Gram Stain bacteria

[frenchie100]

Here is what I found in my blue scorpion's white poop.

An equal amount of purple and an equal amount of reds...

I haven't done a gram stain in 4 years so hopefully my results are accurate and not because of a technique mistake.

Please let me know if it looks legitimate!

Does this mean I should treat her with Kanamycin again?

She might have hexamita so this might be secondary- I saw some flagellates yesterday that looked suspicious. Couldn't take a picture because it was swirling around too fast , but had 2 vacuoles or maybe nuclei that were next to eachother and I couldn't see the flagellae clearly. I tried to go to 1000x, but couldn't focus in on anything and didn't have time to do oil immersion.

Sorry not the best picture. I later found better pockets of really red stained bacteria, but still overall the same ratio.

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l62/jcain100/IMG_1068-1.jpg
Thanks for all your help!

-Julie :)

[rickztahone]

what are you doing up woman? :p. i'm so sorry you are still going through all this madness. i'm also sorry that i can not help you at all with the scope pics but i hope you do get a definitive answer from the experts

[frenchie100]

I know! IT's way past my bedtime and I still have to do my water change! I just wanted to make sure I got this gram stain done!

Can you see the pic I posted, because I keep getting a red x ?

How are your fish doing? I was going to call you this week and check in! :)

-Julie

[rickztahone]

I know! IT's way past my bedtime and I still have to do my water change! I just wanted to make sure I got this gram stain done!

Can you see the pic I posted, because I keep getting a red x ?

How are your fish doing? I was going to call you this week and check in! :)

-Julie

i can see the one picture. surprisingly enough (don't want to jinx myself) they are doing much better. the BD that was really bad has lightened up a whole lot and is showing some great coloration and also his/her eyes are back to red which they haven't been for a really long time. they are also no longer passing white feces, yay!

[frenchie100]

What treatment did you end up doing? The levamisole or metro again?

I don't want to jinx you either ( I am notorious for that- my husband says it's a woman thing! :p) so I will keep my mouth shut!

julie

[rickztahone]

What treatment did you end up doing? The levamisole or metro again?

I don't want to jinx you either ( I am notorious for that- my husband says it's a woman thing! :p) so I will keep my mouth shut!

julie

nobody to the rescue here huh? here's a friendly BUMP to the top of the list Julie

[brewmaster15]

Julie,
I'm going to go out on a Limb here and say something that many of the Microscope fans may take issue with...But I really don't think that a Microscope is of much use to a Hobbyist in trying to ID a possible bacterial issue in any practical sense.... Sorry all..Thats my opinion.


Sure for a parasite...but it takes years of experience when working with Bacteria to ID them... And even if you do "stain" bacteria... How do you really know what strain and species you are dealing with? ..... and if what you stain was the bacteria that was the problem..This is especially the case when dealing with Bacteria found in the digestive track of the fish.

Ideally if you sent that fish to a lab, they may be able to isolate pathogenic bacteria by how they stain and by Culturing them on specific media types... They could then take those plates and treat them with various antibiotics to see which antibiotics are effective and which are not. If that info is attainable...that would be priceless....but Its often not ( personal experience with fish path labs there)

I think when it comes to bacterial infections that you need to either rely on a lab or need to "try" an anti-biotic thats known to work on, in this case, Internal Bacterial infections...

A good one to to Try is Maracyn 2.(mino-cycline). and it can be co-used with Maracyn 1(erythromycin)...

Another harsh reality is that most fish that suffer from internal infections may not recover even with antibiotics..weigh the use Wisely...Sometimes a fish that gets an infection is best Euthanized or left in a hospital tank to let nature take its course.

take care,
al

[frenchie100]

Hi Graham and Al,

Well I did the gram stain because I think it was Shinshin who said on my other thread that in his experience gram negative bacteria were almost always pathogenic. I think Graham, you had mentioned that bacteria needed to be cultured though.

I figured I would go the easier route :p and at least narrow it down, without actually trying to identify a specific bacteria.

Now...here is another hypothesis that I am thinking about, let me know what you think:

Eddie posted an exert from Andew Soh's book on another one of my many threads,

Quote:
White feces in discus does not indicate intestinal worm infection alone. It is generally an intestinal bacteria infection. Intestinal worms and flagellates may be one of the primary causes of irritation and damage, but bacteria are the secondary culprits that cause white feces. Even without white feces, there could be thousands of flagellates or bacteria living inside and do not seem to do harm. The condition becomes chronic, leading to the so-called 'hunger strike' or white feces, only when things we ignore signs of trouble.


I find this really interesting and wondering if I have been tackling it the wrong way.

My fish have already been treated with Kanaplex, which worked for the fish that had white feces at the time. Some time after that my blue scorpion started showing the same signs, although she had been throught he same treatment.

