Sick fish isolated, worried about others. Several deaths over past few months.

[Cardeater]

I gave the first injection Sat. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Next one is due tomorrow

I noticed this before. This is the next fish in thinking about moving to QT. I hate moving them bc it feels like a death sentence or they'll just be stuck in that QT tank forever. With the red lesions, it's obvious.

Not sure if slight fungus/bacterial white or from rubbing against fake plants or being nipped. Would you move him to QT?

 

[Cardeater]

I hadn't been scrutinizing the tanks as much b/c it just depresses me and I get all anxious looking at the fish. I did a water change on the big tank today and noticed the remaining female dority had a white Columnaris like mark on her. The other one I was worried about looks better but I can tell he isn't going to last. He is swimming somewhat diagonal, indicating swim bladder issues. (I guess that's the one pictured in the post above). Several of the rainbows I lost over the past few months would exhibit the swim bladder issues a few days before dying.

The original scraped side male rainbow that started this QT batch in June died. That's the one that I noticed two weeks ago had a bad swim bladder and was in the corner. He was initially eating off the bare bottom tank floor but I guess he stopped eating as I found him dead when I came back home this evening.

I didn't use the bottom 10g Tank that the black finned rainbow died in a few weeks ago. I figured the other female dority got cured off the white marks but then developed a bad lesion from being in the tank with the other sick fish.

My appointment is on Wednesday. The green female has been getting antibiotics. I fouled one syringe so I just asked the vet if I should come buy another one or just skip the dose and just come in on Wednesday. It doesn't appear that the lesions were at all affected by this treatment.

 

[jjohnwm]

Honestly, if this were my tank...and contained clown loaches that I had owned for almost 30 years!...I would have removed every rainbowfish from it a long time ago, rather than just waiting until one after another starts showing assorted weird symptoms. Those loaches...to me...would be priceless. Frankly, I doubt that I would even have other fish in with them in the first place.

I'm not a fish disease expert, and know little about most of the medicines used to treat them. Lots of MFK folks are on here and can't tell you for sure what your fish have; even your vet can't seem to tell you, despite charging you a lot of money for that lack of information.

I'm just suggesting that you consider a more proactive course and take out all those rainbows and other stuff in an effort to protect those loaches...if it isn't already too late...rather than merely reacting by scooping out one sick fish after another while the loaches continue to rub shoulders with the whole possibly-infected colony.

Whatever you choose to do, I hope you have success and wish you the best!

 

[Cardeater]

Honestly, if this were my tank...and contained clown loaches that I had owned for almost 30 years!...I would have removed every rainbowfish from it a long time ago, rather than just waiting until one after another starts showing assorted weird symptoms. Those loaches...to me...would be priceless. Frankly, I doubt that I would even have other fish in with them in the first place.

I'm not a fish disease expert, and know little about most of the medicines used to treat them. Lots of MFK folks are on here and can't tell you for sure what your fish have; even your vet can't seem to tell you, despite charging you a lot of money for that lack of information.

I'm just suggesting that you consider a more proactive course and take out all those rainbows and other stuff in an effort to protect those loaches...if it isn't already too late...rather than merely reacting by scooping out one sick fish after another while the loaches continue to rub shoulders with the whole possibly-infected colony.

Whatever you choose to do, I hope you have success and wish you the best!

Thank you for the response. I appreciate the feedback.

You have a great point and maybe this is what I should have done from the beginning. I definitely screwed up since I got that new batch of rainbows September of last year. I got complacent b/c everything seemed fine with adding new fish with my QT method prior to that seemingly bad batch. In retrospect, I stupidly transferred them over too quickly. I also didn't take out one that was clearly infected with something.

I probably should just take all the rainbows out at this point like you said. Part of my hesitation is that I had ones from 2018 that seemed okay at the time (but later got sick). The elder rainbows now are all gone except for 2 Albino millenniums that are in QT. The remaining rainbows in the main tank are from the September 2023 batch.

