Henneguya, Guppies, Wasting Disease

[purplecatfish]

For quite a while I've the occasional guppy go through a slow wasting disease which eventually lead to death . I found that the best thing to do was immediately isolate any suspected guppies to prevent infecting the others and euthanase any confirmed sick ones . After all they're only guppies right :-? ? The disease would disappear for several months then suddenly it would appear again :evil: .

Well I recently decided to spend the money to get a post mortem on one (and a pre mortem on another ) because after 3 years of breeding I'm getting close to a unique strain that I'm happy with.

It showed the presence of Henneguya which normally needs an invertebrate intermediate host but all I have beside fish is a tiny flat pest snail :evil: .

The treatment is Malachite Green (4%) dosed at 0.5ml per 200l every 3 days for 3 doses. The smallest bottle I could buy was 100ml.

But it should be the end of the sick guppies .

[Adrienne]

are these your yellows? if the problems solved it will be well worth the money. I still have about 10 from the originals I got from you but think they are all females. I onsold the rest as I ran out of room.

[purplecatfish]

Yes the strain is a yellow blonde with blue tails. But the strain that I'm interested is from a platinum blonde female crossed with a snakeskin, yellow blonde, blue tailed male.

Fortunately the platinum fry are all in another tank.

[smcoleman]

hi mate have u got an more of that chem as id like to buy some or could u tell me where to buy some from

[purplecatfish]

I got mine from the Lynfield Vet Clinic on White Swan Rd, but I can't remember what it cost. Malachite green is a common ingredient in broadrange fish meds. I think it's in tonic.

I've still got quite a bit left and I'm sure I could spare a few ml's. Give me a call.

[Spink]

Hey PurpleCatfish,

Do you happen to have any photos of your sick guppies?

I have just had to euthanise 34 guppies - my entire tank full - for the first time EVER because of a recurring disease in the tank. I'd had it once, it went away, but then mysteriously it came back.

My guppies had a type of fin necrosis - the tail fins clamped up to a point, the dorsal fin was clamped up close to the body, they stopped eating and eventually died. The looked like funny little pinpoint tail guppies.

I did a lot of consulting in books, internet and with other clubs members/local LFS, and the closest and most unfortunate thing we could come up with was fish tuberculosis. I was gutted and absolutely devastated, and decided it was better off to euthanise and sterilize the fish and tank than risk transmitting what ever it is on to other fish and myself, or my family and pets (my cats drink from my tanks whenever they can :roll: )

I hope to God that it is not fish TB in my tank, but I did not want to spend the money having a post mortem done as for the moment it is just a hobby.

My other concern came from reading that in livebearers a female can transmit the disease to her unborn fry.

Do you have any links to sites with info on the Heyanna (?) disease?

I guess I'm looking for peace of mind that I did the right thing :-?

[purplecatfish]

Yeah, I think you did the right thing. I've heard that fish TB can be caught by people. I think there was a thread by someone on here who caught it via a cut on his hand/arm.

The disease mine had was a long slow lingering death, they just got skinny and lethargic.

At least with guppies you can buy a pair or two and soon you'll have a tank full again in no time.

[MrEd]

This might seem a stupid question but do you know the age of them? The reason I ask is I had a similar experience only to find out the fish I bought were the last sold and the ones I got had ragged tails and slowly wasted away and died and died of old age!

[Spink]

Unfortunately with my fish, I knew i had a highly transmittable disease within the tank. Some of my guppies which had been born in the tank very quickly developed the symptoms as did other younger introduced guppies, and although they survived reasonably well for a while, I knew it wouldn't be any good to raise them to adulthood.

I was hoping it was something strictly related to guppies, as none of my other fish have become infected (touch wood), so I'm still a bit perplexed about what happened, and I'm wholely sold 99% that it is TB - God help me if it is!

Once i got talking to others about it, I very quickly stopped using the same equipment in all the tanks, and sterilized what I had. I then bought a new net, bucket, etc and kept it solely for that tank.

Mr Ed, it sounds more like you were sold either an 'old' fish, or a fish with some weakness in the line. :-?

I'm lucky that I have another tank of uninfected guppies, and all my other fish including other livebearer fry are all fine, so it seems isolated to the one tank.