Fast Moving, Weird Illness

[dasaltemelosguy]

Hi Everyone,

I've run into an incredibly fast-moving disease with fish in QT that is unlike anything I've experienced previously. I have 5 adult Dojo loaches and some Electric Blue Acaras that are new and presently in QT.

They've been in QT for about 3 days when I noticed one dojo had what looked like fin rot starting. The following day his entire tail fin was gone and most of his face as well. Yet the poor thing was alive. He truly looked fine and just overnight he lost most of his tail and mouth, leaving open, red sores. I've never seen anything progress at this rate. The loach died only 2 days after ANY symptoms appeared.

The next day a 2nd loach began seeing white patches and open, red sores.

I began @Colu's recommended treatment for columnaris immediately after I realized it was not fin rot. 

The 2nd loach looks terrible but is amazingly enough, managing to eat with a good deal of his mouth missing. 

A day into the above treatment and the white patches have physically fallen off, leaving open, red sores. 

I'm stumped as it had begun as what looked like classic columnaris but I've never, ever seen a disease progress at this rate. I turned down the heat to try to slow it, but I really have no idea what this is. Nor have I seen the open, red sores before.

Has anyone out there ever seen such a thing or have any ideas?

The treatment in process is the classic:

Nitrofurazone/Kanamycin

Nitrofurazone

W/C

Nitrofurazone/Kanamycin

Nitrofurazone

Nitrofurazone/Kanamycin

W/C

It's only been 2 days in the meds so far. 

Below are two shots of the dojo. They're quite graphic:

Thanks everyone. 

[Guppysnail]

I’m so sorry your guys are hurting. I have heard of vibrio and possibly aeromonas being flesh eating in fish. I am unfamiliar with either or treatment of but that may point you in the right direction to research. 

[Colu]

It could be an aggressive stain of Columnaris or a mycobacterium or you could be dealing with a viral infection what I would do is finish a full course of kanaplex and nitrofurazone based medication following the treatment schedule and add a small amount of aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 5 gallons that will help Gill function and add essential electrolytes add an extra air stone if your noticing no improvement after that then I would follow up with a course of maracyn2 in food if you can get them to eat active ingredient is minocycline that has proven effective at treating some mycobacterium infections in the early stages looking at your loach if it progresses any further I consider humanely euthanizing with clove oil  @dasaltemelosguy

Edited June 14, 2022 by Colu

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 6/14/2022 at 12:26 PM, Colu said:

It could be an aggressive stain of Columnaris or a mycobacterium or you could be dealing with a viral infection what I would do is finish a full course of kanaplex and nitrofurazone based medication following the treatment schedule and add a small amount of aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 5 gallons that will help Gill function and add essential electrolytes add an extra air stone if your noticing no improvement after that then I would follow up with a course of maracyn2 in food if you can get them to eat active ingredient is minocycline that has proven effective at treating some mycobacterium infections in the early stages looking at your loach if it progresses any further I consider humanely euthanizing with clove oil  @dasaltemelosguy

Thank you so much. I'll try that. Ironically, as bad as he looks, he's eating so I can certainly medicate the food as you prescribed. And yes, if it worsens, I'll use the clove oil. I really appreciate your help @Colu. This is not the first time you've helped me! Thanks so much. 

[Colu]

On 6/14/2022 at 9:44 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:

Thank you so much. I'll try that. Ironically, as bad as he looks, he's eating so I can certainly medicate the food as you prescribed. And yes, if it worsens, I'll use the clove oil. I really appreciate your help @Colu. This is not the first time you've helped me! Thanks so much. 

Not a problem keep us updated fingers crossed you get a good outcome 

[Jawjagrrl]

I don't have anything useful to offer, sounds like @Colusee has provided a good protocol, but just wanted to say how sorry I am to see you wrestling with this. I rarely see illness but really struggle when it happens, same with all my animals. I do hope your treatment is effective and fast. If there was ever a teaching moment to convince folks about the importance of QT, that dojo loach pic is it!

Have any of the acaras shown any symptoms, or is it just the loaches?

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/14/2022 at 11:03 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:

They've been in QT for about 3 days when I noticed one dojo had what looked like fin rot starting. The following day his entire tail fin was gone and most of his face as well. Yet the poor thing was alive. He truly looked fine and just overnight he lost most of his tail and mouth, leaving open, red sores. I've never seen anything progress at this rate. The loach died only 2 days after ANY symptoms appeared.