I'm gonna have answers soon. I neglected to post an update. T
he green female that was getting the injections died on Friday and I decided to spend the money for a necropsy and testing. I still haven't decided on the additional tests (I have to decide by Monday). It's not cost effective but I already paid for half, so I'm leaning towards just paying the money for the other testing of the samples. I've prepared myself that this is Fish TB in the rainbows. That article that someone linked in the Aquarium Coop forum seems to fit: that rainbows are especially susceptible to fish TB. I figure even though I'm spending too much money on the testing, it'll give me a better mental state to stop wondering and worrying about what's going on. Also, if they fish have Fish TB, at least this happened now before I ever ended up getting my huge tank I hoped to get. It would be worse if I spend several thousand plus only to be in this same situation.


The clowns might already have what the rainbows have but aren't showing symptoms, or they could be immune, or the bacterial/viral load hasn't been enough to overwhelm their immune systems.

If they have Fish TB, I'm not gonna cull the clown loaches. I'll just let them live out whatever remaining life they have left and I'll wear these elbow length gloves if I ever have a cut or wound on my arms/hands when I'm cleaning the tank.

Just to clarify, only two of the clowns are almost 30 (my big loach I call "Mama Loach" and smaller male that I call "Baby Loach." The other 3 I got in 2018 (and one is definitely a huge female as she's at least half the size of my elder big female. Another one is a small male that I adopted in 2018 as well that was said to have already been 4 years old. If I lose them, I'm done with the hobby.

Here's what the vet said in the email, and I also copy pasted the Necropsy report:

I am so sorry for your loss of this beautiful rainbow fish. I
performed a necropsy and I found that there was brown fluid in her
body cavity along with some white nodular lesions on the kidneys.
There was definitely some type of bacterial or viral infection
present. She also lost weight since her last exam in July (was 36g on
July 24 and today was 23g). Per your request, we will send off PCR
tests for megalocytovirus and mycobacteria. I also collected some
tissue samples to send off for histopathology, if you would like.
This might explain more of what the kidney lesions were from. We can
send you a quote for this too and you can let us know if this is also
something that you want. If we do find megalocytovirus and/or
mycobacteria, unfortunately there are no good treatments. For either
disease the recommendation is to depopulate the tank and start again.
Megalocytovirus can be disinfected from equipment but with
mycobacteria, unfortunately since the bacteria survives in so many
conditions, you would need to throw everything away and start new. If
you did not want to do this, I would advise you to exercise extreme
caution since mycobacteria is zoonotic and humans can become ill and
develop issues. Megalocytovirus is not zoonotic so you would not be
able to catch this. I will have my tech let you know about the cost
of the histopathology. Please reach out if you have further
questions.

Necropy report:
HISTORY: Was seen on 7/24 for skin lesions. Patient passed away and owner wanted a
necropsy.
NECROPSY EXAMINATION:
• Body Condition: The body condition score was 3 /10.
• Eyes: Eyes were clear. The cornea, sclera, and conjunctiva were healthy. The lens was
transparent and iris has a natural color and texture. The pupils appeared normal.
• Mouth/Jaw: Oral mucus membranes were pale. The oral cavity appeared sound and healthy.
The tongue, palate, and pharynx had a pale color but normal appearance. The jaw felt firm with no
palpable swellings or abnormalities.
• Respiratory: The gills were pale white- may have been a postmortem change. The opercula were
intact with no adhesions to the gill tissue.
• Cardiovascular: The heart was pale with speckeled lesions.
• Coelom/Gastrointestinal: The coelom was full of brown tinged fluid. The posterior kidney had
multifocal white nodules 0.05-1mm in diameter. The stomach appeared partially autolysed. The
intestines appeared WNL. The hepatopancreas was pale and friable.
• Integument: The mucus layer was disrupted and there was petechiation of the skin along the
body on both sides.
• Musculoskeletal: Some generalized atrophy of the epaxial musculature.
• Urogenital: No abnormal findings were present. The cloaca was WNL.
• Nervous: Not examined
LABORATORY PROCEDURES:
1. Swabs of posterior kidney and hepatopancreas collected for mycobacteria PCR and
megalocytovirus PCR
2. Samples of posterior kidney and hepatopancreas collected in formalin for histopathology and
acid fast staining (if owner desires)
DIAGNOSIS:
1. Septicemia
2. Nodular lesions on the kidney- open for cause

