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Unknown flaky fish disease that appears and kills quickly


Elleinadmai
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Hey everyone,

I have a question about a disease that I’ve been trying to figure out for awhile now without success. 
The disease appears out of nowhere, kills quickly and always creates a lot of flaky debris. The first time I saw it was while I was an employee at Petco and it killed an entire shipment of 100 guppies in 24 hours. It just showed up in my 10 gallon planted tank yesterday and it killed my school of Ember tetras in 12 hours, my Pygmy Cory catfish in 24hours, and now my Albino Cory cat and Oto both have signs of it.

On my Embers and Pygmy Cory it created a lot of flake, but now it’s starting to behave like ich. I thought it was a bacterial disease the first time I saw it, but then yesterday seeing it’s characteristics I decided it was probably a fungal disease, so I started treatment with API Fungus Cure. Now today I’m thinking it’s parasitic, but I’ve never seen a parasitic disease cause flaking like this. I did a 25% water change to reset the fungal cure I was using yesterday and I started treatment with the Paracleanse, Maracyn, and Ich-X trio today that they sell here on the site.


I unfortunately don’t have any pictures of it since everything happened so fast, but I can tell you I recently moved to a new state and this was the first time I used the tap water. The water here is weird and I wasn’t going to use it, but then I did and this happened. The only off thing before this issue appeared was my pH sitting at 6.0 (possibly lower because 6 is the lowest my test kit goes). This tank has been giving me issues as of late, but hasn’t been detrimental until now. Mostly just an abundance of algae growing.
The pic is after I started the most recent treatment. Thanks for any help given!

0D2E18A3-3FC8-4A47-A4DE-675ADFE18B82.jpeg

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On 8/5/2021 at 1:13 PM, Colu said:

I think it could be your local tap water that causing the problem the flaking your seeing could be the over production of slime  I would test your tap water do you use a dechlorinator like prime

Maybe, but could that overproduction kill fish? I definitely agree that the tap water is to blame here, I’m switching over to buying water from now on. 
I have a bottle of prime and have used it in the past, but stopped because of the smell it was creating in my tank. I usually use API Tap Water Conditioner and did use it this most recent time. From what I read on both of their descriptions they do the same things, remove chlorine and chloramines. Is there something special beyond that feature that prime does? Because I know there’s a lot of people who stand by it religiously.

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Prime also detoxify ammonia and nitirtes it's sulfainate based that why it has the smell over production of the slim coat  is a symptom of things such as high levels of chlorine or other chemical contamination of your water that's what's killing your fish  I would double dose prime and add some maracyn to cover against any secondary bacterial infection caused by the stress I would test your water for chlorine and ammonia

Edited by Colu
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I would check with your water company and see if they have a water quality report.

You may even want to take a sample somewhere and have it tested.

If my local water killed my fish that quickly, I would be afraid to drink it or even bathe in it.

Sorry about your fish.

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Wow, I am sorry that is happening to you and your fish. I don't know how long your aquarium has been set up. If this is the first time you have used the local water, maybe not long. I know that beneficial bacteria does not grow very well at a pH of six, so I am wondering what your ammonia/nitrite levels are. Sorry I don't have more to offer.

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On 8/5/2021 at 2:10 PM, Colu said:

Prime also detoxify ammonia and nitirtes it's sulfainate bases that why it has the smell over production of the slim coat  is a symptom of thing such as high levels of chlorine or other chemical contamination of your water that's what's killing your fish  I would double dose prime and add some maracyn to cover against any secondary bacterial infection caused by the stress I would test your water for chlorine and ammonia

 

That’s great information, thank you! I tested the ammonia levels and they’re at 0. I don’t have a way to test for chlorine, but I have to head to the pet store today, so I’ll be picking that up as well. I’ll update with that info later.

 

On 8/5/2021 at 2:18 PM, Scott P. said:

I would check with your water company and see if they have a water quality report.

You may even want to take a sample somewhere and have it tested.

If my local water killed my fish that quickly, I would be afraid to drink it or even bathe in it.

Sorry about your fish.

 

Yes, my fear exactly. Thank you for the advice, I’ll find out about that report.

 

On 8/5/2021 at 2:26 PM, HH Morant said:

Wow, I am sorry that is happening to you and your fish. I don't know how long your aquarium has been set up. If this is the first time you have used the local water, maybe not long. I know that beneficial bacteria does not grow very well at a pH of six, so I am wondering what your ammonia/nitrite levels are. Sorry I don't have more to offer.

 

So this tank I originally set up in 2018 and then redid last year during the quarantine. We recently moved from Charleston to Maryland and I could tell right away the tap up here was off. Although, this tank went into a bit of turmoil right before we moved because I think the quality of tap water changed in Charleston as well and I started getting all the algae growth you see in the pic above. But I just got it stable again and then this happened. So you may be right in the fact that there’s not a lot of beneficial bacteria in there. 
I went ahead and did all 3.

