Does anyone recognize this disease?

[Ruth101]

Hi everyone, I have a 600l African cichlid tank which runs pretty smoothly most of the time.

I have sand substrate, plenty of rocks, two cannister filters and do a water change every week. 

Earlier this week I woke up to find a normally healthy frontosa dead and a dying aurora who didn't survive.

we did a water change and everything tested up fine. Ammonia, nitrate and nitrite 0, pH 8.2. Water temp 24c.

our lemon cichlid also looked worse for wear along with quite a few other fish who recovered nicely with the water change. 

The lemon cichlid hasn't however, he's a bit sluggish, panting with funny white ?spikes around one gill cover. 

Photo below. 

Any ideas? Very difficult to pull fish out of this tank due to rocks. 

Another blue peakock isn't well with clamped fins, hanging out at the top and generally unhappy with a raw area by his fin

Sorry it won't let me upload another photo,  as it's too big I think?

[alexyay]

Hmm - Nitrates are very rarely (only in some cases, and pretty much isn't going to happen in an African tank) 0ppm. Are you using the API test kit? This might be of some help (it is likely the test is being performed wrong, or the kit is a dud/expired) - http://fishwise.co.nz/index.php/articles/item/35-fishwise-s-fishy-faqs#what-does-it-mean-when-my-nitrates-are-0ppm

 

Are the spots on the gill cover or under the gill cover (coming from the gills themselves)? 

If they are under the gill cover, and have a fish pass away, can you lift the cover and perhaps get a photo of the gills themselves? It may be a bit gruesome, however cutting the cover with a pair of fine scissors can help to see the gills underneath.

 

Admittedly I've never seen something develop around the gills in that kind of pattern. The white on the rest of the body could be excess mucus production (slime coat production, can be caused by lots of stressors or external diseases), or the beginnings of a bacterial infection. If it looks like it's "eating away" at the skin/scales/fins, or looks like ulcers, it's likely to be bacterial imo. 

[alanmin4304]

I have never kept Africans so don't know a lot about them. Could it be columnaris?

 

[Ruth101]

Thanks for the replies, yes we use the Api kit but it could be expired I guess.

we have since lost the lemon cichlid and a peacock. 

I did a bit water change today but they are still looking stressed. We use prime and I cleaned the filters out as well. 

I'm really at a loss - we have never lost this many fish in such a short time before and the amount of babies in the tank has reduced. We also lost an aurora to bloat which I had never seen before. 

Any help would be really appreciate

[Adrienne]

Where do you live Ruth?

As Alex said, nitrate is rarely 0 unless huge water changes are being done, or you have mass plants using it all up.  Those white pages could be ammonia burn, maybe a spike overnight.

[alexyay]

How much of the filter did you clean?

[camtang]

My father in law has the same type of marks on his gold fish in his pond, except it is on the entire head not just gill cover. I have seen it a couple times when I worked at a pet shop but I forgot exactly what it is. Clutching at strays but I think it may of been a worm or parasite, but I can not 100% remember.

[alexyay]

My father in law has the same type of marks on his gold fish in his pond, except it is on the entire head not just gill cover. I have seen it a couple times when I worked at a pet shop but I forgot exactly what it is. Clutching at strays but I think it may of been a worm or parasite, but I can not 100% remember.

Lymphocystis or pox? Anchor worms could be another possibility. (none fit OP, imo - I've not seen anchor worms in NZ but I have seen a few cases overseas with them on goldies)

[kiwiraka]

My father in law has the same type of marks on his gold fish in his pond, except it is on the entire head not just gill cover. I have seen it a couple times when I worked at a pet shop but I forgot exactly what it is. Clutching at strays but I think it may of been a worm or parasite, but I can not 100% remember.

Breeding stars, although they would not cover the entire head but a much larger area of the gill covers than the marks on the cichlid.