I'll close by saying When I gave the last injection, I did notice some fluid come out. I guess that was the brown fluid inside.

 

[Cardeater]

The mystery continues. It took forever, but I Finally got the results of two of the tests, but not the other two just now:


Good afternoon-

I am emailing to inform you of the testing results sent out for your Millenium Rainbow Fish. The tests for Mycobacteria and Megalocytoviris/Iridovirus are both negative. It is unlikely your fish population is dealing with either of these disease processes.

Please follow up as needed if additional fish become ill. Let me know if you have any questions.

Updates:
Several of the fish in QT died since I last posted. One was a 6 year old panda garra that had dropsy that I removed to a QT tank with the fish that were in the bucket (one Dority female with a white mark on it that went away with salt treatment, and a Black finned Upper Kathrine River female that look like it had a nip mark on it's stomach.) The diagonal swimming Deep Water Creek that was in the bucket died about a week later.

The QT tank that had the female millenium that died still has four fish. The female dority that was there developed a big red lesion and then died a week later. One of the two albino milleinums had symptoms like the green millenium female (had red lesions, one one of them ate through the skin) and died last week. The remaining ones are the small albino millenium that had a mark on it. I got worried after I posted last and removed her. My one regret with that is maybe I should have moved her to the bottom tank with the less diseased fish but what's done is done. The male dority is still there and still has a few white specs on him. The other female albino millenium has bad red lessions and probably will die in the next week. The deep water creek male that had a mark on the side still looks the same and is in there.

I'm considering just shotgunning the Jungle Clear and Kanaplex like the person on the Aquarium Coop recommends as a treatment for columnaris. It seems like these fish are gonna die anyway and kanaplex did removed make some symptoms better on previous fish.

I guess the best news is that the remaining fish in the main tank haven't show any symptoms. I don't think I'd feel entirely comfortable about them until 6 months or maybe this time next year if they are still around with no symptoms.

 

[Cardeater]

I started treatment on the bottom QT. I hadn't really been looking at them as they were less sick. The female dority that had white mark looks fine. The other fish that had a mark looks like it got worse and has white columnaris type growth near it so I just started the Kanaplex + Jungle Clear treatment on that tank.

It may be working on the top tank as the red is getting better on this really sick abino female.

This is the treatment I'm referring to.




Pic today. The red mark in the upper right was all red Saturday

 

[Cardeater]

I asked for clarification on how to do the second round of the treatment on a thread in the Aquarium coop forum.

Here we go again with columnaris

forum.aquariumcoop.com

This was the response:

Day 6: change 50%

Day 7: change 50% (am) and start treatment 2 (pm)

or

Day 6: change 50%
Day 7: change 50%
Day 8: start treatment 2

Make sure fish aren’t stressed before adding the next treatment. Also remember to run extra air during treatment.

This appears to be working on the really sick albino female. As you can see,the red is almost entirely gone after the 5 day treatment. I probably will do the repeat treatment as there are still a few red spots.

I guess I should have tried this before I went the fish vet route though I suspected this might work when fish TB was ruled out by testing and the fish herpes. Diagnosis seemed to be septima. Vet also approved this treatment when I asked, ask indicated above.



This is today. The post above has progress and this below was after a day of treatment I think. I posted one above but this is so you can see them all in one post and notice the progress.

 

[Cardeater]

I ran out of time to edit but this is a good one to compare today to as well