Could it be some flesh eating something?

Severe case of PH burn?

Fish TB?

I would call the place where you got the fish, be very careful when working in that tank until you know what it is.

[Torrey]

@dasaltemelosguy I have heard of it, and reached out to a friend at NMSU to see if they can get me the information from behind paywall.

Until then, this paper and the video from Secret History talk about it.

If I hear anything from my friend, I will let you know. @Baphijmm may know of research at NMSU regarding the impact of Aeromonas hydrophila in feral fish populations.

[dasaltemelosguy]

@Torrey , @Jawjagrrl and @nabokovfan87, thank you. It certainly appeared to be a flesh-eating pathogen, but the speed was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Under a day between symptoms appearing and death. 

To give you an idea, one night one of the dojos had what looked like mild fin rot. The following morning his tail was gone as was most of his face was gone, even his eyes. He died and then it struck another. Sores appeared, 24 hours later, he looked like the picture above.

The fish that develop the sores at first just look terrible but behave normally so I started @Colu's columnaris treatment. But if they show sores, it's too fast for the meds. By then it worsens, and they thrash violently and chaotically like they're on fire. Awful stuff. the kind of thing that makes you consider giving up fishkeeping. It looked so painful, when that behavior starts, I give up on trying to heal them as it looks like torture. I've euthanized four of them so far. 

Today I see the last 3 dojos swimming actively with no sores. They had redness but it cleared up. So @Colu's treatment once again, may be killing off the pathogen. 

And yes @Jawjagrrl, the acaras are unaffected oddly enough! They all came down with ich but that's already half gone now. I couldn't agree more about QT. I've seen fish in QT for 2 weeks that are fine, still coming down with something a week later. After that I got a separate set of everything per tank to avoid cross-tank. After this, I may get a separate room and a hazmat suit for QT!  

For what it's worth, this and a nasty camallanus outbreak last year saw me searching for euthanasia alternatives. I really like this stuff. I put the poor fish in quart of water 1 drop every 15 minutes and they just seem to go unconscious. If you go slowly enough, I've never seen them struggle or visually indicate discomfort. They just tip over and you await gill movement cessation. @Odd Duck is a veterinarian and advised that this stuff has a narrow window between anesthetic dosage and lethal dosage so it's precarious to dose as a tranquilizer. But for euthanasia, LD is the goal and I do think it's a gentler transition than with clove oil. 

There's no substitute for experience 😵 but ignorance of this disease sure sounds blissful right now...arrgghh! This is the stuff I've used if you ever find yourself in this most dark corner of this hobby.

koi-sedate

Maybe I'll start collecting stamps!

Thanks everyone. I'll let you know if the rest make it. So far, it's looking good...

[eatyourpeas]

I am so sorry you are going through this, @dasaltemelosguy.

Events like this can leave so exhausted and perplexed, (you, and @Colu, and other forum members helped me get through when I had the CPD and Lampeye disease), especially when you think you are doing everything right. After my last experience with Columnaris, I am now keeping the fish in quarantine about six weeks. I know it may seem excessive, but sometimes it takes a long time for some diseases to manifest and start spreading.

I hope they pull through, and can have a happy life in your tank.

On 6/16/2022 at 8:08 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:

Maybe I'll start collecting stamps!

You can be the aquarium philatelist on the forum! 😉

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 6/16/2022 at 8:59 AM, eatyourpeas said:

I am so sorry you are going through this, @dasaltemelosguy.

Events like this can leave so exhausted and perplexed, (you, and @Colu, and other forum members helped me get through when I had the CPD and Lampeye disease), especially when you think you are doing everything right. After my last experience with Columnaris, I am now keeping the fish in quarantine about six weeks. I know it may seem excessive, but sometimes it takes a long time for some diseases to manifest and start spreading.

I hope they pull through, and can have a happy life in your tank.

You can be the aquarium philatelist on the forum! 😉

That's so kind of you, thank you so much. As of this morning, I think the meds are working. Everyone looks better and more active. Whatever that horror was, i think it's passing. After this, a 6-week QT sounds like a VERY good idea! 