[Ruth101]

I'm in taupo, I rinse the sponges and bio media out.

two more aurora with bloat today, it's a bloody disaster here. No other fish are showing those white spots now. 

I have done another water change and treated the tank with metronidazole today - really at a loss of what else to try now. Never last this many fish before, it's ruddy awful. 

[Likoma]

Hey there,

 

Sorry to hear about your issues. The white marks on the leleupi are opportunistic (bacteria or fungal) bugs that take hold due to a poor immune system., The reason the Leleupi are showing this is that they have smooth skin similar to clown loaches and come from a lake with very stable water conditions. I feel that perhaps you were getting an incorrect NO3 reading, the test is quite tricky. This affected the immune system and the opportunistic bugs took hold. I assume that the leleupi were doing kinda of a side to side body motion. This is there "Im not happy with the water quality signal."

I think with the addition of rock salt at 1g/liter of water and stable clean water conditions with the addition of stability or another similar product to get the bio filter back in action. Raising the temp up to 27degrees and lots , and I mean lots of extra air. The raised temp will speed up the metabolism and help the immune systems.

The salt will affect the skin scabies, for lack of a better term. The salt concentration is quite low as the fish that are being affected by bloat might react badly by taking on more liquid due to the effect of salt.

Dealing with the bloat is a separate issue, I would feed the fish with food soaked in epsom salts to flush the gut from bad internal flaggelates. If you check our website dedicated to African cichlids , http://fish2water.co.nz/available-species.php, there is a downloadable fact sheet (Introducing New Fish) that gives the epsom salts solutions. This will help the fish that are not blown up by flushing out the bugs. Keep on with the metronidazole. I dose with metro every 12 hours for heavily affected fish as it breaks down pretty quickly. Are you using Trichozole tablets?

Finally there is a reason this is all happening you need to find the root problem as the bloat, skin infection are all symptoms of the root problem. I would look at lack of aeration, ammonia spikes due to a mini cycle after cleaning the filter, Try testing an hour after feeding.

Im happy to chat with you about this issue if you want to give me a ring.

Good luck

Greg

[Ruth101]

Thanks Greg, yup using trichozole tabs. The vet gave me 3 dodes worth so I'm hoping that wI'll be enough

I add salt already but not at that dose (1 tbs for a 175l water change) so I'll up that today and add more Epsom (normally add 3tbs with the water change)

I'll have another go at the no3 test and try get more air stones in, our water sits at about 27 normally. 

Thanks so much for your advice - no dead fish yet today. 

[Likoma]

Honestly it is worth doing the treatment for a full 5 day period, although the jury is out on the creation of a super bug if the course is too short. I found trichozole to be not that water soluble and I try to get it in a liquid form used for iv`s.

Keep back a quarter of the tablet and cut into little bits which can be mixed into the food. Ingestion is the best way to fix a gut problem. The epsom salts I mentioned is mixed into the food and when ingested floods the belly with liquid flushing out the bugs.

This method  wont fix a sick fish but it will help the others.

Most important thing I have learned from fishkeeping is DONT PANIC, take deep breaths and come up with a good action plan.

Again good luck.

 

[Ruth101]

Thanks again for your advice - my beautiful tropheus is looking like he's getting sick too.

where do you get you metro from? My vet was real suss about it and took a bit of convincing - I doubt he would give me any more and I've got it prescribed for every second day.

 

If if I was wanting to dose the whole tank with Epsom how much would you recommend? I'll add it to the food for the ones who are eating too.

[Ruth101]

OK I've increased temp and aeration and added salt, I'm also adding epsom salt to their food. The sick moori is looking much the same which is good I think. 

I retested the water again and nitrite abs ammonia were 0, nitrate was 5.pH 7.5 so I'm slowly raising that with a little baking soda each day as usual. 

I'm wondering if the stress culprit might have been a binder clip that flicked into the tank at some point, the sand around it was rust colored so would have been leaching a lot of iron into the water. 

Nobody dead today that I can see so fingers crossed.