Problems With Stroppy Teenager

[dwarfgourami]

I had been noticing over the past few days that my female juvie guppy was not thriving in the main tank; looking thin (possibly passing parasites), not entirely steady in her movements and she was even beginning to roll over submissively when getting too close to other fish.

Having past experience of this as a bad sign, I decided to move her to the hospital tank where her mother resides (prob. parasites, now doing better). For good measure, I brought the deformed platy female juvie along as I've been thinking for a while to move her, and I though this might diffuse aggression if mother decided to pick on daughter.

I should have known more about the relationships of mothers and daughters.

Daughter was quite stressed out by the move though I jugged her instead of netting her. She spent a lot of time trembling at the surface. By late evening, she had picked up and had turned into the most horrendous little bully. She just keeps following her mother around nipping her tail. Mother is visibly annoyed but not stressed out yet). Tank is a small Rena hex (25 ltrs) heavily planted, plenty of cover, but this wretched girl won't leave her mum alone. The young platy stays out of it all and seems quite happy.

My hope was to be able to feed daughter up on extra-nutritious food to a state of contentment where she would leave her betters alone. Do you think there are any chances? At the moment she is too scared to come up for food and does not seem very keen to eat at all. But then its early days. Mother still came up to be handfed this morning, despite pestering and the young platy had a very good meal on the leftovers down at the bottom.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Im afraid that once fish turns into a bully they usually don't stop unless in your case stocking is changed somehow i.e adding more guppys to force the pecking order to be re-arranged or by taking the victum or bully fish away; i think i chatted to you on one of your threads where you were concerned on your fish's health but i cannot find the thread, are you positive your fish aern't suffering from fish TB? Can you list all the strange behavior and symtoms wether they appeared serious or not at the time and wether there are any times when the fish gets better for a short period of time only to fall ill again? What are all the meds you have used and all the fish that have died in the last 3months in all of your tanks?

 

[dwarfgourami]

Im afraid that once fish turns into a bully they usually don't stop unless in your case stocking is changed somehow i.e adding more guppys to force the pecking order to be re-arranged or by taking the victum or bully fish away; i think i chatted to you on one of your threads where you were concerned on your fish's health but i cannot find the thread, are you positive your fish aern't suffering from fish TB? Can you list all the strange behavior and symtoms wether they appeared serious or not at the time and wether there are any times when the fish gets better for a short period of time only to fall ill again? What are all the meds you have used and all the fish that have died in the last 3months in all of your tanks?

Tokis, I did answer that thread listing the reasons I did believe it was parasites and not fish TB, and you must have missed it. Main reasons are:

passing white worm-like material

passing poo which is abnormally thick and encased in a sort of segmented sack

no sign of lack of appetite or anorexic behaviour (except possibly in the juvenile mentioned above)

no other symptoms suggestive of fish TB, apart from a slightly curved spine (but this seemed to be partly to do with difficulty in passing faeces)

most fish who pass above faeces are not emaciated (Sarah my mature female guppie who was first in the hospital tank is a very healthy shape and always has been though she has been passing abnormal faeces for several months)

It seems to cause some sort of problem with pregnant fish.

The only fish to have died in my tanks over the last 3 months are 2 platys both of which appear to have died of secondary infections: columnaris/finrot following difficult pregnancy and columnaris/fungus respectively- they came from 2 separate tanks, but originally from same tank, had been parted several months, both died in hospital tank but were not together there, both had been passing wormy faeces.

The most noticeable symptom, which affects several of my livebearers by now, is this strange-looking faeces thing, which seems to be able to go on for months without killing.

What do your reckon, could that still be fish TB?

During the last 3 months the only meds I have used on the fish now affected is TetraGeneralTonic (which contains Methylene Blue), in tank and to medicate flakes. The demised fish I medicated with various medications (Interpet Anti-bacteria, Anti-finrot etc), but in the hospital tank.

I know about separating the bullies. The problem is, I am loath to introduce possibly healthy fish into my hospital tank or to take possibly infected fish back into the main tank. It is a hex tank, so not easily divided by a tank divider, which would otherwise have been my first thought. I have a feeling that if I put the daughter back into main tank, she may not be able to survive there. She has not been observed bullying anyone while she was still in the main tank. On the other hand, she is the most awful little bully in this tank. So, I could move mother back into main tank- except I really wanted to keep her isolated too, with the problems she's been having. Though maybe I'm fighting a losing battle there.