What if while I was treating for the bacterial infection, the stress my blue scorpion endured had given flagellates an opportunity to take over. When the Kana treatment was over, the irritation from the flagellates could have in turn allowed for bacteria to set in as a secondary infection?

Follow me or is that too far fetched? LOL :o

It was a while after the end of the Kana treatment that my blue scorpion started to show white poop. Within a few days after that she stopped eating, although she would come right up for food.

Thanks for the help !

Julie

[frenchie100]

Julie,
Euthanized or left in a hospital tank to let nature take its course.

take care,
al

LOL! Al?! You know I can't do that!!!! LOL :D

[Daniella]

Before I would go that route, I would try something extreme. I have a white butterfly that is pancake thin now because it does not eat at all. I am thinking of force feeding it with a seringue and tube before I give up on it.

when I went to an importer/breeder about a month and half ago he had a pancake like fish..very very thin and dark. I thought the fish was toasted and he said that he was thinking of utanizing it. Last time I went, 2 weeks ago, he was back on trac and getting fatter. I did not recognize the fish at all :)

I really thought it was a lost cause when I first saw it, but with discus, you really can never give up until they die.


;
LOL! Al?! You know I can't do that!!!! LOL :D

[frenchie100]

There is no way I am going to force feed my fish. She is NOT emaciated, she's actually very chunky. The level of stress that force feeding would impose on her would do way more harm than good.

I don't think I need to be doing anything extreme...



Graham? Al?
Sorry to bug you guys!

:D

[brewmaster15]

Julie,

I've tubed foods and meds into discus many times...and its absolutely not fun! and tubing in foods doesn't fix the root problem.. ..Tubing foods to the stomach when the problem here is in the Intestinal track may just make matters worse.

Its always possible that we upset the balence when we treat with meds or stress a fish out... Its also possible that a flagellate took hold when the fish was stressed....

Theres many things that can cause white off colored feces ina fish.... If you really want to try to figure this one out I would place the fish in a hospitol tank and start to systematically rule out the causes.... In any case if the fish is shedding potential pathogens into the tank..Its best in a hospitol tank...

Drop me a Pm Julie if you want to some help trying to Rule these things out...we'll tackle it like your water..step by step.:)

-al

[ShinShin]

I do agree with Al on the need to culture a bacteria for proper ID and susceptability. On the other hand, that fact that you did find gram negative bacteria (rods?) (or so they appear to be rods, but with the fuzzy pic, diplococci may be possible), you may have at least confirmed a bacterial infection. Like Al said, normal flora occurs in the intestinal tract, but normal flora tends to be gram positive cocci as far as I know.

Mat

[Roxanne]

I agree with Al about ID ing bacteria, there's soooo many...I'll assume bacteria if I don't scope high amounts of anything parasitic....it is good though to not have to guess what you are dealing with when you have a fish health issue, that's for sure;)

[frenchie100]

Al- sent you a PM.

Graham and Rox- thanks for the help guys ( and girls, LOL)!

-Julie

[frenchie100]

Hi Graham and Al,

Well I did the gram stain because I think it was Shinshin who said on my other thread that in his experience gram negative bacteria were almost always pathogenic. I think Graham, you had mentioned that bacteria needed to be cultured though.

I figured I would go the easier route :p and at least narrow it down, without actually trying to identify a specific bacteria.

Now...here is another hypothesis that I am thinking about, let me know what you think:

Eddie posted an exert from Andew Soh's book on another one of my many threads,

Quote:
White feces in discus does not indicate intestinal worm infection alone. It is generally an intestinal bacteria infection. Intestinal worms and flagellates may be one of the primary causes of irritation and damage, but bacteria are the secondary culprits that cause white feces. Even without white feces, there could be thousands of flagellates or bacteria living inside and do not seem to do harm. The condition becomes chronic, leading to the so-called 'hunger strike' or white feces, only when things we ignore signs of trouble.


I find this really interesting and wondering if I have been tackling it the wrong way.

My fish have already been treated with Kanaplex, which worked for the fish that had white feces at the time. Some time after that my blue scorpion started showing the same signs, although she had been throught he same treatment.

What if while I was treating for the bacterial infection, the stress my blue scorpion endured had given flagellates an opportunity to take over. When the Kana treatment was over, the irritation from the flagellates could have in turn allowed for bacteria to set in as a secondary infection?

Follow me or is that too far fetched? LOL :o

It was a while after the end of the Kana treatment that my blue scorpion started to show white poop. Within a few days after that she stopped eating, although she would come right up for food.

Thanks for the help !

Julie

UPDATE: Hi everyone!

So going back with the same reasoning that I might have been treating the irritants without actually tackling the root cause, I decided to treat with metronidazole.

