Positive result for Fish Tb in my tank... what should I do next??

[Luna Aware Wolf]

Hi all,

So I absolutely love fish keeping and I have had my 120 litre Jewel for a few years now. My tank is home to 15 diamond Tetra, (they won't stop breeding) 5 shrimp and my oldest and grumpiest fish of them all... my 18 year old bristlenose pleco! He's called Gutbucket

I do weekly water changes of 25%, where I clean the gravel and filters with water from the tank. I always make sure the water is the same temp going in and use Prime to treat the new clean water. My water parameters are ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite 0ppm and Nitrate 0ppm and it's been that way for quite awhile hence my great worry as why my fish were showing all these awful symptoms and not responding to any meds I ever gave them.

So after lots of desperate calls and emails, I managed to finally find a vet who would see some of my fish, after I had been turned down quite a few times from others. So I drove 45 mins to the other side of the city with some fish safely in a travel box with a heat and pump set up. They were the only zoological medicine and WAVMA certified Aquatic Species Veteranian I could find within miles and was so relieved they managed to fit me in on the day. They tested my water which came back as all 0ppm, I was doing everything correctly when it came to fish care and said they thought something had been introduced to my tank through the Ottos that I had purchased a year ago. They were very thin when I bought them a year prior and the Ottos, then the Tetra, showed symptoms of rapidly losing weight, red gills, bent spines and something on their mouths after adding them to my mature tank. Stupidly thinking it was fluke I dosed the tank and did water changes for a month and all seemed fine. I also managed to save most of the fish though I sadly lost a few. I have had not had any of these symptoms since until they suddenly returned last week.

They unfortunately had to put two of my sick fish to sleep so they could be sent off the lab. The results came back today and they showed they were negative for everything (parasites, infections, fungus, finrot ect) bar Fish TB which they both tested posted for. I'm absolutely gutted and I'm not sure what to do next? The vets said to carry on with care but absolutely kitted up with gloves, which I already do thankfully, masks etc but so many other articles I have read say the best thing is to put all the fish to sleep?

I am immune compromised, but it seems heartbreaking to do this! Especially for my Pleco who I have looked after so long.

Please any advice would be so appreciated! Thank you for giving such a long post a read

 

[GaryE]

I take measures - with open cuts, I wait for water changes til they heal, or wear gloves. I euthanize any fish I see symptoms in. If possible, I buy homebred or wild caught fish, and I am very wary of cut price stores and chain stores.
I would not euthanize the tank. I would watch symptoms and move quickly with individual fish if I saw physical symptoms. The lives of all your fish will be shorter, but frankly, the pathogen can survive bleach. It's part of the fauna of the tank, as it is with many tanks.
if you try to discuss Myco, you trend to get people who deny its existence - it' always going to be somethng else causing the symptoms. This is really strong with people who have worked or work in the aquarium business, for predictable reasons. It isn't dishonesty, but discomfort with the idea there is no cure and nothing to be done.
Who wouldn't hate that idea? There are no experts with this disease.

Protect yourself with the awareness that even for those with chronic immune problems, it rarely jumps the species barrier. I got it when I was physically exhausted (caring for a dying family member while raising kids and working full time). If I had been sleeping and living halfway normally, I doubt the infections would have taken hold. And when it did, it was just a pain to deal with the treatment. The only other person I've known personally who got it was a pet store employee with a drug habit.

 

[Colin_T]

Gary covered it pretty well. Just let the tank run. Do not add any new fish because they will become infected too. Remove any fish that show symptoms of being unwell and euthanise them. When you run out of fish, disinfect everything and start again.

If you do scrap the tank, you will need to euthanise everything in it and dispose of all plants. Substrate and wood can be boiled or baked at 100C for 10 minutes to kill the Mycobacteria. The aquarium will need to be bleached to kill the bacteria, and it's a good idea to use vinegar after bleaching to make sure the bacteria are dead. the bleach usually removes the waxy coating on the TB cells, and it usually kills the TB cells, but not always. Using vinegar or 60%+ alcohol, will kill any remaining cells.

Bleach can damage the silicon holding the aquarium together so you need to be careful using it for long periods of time when disinfecting tanks. I prefer to use it for a few minutes then rinse it out. Then use it again. Some people use granulated swimming pool chlorine and it takes longer to damage the silicon.

On a side note, when I wiped out all of my fish when they had TB, it nearly destroyed me. I haven't kept freshwater fish since unless I catch them myself. I couldn't go through that again.

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Avoid getting aquarium water onto open cuts or wounds.

Wash hands and arms with warm soapy water after working in the tank.

A face mask is probably not necessary unless you are really unwell. Even then you're unlikely to inhale it unless you inhale tank water. The bacteria is in the gravel, water and on ornaments/ plants in the tank. It will also be in the filter. So unless you inhale the water, you should be fine without a mask.

If you get any sores on your hands or arms that don't heal normally, tell your doctor your fish have Fish TB (Mycobacteria species) and get the doctor to take a swab of the wound. Send it off for culture and wait until you get the results back before tkaign any medication. Most doctors will try to put you on antibiotics straight away without even knowing what species or strain is causing the ifnection, and this only makes things worse. Most species or Mycobacteria are immune to most antibiotics, so you need to find out the exact strain and have it tested in a lab before you take the correct medication.

Raw honey has been used for thousands of years to treat minor infections and can be used while you wait for test results to come back from the doctor. You wash the infected area with warm soapy water, dry it with a tissue and then apply a layer of raw honey. Wrap the wound in a tissue and use a piece of tape to hold the tissue in place. Do not get tape, bandaids or anything on the skin around the wound because this can damage the tissue and help the infection spread. Just tape the tissue to itself so it stays put and stops you leaving honey everywhere. Clean the wound and reapply honey twice a day. Wait for results from doctor.

I was bitten by a white tail spider many years ago and they have a species of Mycobacteria on their fangs. The doctor wanted to put me on antibiotics straight away. I said not until I know the results and then I want antibiotics that will work. I used honey between then and when I got the results (7 days later ), and I didn't need antibiotics because the honey had killed the bacteria. The doctor was impressed.

 

[GaryE]

The actual treatment should follow lab work, in the very rare case you get it. I think my biopsy took 3 weeks to report back. Mine was Mycobacter marinum. It does poorly in people, if we look from tb's point of view. We're too warm, so it stays on the surface in the lymphatic system. It never caused lesions much beyond my wrist, and warmth applied for long periods helped hold it down while a complex mix of antibiotics killed it off. I hope I never again have to take so many pills for so long.

For perspective, my doctor taught dermatology at a major university, and was a very respected figure in his trade. I was the first person he had ever treated for it, and my hand was a major hit with the med students.

I didn't try honey, and heat was not reccommended by the doctors as it can result result in ugly scarring. It was my own strategy, since I'll never be a hand model and another scar on my hands wouldn't have affected my overall beauty.

I'm a little cavalier. It is around, just as dogs and cats can also share diseases with us in rare cases.