My Nanay wild Greens ..Whirling Disease

[LizStreithorst]

Cryptobia and Whirling disease both.

[Kingdom Come Discus]

Lot's of good information here. I suppose it is likely the Wilds were infected by my domesticated discus. I broke many rules, one was keeping Wilds and Domestics together. I don't remember the pathologist name I was dealing with but she spoke at one of the NADA shows. According to her most tropical she tested 11 years ago had Crypto. That kinda took the fun out of it for me! I expect a lot more has been discovered about crypto, but the pathologist I was working with said crypto was often found to infect the brain. I think that is why we suspected crypto was the culprit. I found this article. https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/VM077

[Kingdom Come Discus]

Hi Kraig. The treatment was dimetidiazol. It did take care of the symptoms for a while but it didn't cure any of my fish. I had to toss them all out, sterilize my tanks and start over. John Nickelson says that it does cure Crypto if you catch it early enough.

Thanks for refreshing my memory Liz!

[Iminit]

Sorry to read this. What a shame they were great looking discus. Great you road it out and did this experiment. I’ve read on the net of people who have brought them back. But these seemed to be on a longer death roll. As in they lived long enough to save. I’ve had this happen twice within the last 2-3 years. First was a red tiger bought from a popular place in Jersey. Bought 2 and were in qt for I think 2weeks and the smaller one got it. Went just like yours. May still have the video. But was dead in a day. Next was a green with a blue halo bought locally. The guy told me on the way out it was a wild. I had no clue. Not sure if it was alone in qt or with others I’ll see if I still have pictures. But again I had it for about 2-3 weeks and it started whirling. But at a much slower pace. Also dead in hours. The red tigers partner is still alive 2 years later and has grown nicely never showing signs of any sickness. Strange and sad. Thing that got me was the time frame and it looking like the infected fish were moved at least 3 times before succumbing to whirling 2-3 weeks at the third spot.

[bluelagoon]

The fish show no symptom of an infection. That's the puzzling part of this disease. Fish look good, eat well and act healthy and all the sudden start whirling and die within hours of the seizure activity. No other symptoms.

[brewmaster15]

The fish show no symptom of an infection. That's the puzzling part of this disease. Fish look good, eat well and act healthy and all the sudden start whirling and die within hours of the seizure activity. No other symptoms.

Same Here...exactly how it happened.

[brewmaster15]

A quick update here. Its been about 6 weeks now since I moved the surviving wild green and the test fish outside. In that time I fed and cared for them as normal. Even though we had freezing nights the tank stayed mid to upper 80s. At no time did any test fish or the survivor whirl.

My new reality as far as income has me looking at various costs of my hobby. Really cant keep this tank going longer. I waffled back and forth on euthanizing the whole group but honestly the one wild looks and acts fine as does the test fish. Its possible what ever it is has a long incubation. Its also possible that though the green is a carrier but without an intermediate host the disease can't spread.

The hobbyist in me said don't chance it... euthanize them all. The biologist said... " hold on there bud .. you have one fish out of 10 that survived whirling disease. It would be a wasted opportunity to euthanize."

If you know me at all , You probably can guess what I did.

I ended up euthanizing all the test fish and keeping the green and one test fish. For now they are in my QT room .. i plan on moving them out to my chicken coop shed at some point the next few days. I don't think they are contagious but I am not willing to take that much a risk..

No idea what good will come of keeping them longer.. but I will... just in a smaller tank.