Africans dieing

[smidey]

A couple of years ago i gave some e yellow, red zeb & peacock fry to a friend who is now 13. in the last 8 weeks or so he has been steadily loosing fish. I have never had many fish die of sickness & i am a bit lost on what is causing this due to my fortunate lack of experience with sick fish.

I think it is an internal parasite that is affecting their swimbladder as the tank is well set up, the water conditions are all fine & in the last two years everything has been fine & nothing has changed recently.

they die shortly (12 hours) after the following actions: swimming on their sides, swimming in a corkscrew manner, they get red blood lines along or in patches on their body.

he has treated the tank with drontal & melafix, he feeds top quality foods & keeps up regular maintenance on the tank. he does have them in a small tank & when the deaths began there were far to many fish in the tank but that has now been rectified.

[ryanjury]

With red steaks in the body and patches it could be some sort of bacterial type infection?

What made you suggest a internal parasite were the fish off their food or fading away at all?

I am wondering how many fish and what sized tank they were in, it is possible something has set in with the stress of fish being overcrowded the zebras especially can be quite hard on other tank mates at times..

Did he treat with drontal (has prazi and some other stuff in it that I am not sure how good it is for fish but they died when I used it) or droncit (pure prazi) when he treated his tank?

[smidey]

With red steaks in the body and patches it could be some sort of bacterial type infection?

What made you suggest a internal parasite were the fish off their food or fading away at all?

I am wondering how many fish and what sized tank they were in, it is possible something has set in with the stress of fish being overcrowded the zebras especially can be quite hard on other tank mates at times..

Did he treat with drontal (has prazi and some other stuff in it that I am not sure how good it is for fish but they died when I used it) or droncit (pure prazi) when he treated his tank?

they aren't patches as in raw areas or anything like that, more like blood vessels closer to the scales.

i was think an internal parasite as they aren't showing much sign of sickness except for their behaviour. it's not aggression damage.

he has been steadily loosing them, nothing he does seems to stop it.

[ryanjury]

I guess it is really hard to tell, the loss of control of swimming suggests a swim bladder problem (like you suggested) but I don't think this usually occurs with parasites especially if the fish are not showing any other symptoms typical of parasites.

I would still be going by something bacterial wiping them out, I would be tempted to try a massive water change and a heap of salt as a first course of action?

While the injuries are not caused by aggression housing lots of aggressive fish together can cause stress which leads to disease and other issues down the track..

[Jennifer]

Redddened blood vessels or 'tracts' are a sign of bacterial haemorrhagic septicaemia, as are red bruise-like patches. Also, septicaemia is much more likely to cause rapid deaths than internal parasites.

[smidey]

thanks jen, what should i advise him to do for treatment?

[phoenix44]

furan2

[smidey]

sweet thanks, i shall pass that on.