Anyone know what's causing this?

[KJoFan]

Sorry to post with yet another problem. But I just wondered if anyone might have an idea what is causing this red/purple discoloration of the nose/mouth area in a couple of my discus? Seems like the ones that have or develop it end up dying. If there's something I can be doing to clear this up I'd sure like to know. Tank readings as of a few minutes ago:

75g tank:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 10
pH - 8.0
Temp - 87 (i turned the heater down a little, I'm aiming for 84-85)
WC - 60% daily

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c285/KJoFan/DSC03397.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c285/KJoFan/DSC03404.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c285/KJoFan/DSC03411.jpg

[Graham]

That's a bacterial infection...I think I would attack this in two ways...one assume that there's a parasite and it's breaking through the mucus layer. So I would shotgun the tank with something like Quick Cure. A scope would be nice as a quich scrape would ID any possible bug

The I would assume that the bacterial infection is a secondary invader...once the parasite is gone, the bacteria should be east to clear up with Furan or something like it.

G

[KJoFan]

Hi Graham,

I'm going to have to look into a scope yet at this rate eh? :)

This tank has gone through a round (3 days) of Quick Cure....I think the last day of that was about 3 days ago. I see occasional scratching but nothing that would alarm me that there's a big parasite problem at this point.

So I guess I should move on to trying to target the bacterial infection right? I don't think I have anything that is or has Furan. All I probably have to treat bacterial infections right now is TC and metro. My other problem ran me out of Maracyn 2 right now and I don't have enough Maracyn to treat this tank tonight. I could pick either one up tomorrow evening though. So as of right now my choices are TC and metro.

[Graham]

TC

[KJoFan]

treatment started. :D

[Graham]

Karen ...Karl looked at the thread...here's his current email addy...he thinks that the other fish could have been injected...I agree...get in touch with him

krs55124@frontiernet.net



G

[Kindredspirit]

Injected, Graham? Why? With What? You can not just leave it at that....:(

[Graham]

If you get a bacterial infection, the doctor will give you some antibiotics. You'll either have some pills to take or he'll give you an injection. Either way those antibiotics end up in our blood system where they can do the most good.

When our fish get sick with a bacterial infection we generally dump X amount of antibiotic into the water column, hoping for the best. Some of these drugs are fairly well absorbed by the fish via the gills....most are poorly absorbed and expend their ''abilities'' on the bacteria in the system and not on the fish. Medicated food is good stuff if the fish is still eating but in most cases they are not.

So what's the next step in getting those drugs into the fish.... If the fish is large enough then giving them an injection of antibiotics is the ideal way, based loosely on weight, we can inject X amount of drug directly into the fish via syringe.

I saw this done 25 years ago on marines but never had the training to do it. When I started keeping koi and started attending wet labs, we were shown how etc.

We use Human grade or Vet grade antibiotics such as Baytril, Chloramphenicol, Azactam, Amikacin (my Fav), Florfenicol and others. Curing a sore like Karen's fish had isn't all that difficult when the drugs are in the fish and not in the water.

Needless to say the larger the fish the easier it is to do, but I've injected 3'' koi and GF, along with a few of my Africans.

http://www.fototime.com/B1C3C973CEF5207/standard.jpg

[Kindredspirit]

I understand....but you are being evasive...:p You think that Karen's fish have or were injected and this infection is the end result?


or ~

Am I missing it entirely?

[Graham]

Ya missed it:D... If I had a fish here with that kind of a sore, it would have been cleaned up using either a iodione or PP swab. The fish would have then been given an injection of Baytril or Amikacin, IM/ inter muscular, in the dorsal region.

G

[Kindredspirit]

Ya missed it:D...
G


I thought so....:o I know you would have injected them and I remember thinking I want you to live closer to me too!

However....In my defense





Karen ...Karl looked at the thread... he thinks that the other fish could have been injected...I agree...get in touch with him

krs55124@frontiernet.net



G


I asked what I did because of this statement...apparently you both thought they "could have been injected"..........

With that statement, Hell I wanted to know what was going thru that great mind of yours!



Thanks, Graham!

[mmorris]

This isn't making sense to me. Are you suggesting, Graham, that the fish had this issue before Karen bought them, they were treated with an injection and then they were sold, still ill? You think `the other fish could have been injected.' Are the `other fish' the ones that died or the ones that don't show symptoms? Where is the evidence that they were injected? Martha

[KJoFan]

I think what Graham is saying is that my fish with the ulcer could have been injected with an antibiotic to help clear up the infection and save it from death. We're using "could have been" because the fish has since died. By using "the other fish" he was referring to that one with the ulcer, as it was in a separate thread from this one. If that makes sense. :) I think you guys are tending to think hormone injected or something right? But as far as I know we're just talking about antibiotic injections. But...I could be way off and we're talking about my fish! :)

[mmorris]

But what rationale is there for thinking that they could have been injected? I don't think injections are commonly done when shipping fish. Graham, you seem to think that the ulcer on the other thread was related to shipping. What justification, then, is there for an injection prior to shipping? I'm asking because I am curious and I would like to learn about this. Martha

[Graham]

OK everyone is missing what I was saying,,,Karen got it though. The sores and the sick/dead fish that Karen is experiencing are from shipping stress. The problems developed in the shipping process, not before they left.....that's an assumption:D

From what I can gather from Karen's posts, in this thread and the other one these fish were transshipped. They landed in LA, the boxes opened, the fish ''cleaned up''... what ever that entailed and re-oxygenated and shipped off again.

All this is extremely stressful and physical damage can occur to the fish. In this case the fish developed an ulcer, a bacterial infection, in a large area and had no immune system to fight it off. If Karen had, had antibiotics, around and was shown/knew how to give an injection, the odds are pretty good that fish would still be alive. The infection was very minor to start with. I've seen fish with ulcer 10 times that bad be cleaned up.

