HAEMORHAGIC INFECTION IN WHIPTAIL TANK! (disturbing images)

[ILLUSN]

G'day all over the last 36 hours I've had a Haemoragic infection sweep through the whiptail grow out tank, so far 87 fish dead, 1 alive.

All fish were fine on saturday morn, saturday night I found 3/4s of the fish dead (6-9cm minus tail). all had bleeding from the posterior half, where the body elongates to the tail, bloody fins were also present

did a quick check of the water (125L tank 2x1.5x1.5)
temp 30C
PH 5.5
NO2 0
NO3 0
NH3/4 3 (I assume due to all the dead fish in there)
Gh 40ppm
Kh 0


the tank gets 90% changes daily with aged water (filtered through carbon and zeolite)specs are NO3,NO2,NH3/4 all 0, Ph 5.5, kh 0, Gh 40ppm.

after 2 massive changes ammonia was back at 0. the remaing fish all died within 12 hours.

There has been no change to my routeine, except that i cleaned that tanks filter (in a bucket of tank water) on friday night.

There is nothing i can do for that tank now, so far no other tanks in the fishroom are affected, is there anything i can do to stop this disease spreading to the discus tanks (currently housing 300 fry in total)? all nets and equiptment have been sterilized.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

[Robdog]

Bad break. I guess all you can do is totally isolate that system and use all new nets and buckets, hosing etc for the other tanks to make sure it doesn't spread.

Maybe it's something that whips are weak against and it won't necessarily bother the discus. Fingers crossed eh.

[Merrilyn]

Oh no :shock: that's dreadful. So sorry to hear that.

I'm inclined to agree with Rob, that it's probably something unique to whips. I don't think it will spread to your other tanks, but you've taken all the right precautions anyway.

I'd destroy the surviving fish, or maybe think about taking him along to a vet for some pathology work.

Before you think about breeding again, I think you need some solid answers.

[ILLUSN]

Thanks Mez and Rob, I've actually brought a few into work with me today to do some path work on them, not too sure how well they'll grow on my culture media, its all geared for human pathogens (and my incubater is set at 37C not 30C), on gram stain they apprear to be gram negative rods, but theres a lot of junk on the slides from the direct smears, also alot of fungi fillaments.

Will put up photos when i get home, I've NEVER had anything wipeout a tank so fast, especially since they were so big and healthy.

They were bleeding to death in the water right in front of me!

On google i found a parragraph on a similar disease of wild caught catfish, but nothing on suseptability to antibiotics and treatment.

[fishgeek]

i would guess that has to be some bacterial septicaemia

best place to sample for septicaemia would be an organ, there will be all sorts of contamination on external surfaces ...usually kidneys are suggested though i think spleen and liver are used especially with tb

most likely guess would be pseudomonas or aeromonas , though i think they are cocci? i cant remember
gram negative is typical though of fish

generally mass wipeouts are enviromental, though if you are happy you havent had any water source issue's then that shoudnt be the case

nope just looked up a book both pseudo and aeromonas are rods
aeromonas salmonicidia- gram -ve rod 0.3-1.0x 1.0-3.5um and motile

pseudomonas - gram -ve rod 0.5-1.0 x 1.5 - 5.0 um motile

sorry for the loss

andrew

[ILLUSN]

Thanks Andrew, the same water was used on all the discus fry tanks and there have been no losses in any of those tanks yet, i think there was a problem with me cleaning the filter (dirty bucket etc i had used it the day before to make up some potting mix for the new swords, thought i cleaned it propperly though).

[taksan]

Thats a fairly common pleco disease .... nothing you can do.
Its like Ebola in humans ....

[Ben]

I have bred many whiptail species in the past with red lizards my favourite. I always use a good wattage UV sterilizer in with the fry/juvies. This has given me excellent success in breeding and raising them.

Also in my opinion a higher PH (6.5)would be more benifitial as it will give you more nitrifing bacteria.

[ILLUSN]

Its like Ebola in humans

thanks mate, thats exactly how i discribed it to the micro department.

Ben there are only 2 tanks in my fish room that dont have a UV, and you guessed it, the whiptail tank was one of them. hows that internal UV of yours working out? would you recomend one for my 125L?

upping the pH isn't really an option, the room is geared towards breeding discus, I dont have the space for another water aging barrel just for the whips.
Hopefully the adults will spawn again in the 300L which has a UV and this wont be a problem again.

the tank has been nuked with a couple of tablespoons of pp for 48hrs. Today its been drained and its sun drying now. I'll use it for my stubborn pigion pair to see if they can raise fry in a smaller tank.

[ozarowana]

I've had something similar happen in a BN colony. Red bleeding sores. I believe it to be caused by a parasitic infection with the bleeding caused by a secondary bacterial one.

Reason is I tried treating with a few different things for bacteria without much luck and the one med that worked was Cupramine.

