K.G.BETTAS

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Diseases 

Why do fish get sick?  Simple, fish are living organisms.  When you are trying to keep live creatures, pathogens are always present.  Humans get sick, dogs and cats get sick... and so do fish.  Pathogens can be present in the water, or the pathogens can reside inside the fish's protective slime coat.  Sometimes, especially with an outdoor pond, pathogens may be introduced to the pond by wild birds, snails, frogs or crawdad's.  Fish are natural carriers of diseases.  When a fish becomes stressed, or there is a water quality problem, i.e. drop in temperature, improper pH, stress from being kept in the wrong type of environment, nutritional deficiency, humans handling the fish or tapping on the glass...or another aggressive species in the tank picking on it, the fish will eventually become ill.

When you medicate your fish, it is always important to follow the directions on the container before medicating. It is also important not to mix any medications together before contacting a professional.

Some medications cannot be mixed together and the results could be fatal to your fish. We have found that many people can be hypochondriacal when medicating their tanks, and either think that if they use more medication than is required, or that if they mix several medications together, it will cure the fish. This is not the best way to handle the problem obviously.

And one final word: There is no such thing as an overnight cure for fish diseases. These things take time. When using antibiotics the minimum treatment time is 10 days. If you medicate for less time, you have a chance of creating a resistant strain of pathogen and must switch to a stronger (and more expensive) medication to solve the problem.


Symptons of illness It could be... Treatment
Your new fish have died - there are no obvious signs of illness "New Tank Syndrome" Adding fish to a brand new aquarium stresses the fish, and sometimes it can be fatal.
Loss of appetite An enviromental problem, newly-introduced fish can be slow to feed (stress), certain fishes will refuse anything but live foods. Enviromental: inspect for any manifestations of disease, and get a basic water tester (Ammonia etc). The same with stress. Be patient with them. Look for other signs of disease.
2,3) Cotton Wool effect on the body Fungus, Columnarius (Mouth fungus) If you see this disease, can use medication (ie "Anti Fungus") and a Salt bath (1 teaspoon per gallon)
1) Small, white spots on the head, body and fins. Whitespot (Ichthyophthirius) A very common disease (especially in a new aquarium). There are several formulas around, dose the fish quickly before the parasite spreads. Salt could be used (1 teaspoon per galloon).
8) Fraying of the soft tissue (fin membrane) Fin Rot, the disintegration of the fins Use medication before a secondary infection occurs, it will take several days before there is serious fin damage. Could use salt bath (1 teaspoon per gallon)
Appearance of a whitish film over the eye of the fish Poor water quality, poisoning (Chlorine) or Eye Fluke Poor water: Water changes are required. Poisoning: Make sure to condition tap water. Eye Fluke: Use medication
4) Fish are gasping, on the bottom of the aquarium, red streaks around gills Most probably oxygen starvation, or a Gill disease You have too many fish, an air punp may help. Gill diseases are quite rare, you could actually see the gills rot away: use medication.
5) Worms are visibly seen hanging from the gills, fish are gasping Gill Worm (Dactylogyrus) This is another parasite. Use anti-parasite drugs as directed.
7) Reddining of the skin, or red streaks in the fins Virus, Ulcers (Bacterial infection) Viruses can only be seen through microscopes - and its incurable. With a bacterial disease, use a anti-bacteria or anti-internal treatment. A prolonged SALT bath (3-5 g/litre for several days) will alliviate osmoregulatory stress in the case of severe ulceration.
Scales seem to be raised, fish are bloated. Dropsy (Ascites) Dropsy is more of a sympton than an actually disease yet, and is quite common. Most associated with a bacterial infection (cause could be wide - poor water conditions are often the culprit. Meds can be used, but dont always work.
Small, worm like parasites attached to fish, fish scraping against rocks. Anchor worm (lernea) There are many Crustacean Parasites around, and can be exported into your water. Meds are available.
6) Dull colour (mucus), detached skin, fraying of the fin. Mucus Hyperproduction. This called by caused by Slime disease (parasite, meds available), poor water conditioners (high Nitrogenous wastes), fFukes, stress.