Here was my treatment protocol:

Jehmco metro at 400mg/10 gallons every 8hrs ( 12 am, 8 am, 4 pm)
50 % wc before each dosing
2 tablespoons/10 gallons Epsom Salt
Treated for 7 full days
Temp 93F
Lights off

Finished the tx last thursday and will be keeping the temperature up for a whole week and then slowly bringing it back down. I hesitated about rasing the temp because of the fact I had inititally thought it was a bacterial infection. I decided to raise it anyways and be on the look out for bloating in my blue scorpion.

After 3 days of treatment my blue scorpion started to be her fisty self again, and her eyes were starting to be bright red again.

On day 5 she started to eat food out of my hand again.

I treated the whole tank because I was having a recurring issue with internal bacterial infections. First my PB, then my golden butterfly, then my blue scorpion. Each Kana treatment seemed to have worked, but soon after each treatment was when another fish would also get it.

So since I thought I might have seen hexamita ( really hard to see!), I suspected that the internal bacterial infections were secondary to hexamita.

Behavior wise, what was really interesting is that no one ever stopped eating throughout the whole treatment. They acted completely normal! Which actually caused me to freak out a little last saturday, thinking I was messing up with my dosage, but to make a long story short, in the end, I was doing it right!

So I kept feeding them 6-8 times a day since I was changing the water 3x a day too!

Now I need to get these guys out of this 55 gallon, that they have outgrown!

Thanks for all the help!

-Julie :)

[rickztahone]

UPDATE: Hi everyone!

So going back with the same reasoning that I might have been treating the irritants without actually tackling the root cause, I decided to treat with metronidazole.

Here was my treatment protocol:

Jehmco metro at 400mg/10 gallons every 8hrs ( 12 am, 8 am, 4 pm)
50 % wc before each dosing
Treated for 7 full days
Temp 93F
Lights off

Finished the tx last thursday and will be keeping the temperature up for a whole week and then slowly bringing it back down. I hesitated about rasing the temp because of the fact I had inititally thought it was a bacterial infection. I decided to raise it anyways and be on the look out for bloating in my blue scorpion.

After 3 days of treatment my blue scorpion started to be her fisty self again, and her eyes were starting to be bright red again.

On day 5 she started to eat food out of my hand again.

I treated the whole tank because I was having a recurring issue with internal bacterial infections. First my PB, then my golden butterfly, then my blue scorpion. Each Kana treatment seemed to have worked, but soon after each treatment was when another fish would also get it.

So since I thought I might have seen hexamita ( really hard to see!), I suspected that the internal bacterial infections were secondary to hexamita.

Behavior wise, what was really interesting is that no one ever stopped eating throughout the whole treatment. They acted completely normal! Which actually caused me to freak out a little last saturday, thinking I was messing up with my dosage, but to make a long story short, in the end, I was doing it right!

So I kept feeding them 6-8 times a day since I was changing the water 3x a day too!

Now I need to get these guys out of this 55 gallon, that they have outgrown!

Thanks for all the help!

-Julie :)

glad to hear it Julie and i'm glad they are doing well now. did you end up getting the scale?

[frenchie100]

Well if you insist ;), I will go into my saturday freak out! I thought it would be too much to add to the last post!

For all of you, I called Ricardo freaking out on Saturday because I thought I had been way underdosing my fish for the past 3 days, and that now, the pathogen was probably immune to the metro!

Unforuntely no, I still don't have a gram scale, which is a huge mistake.

So because I was going to use the higher end of the concentration, I kinda roughed it, using ratios. Not a good idea and will never do it again.

I used a little less than 3/4 of a teaspoon for the 55 gallons.

But then I freaked out because I read this thread post #2

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=42898&highlight=metronidazole

Which totally confused me. I thought he meant that 1 tsp= 312 mg/10 gallons.

So when I called you I had just dosed according to Ardan's ratio, which I added 5 more teaspoons I think! Then I drove around everywhere looking for a gram scale ( staples, pharmacy, home depot, ace hardware, you name it...).

Then went home, my husband did the calculation again for me, which turned out that my orginal dosage was correct!

So now, not only was I not undersoding my fish, but completely overdosing them!!!! :mad:

Of course, I didn't have enough warm aged water ready because I was doing 3 wc a day of 1/3 aged tap, 2/3 RO. That's a lot of water to make everyday for 3 times a day wcs!!

So I put some carbon cartridges in my emperor 400, and turned the lights on.

So they pretty much got a metro bath for a couple of hours! They didn't seemed bothered by it, still ate and everything.

Lesson learned: Never rough it! Always use a gram scale!!!

So there you go, my saturday drama! But all turned out okay ;)!

*sighhh* :D

-Julie

[Eddie]

That is fantastic news Julie! I am so glad to hear your fish are doing well with the treatment.

Take care and best with everything,

Eddie

[frenchie100]

Oh, I forgot to mention that during the entire metro treatment I also used 2 tablespoons/10 gallons of Epsom Salt.

I will go edit my previous thread to include that.

:D

-Julie