Stella

Thanks Alan, Will get hold of some Furan 2 immediately.

Imsmith, it has affected all four giant kokopu (the other three to a much lesser degree) but strangely it has not affected the one banded kokopu yet. Am contemplating getting him the hell out of there but not sure what to do with him then... I only have so much room! (hmmm..... possibly have an idea for that which might work...) Also thinking of getting the worst-hit kokopu into a smaller tank today and treating him there. I had hoped the mal and form would have done something by now, but they say it is less effective the more other biological stuff is in the tank. I wasn't going to do that due to stress and temperature, but as the illness gets more drastic so will I! Zev, who is Fishbait and shouldn't I be concerned about asking such a name for assistance??

two days after the first photos, three days after the issue was first noticed: the side of the tail that was first afftected the other side of the tail (um, the lower blurry fish is just closer to the camera.... not really that big!) Three days.... and this ain't no tiny flimsy fish. this is a big 18cm fish with fleshy fins and a big fat body. I fed the fish for the first time since seeing this and they weren't fussed. They ate a little (not the worst-affected fish) but normally I couldn't feed them without being drenched by their enthusiasm. May of course be a side effect of the onslaught of medication. Still no fluffiness, just a lot of dead tissue.

Indeed, I am in the middle of Distressing Fish Incident (DFI) number 943.7 and I too want to cry and quit keeping fish. It doesn't get any easier, it just gets less regular (hopefully). We could do with a sticky of positive comments we could refer to when feeling like your little sis.

Stuff sits about in the gravel and decomposes. Although the water in the tank was mostly ok, the stuff in the gravel was pretty putrid, but mostly just sitting there. But doing the big waterchange it moved everything about, releasing all those toxins into the water. Bit like having a bucket of sh** in the corner, not ideal but ok-ish. You remove half of it out and air out the room, but in the process smear a lot of it around the walls etc. Suddenly everyone gets sick, despite there technically being much less sh** in the room. Good suggestion about the lesson in how much to feed. Tell her that no matter how many times you feed them a day they will ALWAYS pretend they are starving to death I *would't* give the filter a clean right now, unless it is actually blocking up with gunk. Too much risk of more ammonia spikes etc on fish that are already stressed. Leave the tank to settle, keep doing regular SMALLER waterchanges and later on, when everything is fine, give the filter a quick check over and light rinse.

Thanks Alan MUCH easier So are you some sort of chemist? And why would a butcher put sulphur dioxide in meat? Dixon, there would be some sense in treating them separately, only they all need treating and I don't have a spare 4' tank hanging around. I realised halfway through pouring the meds in that I have no idea what effect it has on koura. Had to completely pull apart his rock pile and generally have a rather aggressive argument with him while trying to extricate him... Cray is now in a bucket with a few inches of water while I wonder what the hell to do with him :roll: Tank is now a disturbing blue. What do I do next? I forgot... another 40% waterchange in two days and replace the med that was removed? The areas on the fins of the other fish still slowly growing. Not in a terrible state yet, but growing is not good. The original fishes' tail still looks awful. Pretty much the whole tail is shot. Still no secondary fungus on anyone, which seems odd as the affected areas just seem necrotic and disintegrating. The fish are all still behaving normally, though possibly a little off their food. I still feel utterly depressed about the situation but now I feel like i have done everything I can possibly do. (must get some more mal and form today....)

only works if there isn't a heap of carbonate buffer in your water. Rain water would be fine, tap water tends to have lots of carbonate. My mudfish tank is 1/4 peat but the water is just below neutral. If it was rainwater it would make more of a difference.

not so far. The only biggie is mudfish seem to be sensitive to malachite green and formalin. Used it on all other fish ok. Conveniently they are all able to cope pretty well with salt. Most have been to sea in the early part of their lives (diadromous), and those that haven't have a recent sea-going ancestor. I currently have some (non-diadromous) Cran's bullies in a serious amount of salt for whitespot, and they are just fine. The fish is still looking awful. I ought to pull him out and malachite him topically again. If this fish lives I really worry whether his tail will grow back (tail still there, but seriously mangled) The areas on the other fishes fins are slowly growing since this morning. Still no fluffiness, just tissue whitening and disintegrating. ... OK just malachited him. The fish, the walls and I are now blue. I put melafix in the tank this morning. THis afternoon I am thinking it is not helping. Maybe I should have hit out with malachite green and formalin to begin with? I don't know. ok if I do the mal and form I don't want to be counting out 400 individual drops. I have 200lt to medicate. How do I work out the volume to use? I need 1 drop per litre or each med. Pretty much in tears over this, I don't know what to do and I really don't want a tank full of big dead fish!

mwahahaha! we have successfully invaded your subconscious, Whetu!

mwahahaha! we have successfully invaded your subconscious, Whetu!

