java Mosses inside the containers. She's diligent though and as far as I know, she changes water frequently. She once said it's quite normal for her to work on her tanks until the wee hours of the morning. Unlike us old men, this girl does not need sleep I kind of suspect the real murderer is her mother who often complains that she spends too much time on the fish. It could be she put some poison into the tanks

Loh K L

[keehoe]

Feel like a murderer....

Esther, you're a murderer but we miss you just the same. Kee Hoe misses you the most though. He's been drowning his sorrows by ordering as many species of Killifish eggs as he can

Kenny, I've seen her tanks and mostly, Esther uses small containers to house her fish. No filters and no aeration but she usually has some Java Mosses inside the containers. She's diligent though and as far as I know, she changes water frequently. She once said it's quite normal for her to work on her tanks until the wee hours of the morning. Unlike us old men, this girl does not need sleep I kind of suspect the real murderer is her mother who often complains that she spends too much time on the fish. It could be she put some poison into the tanks

Loh K L

Hi all. Thats right, KL. I misses her a lot. But i misses you, Sally, your home, you big planted tank, the bird guarding outside your house, chicken wing in your fridge etc etc too. Some how i felt more "at home" at your place. How soon are we going to have another round of gathering? Too bad you are not that old to be my dad, else hehehehehehe


Those i had order are ex-outstanding order with a few extra and new item added.

Maybe the price of "Ikan bilis" went up while Esther were away.

[timebomb]

Miss no more

Your breeding bowl should be ready for collection this Saturday, Kee Hoe. It's being fired in the oven now. My wife and I will collect it soon. I'll let you know when it's ready and you can come over to look at my tanks, play with the bird's nest and eat all the chicken wings you want

Loh K L

[keehoe]

Miss no more

Your breeding bowl should be ready for collection this Saturday, Kee Hoe. It's being fired in the oven now. My wife and I will collect it soon. I'll let you know when it's ready and you can come over to look at my tanks, play with the bird's nest and eat all the chicken wings you want

Loh K L

What happen to the bird parents and the young bird? Left only the nest?
I am sure that my STR would love to spawn in it. I have some Simp Igneus fry growing up now. If all goes well, this round should be female heavy. Then i should be able to hide a pair in your tank when you are not watching to eat all your fish food as well.

Thanks KL. Lets setup a big reunion shall we?

[Kiccoro]

Hi all my dear friends, sorry for taking so long to reply yet again. Too cooped up with work recently. Hmm... my setup, like what KL mentioned, is actually very very simple. Everything has been going fine for almost 10 months until one day when one tankful of fishes were spotted with clamped fins. They were still pretty active initially, though the clamped fins worried me. No fungus or abnormal growth was observed on their bodies. Slowly, they started sulking either at the bottom of tank or right on top. But mostly at the bottom. And then, they sulked so much they refused to eat anything I gave them and they had funny darting movements. And after a while, they swam to the rainbow bridge in heaven. I tried all sorta medication but nothing worked. Eventually all tanks showed the same symptoms though I was very careful not to touch any tanks after coming into contact with an affected tank. Nothing worked.

Guess my killies dun like me...

I miss Nasi Lemak at KL's house.... (oops sorry for the sudden change of topic)

Keehoe, what happened to our chee cheong fun trip at Clementi? haha

[hobbit6003]

Hi Esther,

With signs and symptoms like that, I think there are probably 2 common differential diagnosis that I can come up with.

Firstly, it could still be velvet. These protozoa is quite tiny, and may not be detected by untrained eyes in the initial stage of mild infestation. In the more advance stage where the skin and epithelial tissues get damaged by them and secondary bacterial infection sets in, that can also confuse many.
I'm quite sure treatment of velvet needs no further elaboration, as many information can be found in the forum.

Secondly, it can be a bacterial infection. Clamp fins, listlessness and appetite loss can be associated with bacterial infection like pseudomonas, aeromonas even columnaris, etc. The predisposing factor, more often than not, is poor tank hygiene.

Recently, I just got a bout of this infection to a tankful of Endlers, which was probably fed with contaminated daphnias and predisposed with poor tank hygiene. The fish were fine one day, and by the next evening when I came back from work, horrors of horrors, nearly 1/4 of a 100 plus colony had died and are rotting away, whilst the rest are just lying at the bottom and shimmying away, with clampp fins and all.

For this, I treated with nifurpurinol, a nitrofuran, and thankfully, the survivors recovered, thus averting a potential disaster.

You can buy nifurpurinol or any other nitrofuran from LFS, the brand name starts or end with the word furan (eg. Befuran). Use the drug as prescribed and you should see results in your tank in a day or two.

Medication is only as effective as an accurate diagnosis.

Cheers,

Kenny

[whuntley]

If I may add a comment to Kenny's excellent remarks.

We might ask why the fish became suddenly susceptible to the pathogen, whatever it is.

In Esther's case, since all tanks were eventually involved, I would quickly jump to the conclusion that something bad had happened to my water supply.

I have seen this kind of thing many times, when the water department changes treatment method and fails to inform the customers. The likely change is from little or no chlorine to more chlorine, or from chlorine to chloramine.

I would test for chlorine and ammonium, as a minimum, before exposing more fish to that water.

