skinny disease

[kagome]

My smallest clown loach, Angel, died today. This loach has had problems from the start because he never has grown. I was thinking that he was just runty, but it was clear today that he had what they call "skinny disease". Does anyone know if or how contagious skinny disease is? The other two loaches are both big and healthy looking. I'm thinking that the other little loach that didn't grow and died may have had this as well and that may be why he died but I did not see his body until it had decomposed and grown mold. I saw Angel eat his share of both flake food and sinking pellets, so I know that he ate enough to not simply have starved to death.

[murdock6701]

am so sorry Kagome - I know how much you love your little buggers.....

[goldenpuon]

I have not heard of skinny disease. I will see what I can find on it.

[goldenpuon]

I did a search for skinny disease and I found some pictures. There's the link.

www.loaches.com/articles/images/chronic-wasting-syndrome/cws-tom-waltzeks-study-photos/tom-walzeks-skinny-disease-photos

There is another link I found with information on skinny disease. I just hope this link has valid information on skinny disease since I know there is a lot of misinfo on the internet about fish.

www.geocities.com/pktechlizard/skinny.htm

I hope that helps Kagome! Hope your fish makes a speedy recovery!

[Carl]

Sorry that this guy did not make it, I received two Clown Loaches in Nov. as a gift from an importer in LA and both came down with this skinny problem, one recovered quickly with treatment, the other did not.

This is generally causes by flagellate parasites in most cases I am familiar with, however like many so-called aquarium "diseases" like Dropsy is not a disease rather as symptom that can have more than one cause.

I read the links that Renee provided, "Mycobacteriosis" (which is the scientific name for this gram positive infection) is another possibility, but I would say a more rare one as this infection is not readily transmitted from fish to fish like an internal flagellate problem or other potential causes as well.
Erythromycin (Maracyn) as suggested in the article is gram positive, but is not the drug of choice for Mycobacteriosis as per documented studies (that does not mean it will not work, just not the best if the disease is truly Mycobacteriosis, which I have my doubts in most cases).

Metronidazole (which BTW is also primarily gram positive) general has more positive results as it not only treats many of the these rare gram positive pathogens at least as well as Erythromycin, but it is also proven effective for these flagellates.
As I noted earlier just from my own VERY recent use, that this too is not 100%, and I gave Metronidazole in baths with Methylene Blue and in the tank, but at least one guy made it for me and this mirrors many previous treatments over the years as per results.

BTW, I added a little about this subject to the Clown Loach profile as per your suggestion kagome.

Carl

[kagome]

I am beginning to wonder if there is not a genetic component to the fish that survive exposure to skinny disease. I started out with four clown loaches. One I already had and was much bigger than the other three when I bought them. Of those three little ones, two died. They were in the same tank at the LFS, then they were in the same tank together, and then the bigger one Spike was added to that tank. Presumably all three of the little fish were exposed to the same things, and then definitely were exposed to each other. But two came down with skinny disease and died while the third, Buffy, has grown so large that she is almost the same size as Spike, the much older male. Not only has she grown like crazy, but she is plump and thick bodied and has now taken on the coloration of the dominant fish in the tank. I'm wondering, of course I have no real way to investigate further, if some of the loaches are simply able to naturally fight off whatever it is that causes the various forms of skinny disease. Also, I wonder if there is some connection between the fact that the two that died were males (I'm fairly certain about that, it's harder when they're that little) and Buffy is a female. Of course that could just be a coincidence. I wish I had the means to do a study about this, I think if something could be narrowed down and a treatment with more cosistent results could be identified then a lot fewer loaches would be lost. People aren't even sure if skinny disease in clowns is the same as the similar condition in the angelicus, especially since they come from different areas.

[theoden]

You and I are the big loach lovers around here. Mine are doing well, but I've had the same problems in the past. They seemed to die off one after the other separated by a few days. I didn't know there was a name for it: the skinny disease (I called it The Wasting [which probably sounds like a Bentley Little book]). I didn't know of any treatment--didn't have a Carl around at the time (though Bruce Hamilton in Lake Charles looked at them).

I don't know. You may be on to something. Some may be able to slough off the disease, like Typhoid Mary (carrier only). Good fortune, Kagome!

[Carl]

Wasting is actually the term that this condition has been more commonly identified by in years past.

Aquatronics did some write ups about it many years back, however this once cutting edge aquarium medications and treatments company went our of business about 5 year ago (I used to always attend their seminars and meet with their reps going back to 1979).

Based on my own admittedly non scientific findings and what Aquatronics and others have said, I still believe that the majority of Loaches suffering from this have intestinal flagellates, which are VERY easily passed from one fish to another in fish that root around in the gravel such as Loaches (not so with middle feeders).

This is not to say that genetics, or bacterium such as Mycobacterium are not also a cause, but based on what I have seen read to this point (admittedly I have done little recent research, if there is even recent research).

Carl