sigh, still looking bad. Little patches on other fish seem to be growing. The main fish's tail is looking awful. just fin fays sticking out from halfway down tail. Membrane falling apart. Am currently drenched after putting malachite green on it again. This is an 18cm fish we are talking about! Little sod.... Even so I hate to think what this little sod will look like in the morning. This is spreading so fast! No more fits. Colour and behaviour still fine. Infection definitely reached flesh though. NOT GOOD. If things are worse in the morning I think I will have to go all out and dose the tank with 200 drops of malachite and 200 drops of formalin..... I can't deal with losing these fish

Thanks Caryl. No sucky fish, and I contemplated the koura but that is not likely either (especially as it doubled in size overnight!) I visited WetPets just now (I have a tame petshopguy who's advice I trust) and he said he would have recommended exactly what I have done. Though suggested malachite green might pack a stronger punch than methylene blue. He had no idea what it could be either. He thought the 'fits' were an irritation thing. Fish looking much the same as before. Tiny areas on other fish's fin edges maybe fractionally bigger. Have put ice in to bring the temp down a bit and hopefully slow the spread. SO glad I am not having kids. The stress of being a parent to fish is bad enough!

OK, am adding salt (1/2tsp per litre) Just pulled fish out and methylene blued his tail. Let it soak a little and put fish back. The fin is quite nicely blue now... Just now I saw four 'fits'! Just for one second the fish vibrates quickly, maintaining balance and it acts like nothing happened afterwards. It is as if the fish has general control of its body, but a shudder happens, like sudden, very fast Parkinson's. The fish is acting normally in all other regards. I really hope someone has some ideas soon

Here are the photos. Yesterday: Today: The other side of the tail yesterday, note the puffed up membranes and how the lesion/abrasion is not on this side:

My kokopu's tail has gone very odd in the last 24 hours. They have very thick, short, square tails. This one developed a large white circular area in the center of the fin, like it had been abraided, just on one side. On both sides the membrane in between the fin rays puffed up, just like a fluid-filled blister. The membranes closest to the 'abrasion' were most puffed. This morning the 'abrasion' area has doubled in size and is still circular. It is nearly the whole tail area. It looks like the tail is going to disintegrate! It has gone right down to the point where the tail joins the body. There is NO fluffy fungus or anything. The other fish are looking a little odd. THree of them were out this morning but usually they are hiding until mid-afternoon. It looks like a tiny first-suggestion of fin-rot may be happening on the edges of the other fish. (someone else has a round lesion on a fish recently and heater burn was eventually blamed. These are coldwater fish so no heater) I took some photos last night and I will try to get some of the larger area in the next few minutes and get them uploaded here. Am thinking of salting the tank. Have done a waterchange. Would like to put something topically on the fin as it is spreading so fast, not sure what. Have malachite, formalin, methylene, malafix.

:roll: :lol:

They USED to be all sterile. Now they "believe" they "won't" breed here.... Heard THAT one before :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: Making them sterile is easy. I have absolutely no problem with releasing sterile ones. But how do they KNOW they can't breed here? Much harder to remove a thing that has become a pest than it is to make these fish sterile to begin with.

:lol: Hi Amber! Now keeping Dolomedes aquaticus would be very very cool..... Am going to start a mealworm culture soon (am moving at the start of Jan and will have more room for cultures. I am sure the neighbours will love the mossie larvae!) Maybe I did meet her when I first visited you at massey? Don't think I saw her but saw her apartments. EVERYONE wishes they were DavidB (btw I have that dead freshwater crab ready whenever you want to pick him up)

It is also possible to get it through a doctor, dentist or pharmacist, if you happen to have a tame one or have a need to visit one anyway. Do you have any authoritative-looking fish books that you can take with you that mention the disease and met. as a treatment? IIRC it is also called Flagyl, just in case that name crops up in conversation.

Awesome, Abigail! Hmmmm, spider terrarium..... sounds cool. What did you feed her with?

LOL we must be on our guards at all times! (what are goldfish like to eat??) What about something aquatic getting into the pond to eat them, like an eel or similar, thus not being seen and the under-deck refuge not being all that helpful?

Foxglove, the mudfish are not going to be traveling with any free water. The joys of having fish that can linger out of the water for a couple of months without dying Good idea though, I might try it when transporting buckets of fish in cars, as often happens when catching new ones from the stream. I feel so guilty every time we go around a corner and it all sloshes... Richms, I guess the wheeley ones mean the weight would be focused on a couple of points, causing cracking.

It is a tall container only partly submerged.... if it had the lid on it would be very difficult to take the photos

Congratulations Are you planning on just having the eel? Probably just an external filter would be fine. This is for a native eel, I assume? (hehehe assume native until proven otherwise ) in that case water movement is not a requirement, they are often found in fairly quiet water. Decent hiding places would probably be more of a requirement.

Now that could look really nice, Mark! Did you just happen to have an old wooden louvre sitting around, or where did you get them from? A less permanent solution could be to blu-tack them or similar...