disease treatment

[murdock6701]

have been curious for a while on treating fish diseases - if the disease is present in the tank and attacks a particular fish, is treating the fish in an isolated container going to prevent the disease from staying in the tank? I know there are a lot of diseases and realize if one one family member has a cold, you don't treat the whole house, but was just wondering about the med baths for single fishas opposed to treating the entire tank as well - this question has been presented to me before, and not being the disease specialist, I had no logical answer - perhaps a short explanation would help - please? thanks

[Carl]

Jan 9, 2009 10:27:43 GMT -5 murdock6701 said:

have been curious for a while on treating fish diseases - if the disease is present in the tank and attacks a particular fish, is treating the fish in an isolated container going to prevent the disease from staying in the tank? I know there are a lot of diseases and realize if one one family member has a cold, you don't treat the whole house, but was just wondering about the med baths for single fish as opposed to treating the entire tank as well - this question has been presented to me before, and not being the disease specialist, I had no logical answer - perhaps a short explanation would help - please? thanks

That is an excellent question that is not too difficult to answer IMO.

In diseases such as Ich (which is technically a parasite infestation), total tank treatment is necessary to cut the cycle.

However with many bacterial or fungal infection the disease pathogens are almost ALWAYS present and total eradication (even with a UV Sterilizer) is almost impossible.
In fact a recent university study of Columnaris in fish farms showed this pathogen is generally present, but it is depriving this bacterium a chance to become pathogenic by maintaining the best water conditions possible that is important. This is where many nay-sayers of UV Sterilizers who correctly say that a UV Sterilizer cannot kill everything miss the point that a UV Sterilizer also helps with Disease Prevention by improving Redox, which in turn improves fish immunity (sort of like an anti-oxidant vitamin).
See this article:
UV Sterilizers; Fish Immunity

Back to the question, injury, stress, other fish aggression, high ammonia/nitrites, long term high nitrates, low electrolytes/GH, poor circulation, low dissolved oxygen, and more is often a trigger to an otherwise sleeping bacterium. Aeromonas and Pseudomonas bacteria are also common and can also be Heterotrophically digesting wastes when not pathogenic in fish.

Saprolegnia/Fungus has similar habits of being present and only attacking weak fish and then gaining a pathogenic foothold in an aquarium. For this reason I do not agree with Wikipedia suggestion of using raw shrimp to start your nitrogen cycle as this provide the perfect fungus/Saprolegnia incubation area (I have written a suggestion to correct this error, but the person in charge is rather stubborn).

Finally sometimes a bacterial infection will remain in one weak fish, and other times this bacterium will uses this as "base of operation" to infect other fish, making complete treatment necessary; while other times isolated treatment is all that is necessary. Some bacterium such as Tuberculosis will lie relatively dormant in a fish before being noticed by the fish keeper.

This is an excellent question, which I may use to add more to my Aquarium Disease Prevention Article

Carl

[murdock6701]

thanks Carl - I have cured fish w/ med baths only to have the same thing happen to another in the tank, generally of the same species, which resulted in my treating the whole tank - gotta love blue water......your article put that question to rest

[kagome]

I think that with certain kinds of fish you should assume that if one comes down with something you should treat the whole tank and the individual fish in order to cover your bases. In my limited experience this has to do with loaches. Since they tend to be susceptible to every kind of illness and infestation, even at low levels, catching the fact that an individual is sick is a warning that something is floating around in there that is a threat to the whole school. I don't have proof or anything, but it would be my opinion that with the scaleless fish you should always go ahead and treat the whole tank just to be safe.

[murdock6701]

funny you should mention that Kagome.....I broke down today and bought a clown loach to take care of a snail hatch in my SA - selecting one was a bugger because they can move so fast in a group - got him home, acclimated him for an hour and then let him loose - damned if the bugger isn't showing signs of ich! treated w/ maracide, added salt and cranked the tank up to 80 - hope it works - spent $9 hard earned to get rid of snails and now I have a sick fish and a tank to treat!

[Carl]

Ouch sorry to read this John.

He must have already had this.

As I noted in our phone call I brought back a pair of Clown Loaches from a business trip to LA in November, they both got thin rather quickly with one not surviving more than a few days, but the other pulled through with some MB baths and Metronidazole in the tank and baths as well. Luckily no Ich though, but then they were in a 36 hour MB bath (with a Wonder Shell) on the way back

Carl

[goldenpuon]

Sorry to hear that John. I hope he pulls through.

[kagome]

John,

Sorry about the loach being sick. Almost all the varieties of loaches are wild caught and so many of them have disease and parasites when caught. Then they're shipped over here from southeast Asia and distributed to the various pet stores, it's really no wonder that so many of them turn out have some minor issues. The best remedy for the ich on a loach is Carl's medicated wondershells since most other medicines have to be half dosed to be safe for loaches. It figures, I keep suggesting to you to get a loach to take care of the snails, you finally give in and get one and it turns out to be sick. Now I feel really bad! I'm sorry that this has happened. I really hope that this loach makes it because I really think you will like their goofy antics. However, eventually you're gonna have two problems. One, loaches need to live in a group to be happy and more active. Two, over the years that loach will get way too big for that tank. But since it sounded like from previous posts that you have a business relationship with the folks at the LFS perhaps you can trade him in when he gets too big. I wish you luck on the loach getting better. Please, let me know if I can be of any help.

[bikeguy33]

good luck with that one john....i feel bad for the craptacular luck you have had as of late but i know if anyone can fix this guy it`ll be you.....good luck