Emergency In 4 Of My Tanks! Mysteries Too

[-germ-]

Really struggling TBH mate.....
Bare in my mind if it is water related it could be a combination of various different things.....
Gas bubble disease, aerate the water.
I assume you've been doing water changes to get the nitrite down.
Remove the CAE to a hospital tank, he's only going to make the ill fishies life alot worse.
If theres no more symptoms then my knowledge is expended and i'd do what you are; treat with an anti-bac or general med.

Sorry i can't be of more help

 

[ArauraDiscus]

You've been a great help so far, thank you.

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

Hey, sorry to hi-jack the thread for a moment, but I get lots of Planaria also, and i'm actually a little scared it too is coming from my water source. Does anyone know if Planaria has any negative effects on humans?

Erm... i'm going to my families tomorrow and i'll ask my dad (pathologist) should be able to give a sensible answer if you've had no further tips on your.... erm, planaria based diet....

Araura not seen it in relation to bacteria before, is that possibly only found in relation to Seahorses?
Again, don't know, just a thought....
Only thing i could think of in relation to the nitrites today, following common sense, is a mass planaria die off in all tanks.
Maybe something in your tanks killed them off, are they thriving in the non copper treated tanks, when the 3 non treated are compared to the treated is there a massive difference?
Wondering if their introduction into the tanks, around the same time, may have been fatal, thus the rise?

Thanks. Hopefully there isn't any

 

[Tolak]

"He and the other angelfish in the tank are covered and I mean covered in air bubbles.
This is what strickes me as pecular above all else thats happened today. They are definately air bubles because my upside down floater's bubbles pop off and rise to the surface as I touch him. THe other one is swimming normal and acting fairly normal but has tons of bubbles attached to him. The larger one has bubbles covering his eyeballs. I am very confused and disturbed by this atm."

I've had this happen when filling tanks with a hose, and mostly in the winter, after foul weather, when they increase the additives in my water supply. I at least double, if not triple dose with Prime when this happens. The fish are covered with bubbles, if they have a good slime coat it really trails behind & around them. Besides this there has been no ill effect, other than freaking me out the first time. I made a couple phone calls, if you fill a bucket, then pump it in it will not happen. This is what I do if I see it getting really bad during a tank fill.

For the nitrite readings; if your water company increased the amount of chloramine added for whatever reason your normal dose of Aquasafe is probably doing a good job of converting the ammonia component of chloramine to ammonium, and your bio filtration is doing a good job of converting ammonium to nitrite. It may take the bacteria that convert nitrite to nitrate a little more time to catch up to this increased bio load, being the more fragile bacteria of the two.

Prime has an ingredient that neuteralizes nitrite, and trying to get that ingredient out of Seachem is impossible, I guess they consider it a trade secret ingredient. This is one of the reasons I use Prime, as they really screw with my water supply in the winter, or during crummy weather. You may want to pick up some Prime & dose your tanks, and try the bucket trick if you see this supersaturation effect. I've found it usually takes several hours for the bubbles to dissipate.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

Ok thanks for the prime advice.
And thanks for shedding light on the nitrate hike.

But it's still a mystery why the fish are dyeing.

I have now lost a red rainbow, and the second rainbow is dyeing. Also my Parkinsons rainbow isstarting to look ill.

It is either from the water source or from food whatever it is, those are the only two options biologically. And I recently set up a new jebo canister filter, that may have had poisons on it affecting the fish, but that wouldn't likely kill them 1 by 1 like this. This has to be bacterial or parasitic in nature.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

Ok there goes the last red rainbow. I hope they stop dyeing soon!

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

So sorry about your fish. Can planaria transmit Trypanosoma/Trypanoplasma? I know that those blood parasites are usually transmitted by leeches, and planaria really kinda sting rather than bite, but just trying to help pin point any other possible causes.

 

[hogan53]

Hello AruaraDiscus,
Did you say that you added dechlorinator to the aquarium after you added the tap water?
hogan

 

[-germ-]

DiscusLova; My dad can't help, he went into all the parasites and worms (or both) commonly transmitted via fish to humans that he knows of, all examples were related to the digestion of raw fish (Scandinavian countries, Japan). Nothing on planaria.
He also performed a search on a medical paper website, may have been something there, but there is apparently alot of work with planaria, involving studies into their similarities with vertebrate brains and nervous systems therefore their associatons with the human brain are often studied, therefore search results involving people and planaria were endless....