A word of warning with using medication: Obviously people want to save their fish, so they go and buy a product, and sometimes these can be quite effective. But a word of warning - some meds can be very detrimental in the long term. Treatments whitch use Malachite Green and Methylene Blue can be useful treatments for parasites and Fungus, unfortunately they can destroy our beneficial bacteria, and then you can get a Ammoni/Nitrite peak for some time. Also some meds demand it that they remove Carbon/Zeolite for the duration of the treatment - this can effectively start up a mini-cycle as the Carbon/Zeolite have lost their bacteria.

Salt bath: So a salt bath is a good way of treating the fish without damaging the bacteria we need. It is a good antiseptic and fungicide. If you are using high doses, its best to try to gradually raise the concentration, so the fish don't become stressed. Sometimes it can be effective to use a short salt bath, with higher salt concentration (such as fungal infection - 10G/Litre for 30 min).

 

As soon as the fish are introduced to your tank, you must be alert straight away to prevent any illnesses. You will probably be looking in you new aquarium, thinking how good it is, but make sure that there are no problems as well .

Check and observe the fish: Look for problems with the skin, which are obviously the most important, where an infection can arise. Make a roll call for all of your fish, because if a fish is ill he will more than likely hide. He may then die there, and if the tank has a lot of hiding places, may never be found. Then he will just be polluting the tank, and get him as soon as possible.

Prevent any diseases: Its not always easy to cure an illness, so its better to prevent the whole thing. Tough, but if you keep a vigil you may find a small problem with a fish, diagnose it and then treat it, the problem is prevented.
The good health of your fish is very dependant on their enviroment - poor water condition (and I can tell you to start with my water was toxic to say the least), stress or incorrect feeding can lead to illness.

Fish go to the toilet, well, they don't really give a damn they just drop it anywhere, so because of that they add a lot of Ammonia. Its not just fish excrement, its fish respiration, excess food, plant remnants and even any dead fish that cannot be found. If you had a huge amount of water, the ammonia would dissipate quite well, but where you have a new aquarium ammonia tends to concentrate. This is a vulnerable time as no fish will enjoy such high levels, but some are tough (platys, barbs) and can withstand these levels. But your ammonia level is just a stage, as biological filtration and beneficial bacteria will reduce it, but it takes time to do this.

To remove ammonia altogether would be bloody hard: instead, we use numerous bacteria that uses ammonia as a food source. The bacteria strain that is important is Nirosomonas. This strain needs time to colonise the aquarium, the desired population doesn't just happen overnight. This is useful as it absorbs ammonia, and reduce it to Nitrite.

Once Nirosomonas have reduced ammonia to nitrite, beneficial bacterias isn't finished yet. Nitrite can be reduced further to Nitrate. The next step is the bacteria strain of Nitrobacter. Nitrobacter takes even more time to adsorb nitrite, and in this stage nitrite is prominent and it is another dangerous time for a fish, even a hardy one. But, after a while, nitrite levels have reduced and the less toxic compound nitrate is left. Although this toxin is far less dangerous than the earlier two, you must not let it build up in your anquarium. Standard water changes are a chore, but I would recommend you to do them as this reduces nitrate concentrations, and your fish will then be more healthy and will appreciate you for it!! (Well, maybe not but it can prolong the life of your fish). In technical terms, the Nitrogen Cycle process is called Nitrification - the oxidation of nitrogen by bacteria.

This diagram shows the basic Nitrogen cycle in a tropical freshwater aquarium.

This graph shows how the ammonia concentration builds to a spike, then rapidly falls. That is because Nitrosomonas has taken hold, and reduces ammonia to Nitrite. Then Nitrobacter comes along and reduces it further to Nitrate.

These values are just what could happen in an aquarium, your values will vary.