[ILLUSN]

thanks for the tip ozarowana they were all gone so quick i didnt even get a chance to try any meds.

parents havn't re spawned yet either which is a pity.

micro department came up with nothing, to be fair the incubater isnt geared for 30C (37 as they use it for people diseases).

[fishgeek]

best to culture spleen or liver for suspect septicaemia case's
and with such rapid losses thats what i would be checking

where or how did you obtain samples ... shuold have at least grown contaminats

[ILLUSN]

Hi all me again, I've got the same damn disease now wiping out my L104's so far I've lost 2 4cm fry and my big male (6.5cm), my smaller male (5.5cm) is also starting to develop bloody fins, I've started treatment with a 2x dose of octozin and is seems to have slowed the progeression, on day 2 but there really hasn't been any improvement just no deaths.
my only other drug on hand is triple sulpher and a little erethromyacin, (but not enough to get a decent dose out of).

the problem is that the 104's share a tank with my pep and orange spot trio, so far those fish seem uneffected.

should i pull att the bristlenoses out and and just concentrate treatment on the 104's or should i leave them in there and treat them all, either way if i get aggresive with the triple sulpher I'll loose all my filter bacteria, and will have to recycle the tank.

Water parameters are fine 0 NH3,NO2,NO3 (daily changes) temp is a steady 28C there was a ph crash where the ph dropped from 5.5 to 4.2, I'm trying to bring it up (slowly) back to about 6.5 as Ben's sugested

any suggestions greatly appreciated.

*edited by ILLUSN to add pics

[Pheonix]

I had a thing breakout bout two years ago in my catfish. Killed some LF albino BN in my tank. Not like your pictures but mass bleeding in the abdomen. but not all fish were killed and i had some whiptails in there as well... Parva i think. Never had it happen again but.

would 7 degrees make much difference for your cultures?, i would have expected you to grow something

[ILLUSN]

all i managed to grow were fungus, probably because the anibiotics i use in my media target bacteri and not fungi, as i said we weren't really geared for this kind of diagnostic work, all micro could tell me were gram negative rods, if i had more erethromyacin id just use that.

this outbreak is over a year after i lost all my whips, these fish are in a quarentine tank on their own (3 peps, 3 orange spots, 6 remaining L104's)

[ILLUSN]

day three of the octozin treatment, disease seems to be steady, redness is receeding but fish are still not eating, sluggish lethargic, one of the orangespot females seems to be developing redness on her top fin, but no other fish appear effected, i upped the dose of octozin to a 1.5x dose for the last treatment to compensate for the 30% of water i changed. if the redness does not receed further by wednesday I'll have to start tripple sulpher treatment which will ruin my filters.

[TW]

I don't have any advice to offer. Just posting to wish you success in treating this terrible thing.

[Hollowman]

if the redness does not receed further by wednesday I'll have to start tripple sulpher treatment which will ruin my filters.

This is a pretty sad read my friend, :cry: I do hope the treatment works sufficiently to save the majority. If you start the course of sulpur, can you not treat in a small tank and rely on big water changes instead of nuking your filters?

Steve

[ILLUSN]

Hi Steve, if i treat in a small tank theres always the chance that once i put the fish back in they'll get reinfected, lost the small male today, the redness in his fins had almost completly subsided, i cut him open but it was messyi couldn't see any heamoraging of his internal organs, but his spleen did look VERY enlarged, it could be a viral form of heamoargic septecemia, if it is then there really is nothing i can do.

Redness on the orange spot female has also subsided and the other fish are back in their caves bar 2 104's, all fish still look listless though except the epppermint male who is fanning the entrance of his cave, hope he doesn't have a spawn in there.

[ILLUSN]

Last night the worst of the 5 survivng L104's (very plump female) was going down hill, did a 50% water change to remove most of the residual dimetrazole (octozin) and began treatment with triple sulphur (2xdose 1 tablet/20L).
This morning redness on her fins was bearly noticable just a few spots on her belly remaining, also she seems much more lively activley swimming around the tank (proably seeking the more oxygenated water), sucking on the glass etc, not just lying listless on the tank floor.
The other fish seemed to have picked up even more, the pep male is still fanning.

Tested the water before work
temp 27C, pH 6.1, NH3/4 =0, NO2 =0, NO3 <5 (bearly on detectable limit)

So the filters seem ok so far will test again tonight.

[TW]

Sounding a bit more promising Jothy. Fingers crossed for you.

[ILLUSN]

biggest remaining L104 has taken up residence in a cave and is doing everything he can to attract a girl :) The worst of the 104's has no redness on the pectrol fins anal fins or belly, the only spot is the base of the dorsal fin where the final spine is still red and there is a small tear between the 2nd and 3rd last spine, adding melafix to help heal the fin damage, if the bleeding is still obvious friday morning I'll add a second dose of tri sulphur.

water parameters pH 6.1 NH3/4 =0 NO2=0 NO3 =0-5 so filters are still ok :) :) :)