Bent backs

C

cichlid-gal

New Member
fishyladdy said:
Guys this is dropsy not bent spines
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Fishyladdy...the fish are not described as pineconing or swollen up which are the most common symptoms of dropsy.

And really it is hard to diagnosis what has happened with the fish Morgan has. Often times illness in fish is a cummulative thing...this and that and then stress. It adds up and you end up with sick fish. BUT there are some concerns here and Morgan is simply trying to make some intelligent decisions regarding those concerns. I don't think there has been any pointing fingers here guys...just someone trying to figure out how to proceed given the fact they are losing fish with those symptoms and what they are concerned about.

Deep breaths...we all have times when fish get sick. It happens but when entire tanks are affected it can be scary. Just normal to feel concerned.
 
MorganEA

MorganEA

Member
Symptoms of Dropsy:

•Grossly swollen belly (No they look sunken)

•Scales stand out (pinecone appearance) (Nope they look normal)

•Eyes bulge (Nope)

•Gills become pale (Nope)

•Anus becomes red and swollen (Nope)

•Feces pale and stringy (Nope)

•Ulcers form on the body along the lateral line (Nope)

•Spine may become curved (Yes)

•Fish clamps fins (Nope)

•Fish becomes lethargic (Yes)

•Fish stops eating (Nope)

•Fish hangs near the surface (Nope)
 
M

Missgrumpygills

New Member
Yes deep breaths :) lol I think we all can understand that even thinking about having to trash a tank and all plants and inhabitants would be frustrating. Combined with the fact that if it's TB it could be transferred to humans. I hope this is not the case.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Sorry I know you didn't name me but I feel bad that now 2 tanks need to bleached out but Im sure its not TB. Cause it would've killed all my tanks. And some other plant it forward ppl. I dont want that. But is all equipment new or recycled from another old tank?
 
M

MRTom

New Member
FWIW, I was looking for more info on this, and ran into this article about tuberculosis. Apparently dropsy can be a symptom of tuberculosis among other diseases, and not a disease itself.

Article:
http://www.fishyportal.com/cgi-bin/pub/diag?c=v&id=49
Exhaustion of Poeciliidae
Affected fish show loss of appetite, constantly lose weight, and hide in the corners of the aquarium. They will have a curved spine, hollow belly, and sunken eyes. Bones protrude through the skin and scales. Fish will die within a month. An autopsy will not reveal any abnormalities in the internal organs. Sometimes there will be small yellowish granules (round grains) on the liver and kidneys.
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An interesting thing about TB is that living things (fish, other animals and us) can be carriers for the disease, and the body, when healthy, will setup contingencies. So a fish in a particular tank may not show any symptoms but be a carrier. Later, if water quality, stress and other diseases enter the mix, the disease can come to show. In this case we don't know what cause the disease to come out. I don't have much to offer regarding solutions beyond culling or treating the tank heavily as described earlier in he the thread or the article above.

I'm really sorry for your losses morgan, this would be a nightmare scenario for me to loose all the fish in a tank to a disease this tough. :(
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Im also sorry for your loss, MorganEA and MissGrumpyGills. I know all my fishes and plants come from all lfs and other fishboxers. All healthy before leaving my house. Hope you find out what it is and reestablish the tanks.
 
Cory

Cory

Administrator
Staff member
What's the pH, and the hardness in the aquarium. Also what chemical is in the water to cause the foaming in the picture?
 
M

MRTom

New Member
Those bubbles... should have seen that sooner! Good catch!
image110.jpg
 
pbmax

pbmax

Active Member
Cory's on the right track, I think.

Any idea on the difference in GH and KH between the two tanks? Morgan's water is pretty hard compared to most of ours - 9 dGH, but a pretty normal 5 dKH. It's possible the fish were stressed due to a water parameter mismatch. It doesn't matter how carefully you acclimate new fish sometimes, if the difference is great enough.

SirWesDragon - do you know how hard your water is? What is the PH of the tank they came out of? CO2 or not?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Our water should be the same. I live in maple valley. They live in covington. Ph is 6.0 and its co2.
 
pbmax

pbmax

Active Member
"Should" is easy to say, but not terribly useful. :) It would be interesting to see what your KH and GH measure.  With a PH of 6, though, the carbonic acid created by the CO2 injection was likely gobbling up most of the KH in your water.

Those poor fish went from a PH of 6.0 - arguably way too low for livebearers who prefer a PH toward 8 and 10 dGH / 10 dKH in nature - with a fairly high concentration of CO2 to a tank with a PH of likely above 7.5 (given my KH measurement; I didn't measure her PH) and a very low CO2 concentration in comparison.  

It sounds to me like this was acclimation shock - the water params were just too different.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
No wonder I couldn't get them to give birth to frys. Im not livebearer keeper.
13952411.jpg
 
pbmax

pbmax

Active Member
I've had a terrible time in the past acclimating store-bought livebearers to my water (5 dKH, 4 DGH at the time). I've been much more successful with them after modifying my water params (8 dKH, 7 dGH now), even though my PH was typically around 7.8. Granted, this could be partially attributed to how they're raised in the fish farms overseas (brackish), but even platies I'm pretty sure were raised apart from salt failed to thrive for me.

Morgan - I've had guppies develop bent backs and not affect any other fish around them multiple times in the past. Chances are you've already cross-contaminated your tanks anyway, so I'd just keep an eye on them and see how your existing population does over the next couple of weeks. I'm betting only the n00bs are affected.
 
MorganEA

MorganEA

Member
You really think its shock? I drip acclimated them for over an hour. since these were new fish I was really careful about cleaning the nets and buckets with hot water so hopefully there was no cross contamination.
 
pbmax

pbmax

Active Member
Yes, I do. In my experience, even if you're super careful and do your very best to gradually acclimate a fish (I always drip-acclimate as well), sometimes it's just not enough.

I don't believe SirWesDragon has a horrible disease in his tanks, especially since he says there are no problems like yours on his end. Yes, as others have mentioned, stress does make fish more susceptible to various pathogens (bacteria like fish TB, parasites like ich), but that covers a very wide range of stuff. I could be wrong, but given the big difference in PH and likely other water parameters as well (KH almost certainly, GH possibly) and my experience in the past with livebearers dying off after surviving 1 - 3 weeks in my tanks, acclimation shock seems the most likely explanation to me.

You could always test the theory with a healthy "canary fish" from another tank.
 
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