General information:

I bought all my first fish from the same shop in March, following a fishless cycle, no further fish have been introduced from elsewhere since, though quite a few have been born. Of the 6 livebearers bought in March, 3 platys and 1 guppy have died (male guppy from finrot in hot weather though did have funny faeces), 2 platys as above, 1 platy from unknown causes. No fish died within the first 3 months. They were all originally kept in same tank, but 1 platy moved because of bullying. 1 fish died in June, 1 in August, 2 in September (from different tanks so pres no connection)- none since. I now feel I might have been able to nurse some of those through if I had had a better setup and reacted more quickly.

Does this ring a bell?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hmm...Spinal curvature is a major symtom of fish TB but if its hardly noticeable and the fish aern't losing weight i don't think it is.
On pandoras aquarium they suggest using Clout as the most effective anti parasitic med, what have you been feeding your fish over the last month or so and how much on average?

 

[dwarfgourami]

Hmm...Spinal curvature is a major symtom of fish TB but if its hardly noticeable and the fish aern't losing weight i don't think it is.
On pandoras aquarium they suggest using Clout as the most effective anti parasitic med, what have you been feeding your fish over the last month or so and how much on average?

I feed two small servings of tropical flakes a day+ some TetraFry food for the little ones; once a week this is substituted by TetraDelica Bloodworm or Daphnia or Brine shrimp, and twice a week by veggies (peas mainly but other veg too). Have been stepping up the Delica and veggies a little over last week or so, but not more than 3 times a week of either. Hard to give quantities, 1/3-1/2 sachet of TetraDelica or 3-4 peas seems about right for my assorted collection of mature-juvenile-fry livebearers.

No real live food (cant get it in my neck of the woods).

Where can you get Clout? I'm desperate to lay my hands on something, anything that might treat this problem.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hmm...As for the poop in the pregnant fish, its quite normal for them to pass alot of poop before the give birth so i wouldn't be too worried about this.
Your diet plan for the fish is good for the fish although im not sure on the quantitys, basic rule for flakes and livebearers is not to feed each fish more than 4flakes a day tops but to crush the flakes up a bit so everyone gets their fair share. If theres any food left in the tank after 30mins make sure you get it out of course.
It does not matter wether the fish's poop looks lwormy or not as wether your fish have internal parasites or bacteria they affect the gut and muscle tissue only, unless the fish have roundworms or camallanus worms in which case these are very obvious when they appear on the body of the fish.
White poop is a sign of internal parasites and internal bacteria but internal bacteria is by far the most common in livebearers, it can kill in hours or in months it realy depends on the individual fish's imune system. After thinking over your situation much im not totally convinced that you have internal parasites, mainly because the fish are living for months with this condition and internal parasites tend to be very lethal and kill usually within a week at most, livebearers also tend to have less imune system resistance against internal parasites.

Personally im opting for internal bacteria based on what i have read, i've dealt once or twice before with full on internal parasites in guppys and i dealt with the problem by euthanasia as i couldn't get hold of clout and other meds did not seem to be able to control the spread of the parasites, what i do know though is that none of the fish infected lasted more than about 5days after displaying symptoms of the parasites- i've used "anti internal bacteria before" have either found it to be very effective or not effective at all, soo...
This is what i would do;

a. Get some carbon in your filter to remove the current meds in the tank and do some regular water changes, medicating for extensive periods of time on fish can be bad for their well being and imune system as meds are powerful stuff and having meds for months in the tank can be just as stressful as having water quality issues. Use StessCoat to dechlorinate the water as it has the added bonus of helping improve the fish's slime coats, the fish's protective slime coats are there to help protect them from desease and irretants in the water so by helping incourage healthy slime coat growth you will also help their general state of health- i would try and get the tanks med free for at least 3days.
b. Buy some liquid multi-vitamins/minerals, Vitazin by Waterlife is particually good and you should be able to get it at your lfs, the added bonus of all the vitamins and minerals the fish need present in the water will not only help boost their imune systems but help treat any gut problems when combined with meds.
c. Buy some primafix, this treats internal and external plus fungal infections in one, i find it most effective when gradually added to the tank as its a very powerful med that tends to wipe out every desease in the tank, particually when combined with aquarium salt(don't use salt though if you have any salt intolerant fish like catfish or tetras)- i usually add a 70% dose of primafix with a couple of teaspoons of salt plus a full dose of multi vitamins and stresscoat, i up the dose of primafix to full dose if the med isn't responding enough after a couple of days, this way you don't have to put the fish under the stress of a fully medicated tank if you don't have to .

What do you think?