Ammonia-0ppm

Nitrate-5.0ppm

Nitrite-0ppm


Now here’s a curve ball I forgot about until just now. I have a Betta fish I just got in a 1 gal quarantine tank. I’ve been using tap water in her tank and she’s shown no issues other then on and off tail clamping. 

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So I was able to get some test strips that test for chlorine. This specific test strip also tests for GH and KH. These are the results:

Nitrate- between 0-20ppm

Nitrite- 0ppm

GH- 300ppm (very hard)

KH- 0ppm

Chlorine- 0ppm

pH- 6.0

I don’t typically like using test strips because of how vague they can be, but it works for what I needed.

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On 8/5/2021 at 8:28 PM, Elleinadmai said:

Yes, crushed coral is something I've been trying to find and add to my tank. It's been difficult trying to find something that's not a 10 - 15lb bag, since my tank is only 10 gallons. If anyone has any advice on where to get smaller amounts, that would be greatly appreciated.

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/water-care/products/crushed-coral-1-pound-bag

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Aquarium Co-op sells 1 lb bags. 

However not sure you want to wait on shipping since you're having issues.. I bought a big bag at one of my local big box- I get why some people don't want to for storage reasons, but you know I've needed that bag more than once since I bought it and it won't go bad if you have somewhere to put it. I've also put stuff like crushed coral and planting substrate in my garden (used and new). Coral does need replacing in tanks eventually anyway. It's nice to know it's there when you need it. I just added more coral to one of my tanks this very day. 

Edited by xXInkedPhoenixX
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On 8/5/2021 at 8:42 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

Aquarium Co-op sells 1 lb bags. 

However not sure you want to wait on shipping since you're having issues.. I bought a big bag at one of my local big box- I get why some people don't want to for storage reasons, but you know I've needed that bag more than once since I bought it and it won't go bad if you have somewhere to put it. I've also put stuff like crushed coral and planting substrate in my garden (used and new). Coral does need replacing eventually anyway. It's nice to know it's there when you need it. I just added more coral to one of my tanks this very day.

That's so true! Thanks for that reminder. I also have lots of plants, so that's also helpful knowledge!

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I got some crushed coral today and added it to my tank. How long should I wait before I test the pH again? Will this help my fish?

My Oto died last night, so the only guy left is my Albino Cory Cat. I want to pull him out and put him in a quarantine tank, but given his state, I don't want to stress him further. Any suggestions as to what I could do to help him?

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On 8/6/2021 at 9:31 PM, Colu said:

Crushed coral will take a few days to work  I would test your pH daily and see were it levels out at I would also do a.course of maracyn 

Ok, I'll keep testing the pH. I started the trio yesterday when I posted this thread. Should I keep adding packets like the normal treatment? Or just let the trio do its thing? 

I decided to pull my Cory Cat out of the tank and put him in a quarantine tank. I gave him 100% new water (not from the tap) with double dose of prime and a indian almond leaf in attempt to give some beneficial bacteria. 

I'm afraid that the water has heavy metals in it, at this point, so that's why I gave 100% new water. 

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I had something similar on my tetras, appeared quickly, very deadly, and looked similar to your photo. Someone on this forum told me it was epistylis and sent me this link to help identify it https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/10-2-4-epistylis/

Ultimately all my tetras died, but since you asked and have seen this numerous times at petco I thought I'd at least throw it out there for you to look into.

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On 8/7/2021 at 5:13 PM, Kbait said:

I had something similar on my tetras, appeared quickly, very deadly, and looked similar to your photo. Someone on this forum told me it was epistylis and sent me this link to help identify it https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/10-2-4-epistylis/

Ultimately all my tetras died, but since you asked and have seen this numerous times at petco I thought I'd at least throw it out there for you to look into.

Thank you so much for that info! It definitely started looking like that when it was on the last two guys. But the first guys that got it only had a spec or two on them and then a thick clear coat (I'm now assuming was their slime coat reacting) that would flake off. I did read in the article that it can also be mistaken as velvet. I wonder if it can change characteristics. 🤔

My Albino Cory Cat is still fighting, it doesn't look like it's gotten any worse on him, but his body is enflamed and red under his scales. I think the maracyn is working because he's starting to act more normal. And possibly the ich-x too, since that's technically still in there from the first day. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just to give this thread closure, it’s been about a month now and my albino Cory cat made it through. The maracyn worked and saved his life, but he’s the only survivor.

I’ve started using prime regularly and it’s doing a fantastic job. I’ve also started buying distilled water and I use prime even in that water... cause you never know. 
I still don’t officially know what happened in the tank; if it was unknown chemicals I couldn’t remove or heavy metals or a disease. But because it was so mysterious, I’ve completely started over and stopped using that tank/setup. 

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