Wright

[keehoe]

Hi all my dear friends, sorry for taking so long to reply yet again. Too cooped up with work recently. Hmm... my setup, like what KL mentioned, is actually very very simple. Everything has been going fine for almost 10 months until one day when one tankful of fishes were spotted with clamped fins. They were still pretty active initially, though the clamped fins worried me. No fungus or abnormal growth was observed on their bodies. Slowly, they started sulking either at the bottom of tank or right on top. But mostly at the bottom. And then, they sulked so much they refused to eat anything I gave them and they had funny darting movements. And after a while, they swam to the rainbow bridge in heaven. I tried all sorta medication but nothing worked. Eventually all tanks showed the same symptoms though I was very careful not to touch any tanks after coming into contact with an affected tank. Nothing worked.

Guess my killies dun like me...

I miss Nasi Lemak at KL's house.... (oops sorry for the sudden change of topic)

Keehoe, what happened to our chee cheong fun trip at Clementi? haha

Esther,
Mmmm, it really prove that it has been a long time indeed..... claypot rice turn into chee cheong fun.

I am planning to visit Loh this coming saturday. It would be more fun if more people can join us.

Kenny, how is your schedule?

I am bringing a big plastic bag to see if can kidnap some of KL S.Fulminantis.

[hobbit6003]

Kenny, how is your schedule?

I am bringing a big plastic bag to see if can kidnap some of KL S.Fulminantis.

Kee Hoe,

My schedule on Saturday doesn't look that good, I've got to chaffeur my family around.

Hey, as for the RAC Beira 98 females, I've been to Ron's place and took a look, and you know what, none of the female looking fishes are females!

These female looking fishes have very light red striations on their otherwise cream coloured bodies, fins are usually clear but laced with blue in some.

These are actually males. I've got a few of these in my tanks too, which appeared like female, but lo and behold, after months and isolation, they became full coloured males!

These RAC are surely male heavy!

Cheers,

Kenny

[keehoe]

If I may add a comment to Kenny's excellent remarks.

We might ask why the fish became suddenly susceptible to the pathogen, whatever it is.

In Esther's case, since all tanks were eventually involved, I would quickly jump to the conclusion that something bad had happened to my water supply.

I have seen this kind of thing many times, when the water department changes treatment method and fails to inform the customers. The likely change is from little or no chlorine to more chlorine, or from chlorine to chloramine.

I would test for chlorine and ammonium, as a minimum, before exposing more fish to that water.

Wright

Wright, How does changes of YOUR water supply affect fishes in Esther's tank? Yup i think thats most likely the case. I am using a 2-gang filter to "treat" my water before adding them into my tank. So far so good except sometime lazy worm bites and lost some fish due to excess of bio waste built up. That seems to remove a lot more impurities than the chemical which targets to convert only one or two impurities in the water.

[keehoe]

Kenny, how is your schedule?

I am bringing a big plastic bag to see if can kidnap some of KL S.Fulminantis.

Kee Hoe,

My schedule on Saturday doesn't look that good, I've got to chaffeur my family around.

Hey, as for the RAC Beira 98 females, I've been to Ron's place and took a look, and you know what, none of the female looking fishes are females!

These female looking fishes have very light red striations on their otherwise cream coloured bodies, fins are usually clear but laced with blue in some.

These are actually males. I've got a few of these in my tanks too, which appeared like female, but lo and behold, after months and isolation, they became full coloured males!

These RAC are surely male heavy!

Cheers,

Kenny

Thanks Kenny, I have 3 bigger fry growing up and a tray of belly slider (Wet the eggs too late). I am hoping to get some female out of it. Else............

[timebomb]

Kee Hoe,

You can take a tray of S. fulminantis fry home when you come to collect your breeding bowl. Esther, you are welcomed to visit me at the same time too. It's Saturday night. That's when Kee Hoe's coming. I'm sure he will be delighted to see you but he'll be in seventh heaven if you don't bring the boyfriend along. Know what I mean?

Okay, jokes aside, besides the causes Kenny and Wright mentioned, there's also inbreeding. Last week, almost all my Chocolate australes were decimated, not long after I put up the picture of the tank. I have no idea what killed them but it was swift and merciless. The few australes that survived the mass extermination were those I bred myself from an earlier batch. All those that came as eggs from Esther died within the day that I noticed they weren't coming for the tubifex worms.

It could be chloramine as Wright suggested but all the fishes in my other tanks are doing fine.

Kenny, I don't think it's velvet. As far as I know, australes are immune to the parasite.

Loh K L

[whuntley]

Kee Hoe,

Kenny, I don't think it's velvet. As far as I know, australes are immune to the parasite.

Loh K L

I do not believe they are. There are different strains of Velvet disease, some far more virulent than others. I'm not sure any killifish species is truly immune to all of them. Some kill by gill damage, before the outer skin shows any serious "dusting."

Get out the microscope and do a careful necropsy when in doubt. There are good pictures in Untergasser for comparison.

Wright

[keehoe]

Perhaps if Ron could join us it will be much more interesting seeing both you KL and Ron "discuss" on issue.

Changing my washing machine tomorow and my fish rack seems to be blocking the way. Ohhhh geeeeee. Lucky all are plastic tank.

What i keep in my fish rack? Take a look at killi.wire-online.com. Only using that as my listing.

[RonWill]

Perhaps if Ron could join us it will be much more interesting seeing both you KL and Ron "discuss" on issue

erhmm... Kee Hoe, are you trying to instigate a cold war?? (what is this killi.wire-online.com? I keep getting a MSN blank search)

Kwek Leong, which Saturday night are we referring to? A friend is migrating to "Down Under" and all I know is his in-laws are holding a going away dinner this weekend (where there is food, I'm usually invited), so let me have a date (and lay out an extra plate ).