 

[dwarfgourami]

Hmm...As for the poop in the pregnant fish, its quite normal for them to pass alot of poop before the give birth so i wouldn't be too worried about this.

She is not pregnant. None of my fish are pregnant atm as far as I can make out. And my concern is not with the quantities but with the appearance+the obvious difficulties she's been having in passing stools. She (my mature guppy) is a lot happier now though.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions- I shall try them! The carbon filter was due to go in the main tank today anyway (to clear away the TetraGeneralTonic), and there are currently no meds in the hospital tank (it's more of a convalescent/recuperation tank). I have some StressCoat so will add that. Let's hope they sell primafix at Pets@home, if not I shall order from Aquatics online.

As you can understand I am not happy about euthanising a tankful of fish some of whom have clearly been able to live with this condition for months, and none of whom appear in acute distress at the moment. But I will see if I can treat for internal parasites and generally try to impribe their fitness.

Daughter is back in the main tank to everyody's relief. Things were not getting any better and I care to much for her mother to put her through that. Funnily enough daughter stopped her aggressive behaviour as soon as she got back into her old tank. It was only mother who seemed to get on her nerves.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Euthanasia is only important when you have a highly infectious killer desease like internal parasites, the problem with internal parasites is that every time they infect a host fish they multiply like mad in the fish and kill the fish after a short period of time, when the fish dies the parasites leave the body to infect larger quantitys of fish and thus the problem can very easily spiral out of control as infected fish can seem to be hanging on quite well one moment and dead the next- one parasite can multiply into thousands within a week or so, some people even resort to tearing down their entire tanks and euthansiing every fish and sterolising every peice of tank equipment.
As i said though, it just doesn't sound like internal parasites if your fish are living for months, if you had internal parasites you would have lost almost every fish by now at the least. Even if you don't have internal parasites, if a fish seems on its way out and beyond cure its best to euthanise it so healthy fish don't pick at its carcass and get infected as this is one of the most common ways deadly deseases spread in tanks.
Primafix is quite a readily available med so you shouldn't have much difficulty getting hold of it, it has many uses as a med- i also think you should try and get hold of the multi-vitamins/mineral supliment as it will improve the imune systems and health of your current fish wether they are sick or not, good luck with your fish and best wishs !

 

[dwarfgourami]

Thanks for all your help; it's great to have so much support!!!

What I had wondered in the past was whether there might be different forms of internal parasites, like there are in human beings, some you die from, some just give you an itchy bottom. The Tropical Fishlopedia seems to suggest this. But your explanation about the gut being affected by internal bacteria makes perfect sense, so will try to treat for that.

Thanks to my hospital tank I hope I will never be in a situation where I have to leave a fish to die in the main tank and get picked on; I now have the means to isolate. But I would euthanise anyway, for humane reasons, if I felt that a fish was suffering acutely and hopelessly. Atm everybody seems quite perky; daughter is happily schooling with her friends and does not atm appear acutely ill; mother is bullying a piece of banana, unable to believe her luck in getting her peaceful home back. I left the deformed platy in there as they seem quite happy with each other and I wanted to avoid the stress of too many moves. Mind you, she seems totally unfazed, a very serene creature.

Oh, I forgot to mention; don't think I overfeed on the flakes, I always thought 3 flakes a day was enough for my grown gups (and if they get veg or delica for one meal then I leave out the flake).

I'm going down to Pets@ this afternoon (unfortunately the only shop I can reach within the parameters of the school run), so I'll look out for the pimafix and the vitamins; if I can't find them I'll go online this evening.

 

[dwarfgourami]

Just thought I'd do an update as I've finished the pimafix treatment. It's looking GREAT:

mother guppy is now passing normal stools, and there is no sign of a bent back (that must have been tummy ache, poor thing!); she swims around the tank perfectly normally looking at least a year younger

I left the deformed female platy fry in with her, as they get on well and I don't think it's healthy for a livebearer to be alone

daughter guppy is back with the juveniles, and a lot happier. This tank has also been treated and all its inhabitants are now passing normal stools and looking healthy

I have been observing daughter guppy closely and come to the conclusion that she is not now ill or in distress but she has some slight deformity of her body (like a slight stroke or maybe a spinal deformity) which makes her swim in a slightly twisted way. She holds her own at mealtimes and is not now showing aggression: she seems to feel safer with the juvenile platys. There are no males in the tank, so she will not breed

All that remains is to say Thank you so much, Tokis, for all your help! That pimafix is good stuff!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Thats awesome news, so glad your fish are getting better- yay to primafix !