I hope this clears up the confusion. I'd suggest that any one into keeping expensive fish and especially larger ones to check out the AKCA web site and find out where koi shows are being help and see if a wet lab is being given...It's not hard to learn how to diagnose, do a scrape and scope, and given an injection...


It's a nice day here, so off to my friend's yacht for the day

:bandana:

[mmorris]

Karen ...Karl looked at the thread...here's his current email addy...he thinks that the other fish could have been injected...I agree...
G
No Graham, this doesn't clear it up. Martha

[mmorris]

Graham- do you mean `could have been' or `should have been?'
Martha

[Graham]

Could of , should of...who cares it's after that fact and not relavant at this point....if the fish which had shown ''bruising'' had been injected with antibiotics, for bacterial infections, by Karen, after they had arrived, they probably would have made it.

Martha I'm not sure what you're not getting here.

G

[Ed13]

Re: Anyone know what's causing this?

The fish traveled from Malaysia to LA, no rest or recuperation period, repacked and shipped(with delays and problems) to the dealer where they remained in his tanks(tanks where other fish are hold and may harbor international pathogens) for 24hr only to be bagged again and land in your tanks. Most likely they picked this up in the dealers tanks, with so much stress pathogens can enter the fish easily. Regardless of shape, size etc(from your livestock review) I think this fish deserve a medal for just being alive after all of this.

Sorry you are going through all of this!

[mmorris]

Could have - someone may have injected them somewhere along the route. Should have - noone injected them. If Karen was prepared to inject then they could have been injected by Karen. If she wasn't prepared, then they should have been injected. Sorry to drive you crazy Graham, but it was the use of the word `could' that threw me. I wouldn't have paid it any attention except that I thought the idea that someone may have injected along the route really, really interesting. Martha

[Graham]

Within the koi hobby there are dealers that inject all fish with antibiotics as soon as they get them in. They take no chances of the fish developing bacterial infections from shipping damage.

Breeders could never do it...too time consuming and too expensive. ''As a General Statement'' there are a lot of breeders with in the ornamental fish business that use salt and water bourne chems on a constant basis and this has lead to resistance to drugs/salt etc when we get them and have a problem


I watch the should/could and woulds next time :)

G

[KJoFan]

So is the consensus that the fish weren't treated for parasites or anything prior to arriving in my tanks? And with all the handling and stress they easily picked something up. I treated with QC at one point which may have knocked back whatever parasites they were carrying, but since their immune systems weren't built back up yet, that opened the door for bacterial problems. Does that sound about right?

I have another snow white holding it's one fin against it's side constantly now, and seems to have a bit of...raggedness look to it's eye on the same side. And when I got home last night one of my alencers was very dark, hanging out at the top and breathing hard. I counted the gill movements and they came in at about 176/minute. It seemed kind of weak as well. So I removed it to a QT tank, thinking perhaps it was just having a bad reaction to the TC that's in the main tank and retreated it with QC. I don't know if that's right or wrong but seems like I can't second guess these fish right now. Should I be doing anything differently or taking that snow white out and treating it separately as well?

[Kindredspirit]

Could have - someone may have injected them somewhere along the route. Should have - noone injected them. If Karen was prepared to inject then they could have been injected by Karen. If she wasn't prepared, then they should have been injected. Sorry to drive you crazy Graham, but it was the use of the word `could' that threw me. I wouldn't have paid it any attention except that I thought the idea that someone may have injected along the route really, really interesting. Martha


LOL!......I just kept reading this and reading!.......so it wasn't just me...that "could have" "would have" "should have"......got me too:D

[Kindredspirit]

Should I be doing anything differently or taking that snow white out and treating it separately as well?


You poor thing, Karen. If this was me, I would stop moving these fish and leave them where they are and hit the whole tank with whatever was decided on. If anything was decided on.

Stresses them out more to move them, yet again, IMO.

[KJoFan]

Good advice Marie. :) I was treating the entire tank with TC and I don't know what the issues were but I had one jump out of the tank on me (he's fine, with just a little bump on the head). So I watched them closely and they seemed ok the rest of the day. I did my WC that evening, which was about a 60% or so WC and redosed the TC. Apparently they weren't liking that as there were more attempting to vacate the tank after that. Lucky for me, I had covered up any holes earlier in the day. :) It was getting on toward bedtime and I didn't want to leave them like that, so I threw some carbon in the AC's to clear out the meds eventhough I was only on day 3 of treatment and went to bed.

They seemed better the next morning, and I decided they'd had enough. I did a big water change (probably 75%), wiped the sides of the tank down to get the foamy gunk TC leaves off and refilled with clean unmedicated water. That was Sunday, I have kept that up since and they seem to be doing better. 3 out of 4 that had the red nose/mouth area that Graham said was a bacterial infection is completely gone, only the smallest snow white has a bit of redness left but it's going away as well. The other snow white that had a beat up eye and holding it's fin seems to be doing better. It eats, the eye is clearing up and it uses it's fin more often now.

I do have the one alencer still in QT, but it'll go back in the main tank tonight, it's finished it's round of QC. They're all a bit shy and skittish but that's understandable I suppose.

Anyway, that's the update. I got tired of dumping meds in the tank because nothing was doing much good, the fish were unhappy and so was my wallet. :) I figured the best thing at this point for them was just good clean water, they should be adjusting to my water parameters by now (if that was part of the problem to begin with).

The other tank with the nice snakeskins and leopards is doing great now as well. Hopefully they are all on the mend and I won't lose anymore. *fingers crossed*

They will have to all move soon though Marie, as I'm moving the entire contents of my household in a couple weeks. :D

[kaceyo]

:)