[Hannah Parker]

Those poor dojos, that is just awful, but thank you for sharing so others can learn from this experience. 

On 6/16/2022 at 11:08 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:

But for euthanasia, LD is the goal and I do think it's a gentler transition than with clove oil. 

I agree that clove oil can be a hard transition. I keep small fish, and have had to euthanize primarily bettas and it has been really hard to get the dosage low enough for it to be seamless. The last one I had to do fought the sleeping effects pretty hard and it wasn't as peaceful as I wanted it at all. I just wanted to make sure I understood right:

On 6/16/2022 at 11:08 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:

 

koi-sedate

 

This is what you've been using as a euthanasia alternative to clove oil? Do you know if you can use this on all FW fish?? Thank you again for the learning experience, I'm sure many of us here want to know the best and most ethical way to help our dying ones along. 

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 6/16/2022 at 9:28 AM, Hannah Parker said:

Those poor dojos, that is just awful, but thank you for sharing so others can learn from this experience. 

I agree that clove oil can be a hard transition. I keep small fish, and have had to euthanize primarily bettas and it has been really hard to get the dosage low enough for it to be seamless. The last one I had to do fought the sleeping effects pretty hard and it wasn't as peaceful as I wanted it at all. I just wanted to make sure I understood right:

This is what you've been using as a euthanasia alternative to clove oil? Do you know if you can use this on all FW fish?? Thank you again for the learning experience, I'm sure many of us here want to know the best and most ethical way to help our dying ones along. 

Thank you so much for the kind words. I do very much prefer this stuff to using clove oil for the reason you cited. I had a bad clove oil experience when my betta passed too. So long as you go slowly, this stuff seems to quit literally put them to sleep and then you increase it until the gills stop. I'm sure there's better options I'm unaware of but this seems much less traumatic on fish than clove is. I don't know about what fish types but I've had the displeasure of having to put down severums, electric blue acaras and now the dojos with it and it always went well. Thank you again. 

[Odd Duck]

@dasaltemelosguy, I’m so sorry you’ve been going through this.  It sounds like you have it controlled at this point but for sure do a full 6, and maybe 8 week quarantine, for all fish that were in the tank.  I’ve not seen infections spread so fast on a fish before, so whatever it was, was incredibly nasty.  Thankfully @Coluhad the right combo treatment for you.

Just FYI, I don’t typically read the Diseases section.  Working emergency like I do, I deal with so much animal death that I don’t choose to in my off time.  I’m so glad Colu takes care of y’all so well.  But if you (or anybody else) have questions or any kind of incident like this, you can tag me or DM me and I’ll do my best to help.  If someone does show up with new lesions, you can take a swab and do both a wet mount in a drop of dechlorinated water with a coverslip over it, then video at your highest magnification.  Also do a smear of the swab (just roll it gently across the slide) and stain it and send me pics at various magnifications.  If you have DiffQuik stain, Gram’s Stain, or any others, do a prep for each type of stain system you have since they can tell us different things.  Mark them as to what kind of stain they are and send them to me or post them.  I’ll do my best to help out.

I’m glad things seem to be turning around.  Sorry you’ve been through this.

[Colu]

On 6/16/2022 at 4:08 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:

Today I see the last 3 dojos swimming actively with no sores. They had redness but it cleared up. So @Colu's treatment once again, may be killing off the pathogen

As your starting seeing some improvement I would follow up with a second course of kanamycin and nitrofurazone for the second course of treatment I would use the kanaplex in food and nitrofurazone to treat the tank 

[anewbie]

Let us know if this work. I have some sort of similar disease that ate my clown loaches tail in a week. I tried feeding them kanaplex and tried dosing kanaplex in the tank but neither seem to help so i'm curious of maracyn works better (not sure what the difference is between maracyn and maracyn2). I had 6 clowns - 2 have died one is totally unaffected and 2 seem to be fighting it off - but one could probably use some help.  I'll probably also have one zebra loach die but the other 9 seem ok. All tetras died but the plecos and cory seem unaffected. Nasty disease.