If you are truly worried about having ingested some, i'd definately see a Doctor, just for safeties sake.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

Yes I added dechlorinator.

What does Trypoasoma do?

And I'm not too worried about what the planaria will do to me, rather the cause of planaria being in the water in the first place. They don't bother me, but there must be an underlying problem with our water service providers.

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

I think Trypanoplasma is commonly misspelled as "Trynoplasma" because that spelling is referred to on several aquarium sites with the exact same definition..."Sleeping sickness infects the blood just as it does in humans. Infected fish are drowsy, may swim strangely and become thin."

Trypanoplasma and Trypanosoma are always referred to in the same scientific documents, but most of them have to do with clinical trials of treatment of carp, and I haven't seen many references to the actual affects of the illness...sorry I haven't had much time to investigate further.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

AFter doing some research on this, it doesn't seem like what my fish had. They literally looked 100 percent normal except with "dehydrated wrinkly scales" and a dull zombie like demeanor to them. The Trypanoplasma seems to mostly cause dropsy and lethargy. Lethargy is a sign, but not one fish had dropsy. ALso since it has to be transmitted by leeches, I don't see how thats it. Nothing was added to the tank, so no leeches recently got in, and I haven't seen any leeches since the last time anything was added.

 

[merry78]

can you do an autopsy on any of your recently dead fish to look for granulation (appears grey-white and grainy) or lesions (yellow-red holes/pimples) on your fishes internal organs?
I'm having a look around on the net for something that matches your symptoms, and everything that includes large pale/bleached looking patches of skin and changes to scale characteristics (excluding basic dropsy pineconing), requires examination of internal organs or skin scrapes to id. Do you think you could do this?
If you want a theoretically healthy subject to compare your fishes' organs to, just buy a whole fresh fish from the markets, cut the two fish open side by side, and examine with a magnifying glass. If you can find clinical signs on the organs, i can give you several links to check out and see what you think.
They (the linky sites) all say the end result for several types of this disease is not good....pretty much untreatable, brought about by stress/water parameter changes that cause the fishes immune system to drop and allow naturally present pathogens to gain the upper hand. Once one fish is infected, all others usually succumb. Do you disinfect your nets/cleaning equipment between tanks?
Let me know if you want the links, pm is more likely to reach me than a post here, there are 3 sites that mention this sort of thing....it's variations on the mycobacteriosis theme, but not standard fish tb.
HTH, hope your fish pull through, you must be really upset...especially with your shiny new discus sitting there waiting for a tank to go into...

 

[Lynda B]

Araura, you've been so very helpful to many people here on the forum. I wish I had the experience or knowledge to help you with your current dilemna. But I can't. I'm so sorry I can't help but I do hope you find the answers to the questions. What a horrible mystery. I'm sad for your losses. I know your fish were well cared for. I'll be rooting for you!

 

[ArauraDiscus]

can you do an autopsy on any of your recently dead fish to look for granulation (appears grey-white and grainy) or lesions (yellow-red holes/pimples) on your fishes internal organs?
I'm having a look around on the net for something that matches your symptoms, and everything that includes large pale/bleached looking patches of skin and changes to scale characteristics (excluding basic dropsy pineconing), requires examination of internal organs or skin scrapes to id. Do you think you could do this?
If you want a theoretically healthy subject to compare your fishes' organs to, just buy a whole fresh fish from the markets, cut the two fish open side by side, and examine with a magnifying glass. If you can find clinical signs on the organs, i can give you several links to check out and see what you think.
They (the linky sites) all say the end result for several types of this disease is not good....pretty much untreatable, brought about by stress/water parameter changes that cause the fishes immune system to drop and allow naturally present pathogens to gain the upper hand. Once one fish is infected, all others usually succumb. Do you disinfect your nets/cleaning equipment between tanks?
Let me know if you want the links, pm is more likely to reach me than a post here, there are 3 sites that mention this sort of thing....it's variations on the mycobacteriosis theme, but not standard fish tb.
HTH, hope your fish pull through, you must be really upset...especially with your shiny new discus sitting there waiting for a tank to go into...

Yes mam I disinfect. Especially since this started happening, but I have a bagillion nets, so I use one per a tank.
Right now I didn't have the time to disect with work and all. I should have in all honesty. All have been tossed in the trash and I can't bare to disect my pet while he's rotting. I can't see him like that. If another succumbs I'll disect it though.

And thank you Linda for those kind words.