Tb

[TammyLiz]

Tonight my husband helped me do in my gold gourami that had TB. I should have had him do it a week ago when I realized thats what she had, but I'd never euthanized a fish before! He did the good ol' whack 'er on the head with a hammer trick. She definitely didn't know what hit her. She was gone within 15 seconds of being removed from the tank. I don't think I could have done it myself.

Anyway, I lost another one in February to the same thing. That time I removed the fish to a quarantine tank and medicated because I didn't realize what it was. He didn't even make it through the first round of treatment. Now, when one came down with it after showing no symptoms for months, I'm worried that my tank could be just full of it, and all my gouramis could have it without showing symptoms. Or any of the other fish in the tank. I read the thread where someone else is tearing down their tank and bleaching the whole thing, but thats not an option for me because its fully stocked so moving them to another tank would be pointless. Current stock is:

55 Gallon Planted
4 Trichogaster trichopterus Gouramis
7 Odessa Barbs
1 Checkered Barb
5 Yoyo loaches (b. almorhae)
2 Twin banded loaches (b. rostrata)
1 Zebra loach (b. striata)
1 Rubbernose pleco

Everything is still pretty small and I was planning on doing an anti-parasite med soon as a precaution for the loaches. The tank has been set up since January. Most recent additions were the plec and the striata, both within the last month, before the second gourami showed symptoms and I realized what I had.

What would you do? Nothing I can think of makes much sense. I could replace substrate, throw away all the plants, get new filtration media and bleach everything, but what good would that do if the TB is already growing in the fish? The only thing that makes much sense to me is to euthanize whenever I see one with symptoms but my question with that would be:
How long would I have to go without a case of it before feeling safe to put any of these fish in with any others (I like to have the option to move things around) if I ever will? I had plans for this tank!
And is there anything else I can do?

There must be someone out there with experience and a word of advice. This is adisease that has been around a long time and is fairly common, from what I've gathered, although seldom properly diagnosed. Anyone?

Tammy

 

[Synirr]

You can do heavy treatments with antibiotics and hope for the best, but that's about all you can do. If you go this route, I'd say don't be afraid to overdose a little if using Maracyn and Maracyn II, and do multiple treatments for best effects. I'd say if you go 3 months without any symptoms you're in the clear, but watch VERY closely. It's really terrible that you've got it in a fully stocked tank, I've only had it in isolated cases with bettas. Best of luck to you

 

[TammyLiz]

Thanks. Have you actually had positive results using the mardel products against TB? Or is it just precaution that might not actually do anything?

 

[Synirr]

I've had very positive results. I've never had a fish with TB return to full health, but I can tell you that Maracyn has brought them back from the brink of death more than once and perked them up. It has prolonged lives for me by months and months, and can give them some reasonable quality of life as well. That's proof that it does at least kill some of the bacteria if not cure the disease, so if nothing else, occasional treatments would keep bacterial numbers in your tank low.

 

[TammyLiz]

OK then, Maracyn it is. You said Maracyn and Maracyn II in the first post, though. Do I need both? Or is the second just a precaution? Maracyn II is the expensive one, I think, or maybe I have it backwards. Not that I'd skip it if I actually needed it.

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EDIT: With this discussion I ended up bringing up last weeks thread I made in the gourami section about TB because Wilder had been talking about minocycline, which I saw when i looked it up, is the active ingredient in Maracyn II. She said it would wipe out the filter colony, but the company says it won't. I assume that with your bettas you have them in uncycled tanks so you wouldn't know if that would be an issue or not? Or do you?