[Colu]

On 6/16/2022 at 9:46 PM, anewbie said:

not sure what the difference is between maracyn and maracyn2

The difference between maracyn and maracyn2 is maracyn active ingredient is erythromycin works primarily against gram positive and some gram negative were as maracyn2 active ingredient is minocycline is a synthetically derived  form of tetracycline  is more effective at treating gram negative bacterial infections and also has antiinflammatory properties what your describing I would recommend treating with kanaplex and jungal fungas clear fizz tabs containing nitrofurazone together following this treatment schedule 

Edited June 18, 2022 by Colu
Typo

[anewbie]

Well the tank is 100 gallons; so that would be 10 tablets per treatment of fungus clear? They have it at walmart and i could in theory get it tomorrow.

[Colu]

On 6/16/2022 at 10:32 PM, anewbie said:

Well the tank is 100 gallons; so that would be 10 tablets per treatment of fungus clear? They have it at walmart and i could in theory get it tomorrow.

Can you Qarantine them in a smaller tank then you don't have to use as much medication 

[dasaltemelosguy]

I feel a little guilty asking so many questions of you guys! @anewbie I will definitely report the results as what you had seems to be similar.

At the risk of being a PIA, I had one more question. The electric blue acaras sharing the QT tank with the afflicted dojos are covered in ich but otherwise healthy and eating well. I have 1tbps of salt/5 gallons in there at present as I was worried about over salting the dojos. Admittedly I have no idea if that's really a concern or not! 

@Colu's treatment is clearly working. The disease was so fast but the ones that survived have lost all redness and eat like crazy now. It's only day-3 of the treatment! So naturally I don't want to stop it too early as it's really working well but is there something I can add to treat the ich simultaneously?

Sorry about all the questions. Thanks everyone. 

[anewbie]

No really; the only alternative is IF i can catch them i could treat them in a 5 gallon pail but that is too small for these. - the one that is worse off i might try to trap in a cave but right now he is hiding iin the plants where i can't reach him. I have just a little furan-2 left. Not much. 

[anewbie]

I just want to be clear - i need both jungle clear and kanaplex to treat a 100 gallon of water for 5 days of jungle and 3 days of kanaplex; so 50 tablets of jungle clear or 6 boxes. hum. also that stuff is going to kill all the plants which might cause other issues.

[Colu]

On 6/16/2022 at 10:45 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:

I feel a little guilty asking so many questions of you guys! @anewbie I will definitely report the results as what you had seems to be similar.

At the risk of being a PIA, I had one more question. The electric blue acaras sharing the QT tank with the afflicted dojos are covered in ich but otherwise healthy and eating well. I have 1tbps of salt/5 gallons in there at present as I was worried about over salting the dojos. Admittedly I have no idea if that's really a concern or not! 

@Colu's treatment is clearly working. The disease was so fast but the ones that survived have lost all redness and eat like crazy now. It's only day-3 of the treatment! So naturally I don't want to stop it too early as it's really working well but is there something I can add to treat the ich simultaneously?

Sorry about all the questions. Thanks everyone. 

With you using kanamycin and nitrofurazone salt is your best option the level need to successfully treat ich is 1 table spoon for 1 gallon but that would be harmful to your loach what I would do is lower the temperature as much as you can and increase the salt to 1 table spoon for 3 gallons gradually to buy your self sometimes to finish the current course of treatment then I would water change out the medication and start treating with ick x

 

On 6/16/2022 at 10:52 PM, anewbie said:

I just want to be clear - i need both jungle clear and kanaplex to treat a 100 gallon of water for 5 days of jungle and 3 days of kanaplex; so 50 tablets of jungle clear or 6 boxes. hum. also that stuff is going to kill all the plants which might cause other issues.

Yes you would need that much nitrofurazone can effect plant growth I have used it with vallisneria javan fern Anubis and water lettuce and didn't notice much of an effect on my plants just growth slowed down for a couple of weeks 

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 6/16/2022 at 2:58 PM, Colu said:

With you using kanamycin and nitrofurazone salt is your best option the level need to successfully treat ich is 1 tablespoon for 1 gallon but that would be harmful to your loach what I would do is lower the temperature as much as you can and increase the salt to 1 tablespoon for 3 gallons gradually to buy your self sometimes to finish the current course of treatment then I would water change out the medication and start treating with ick x

 

Thanks so much. That sounds like the best approach to hold off the ich until I can fully treat it. Thanks so much.  

[Torrey]

On 6/16/2022 at 9:08 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:

Today I see the last 3 dojos swimming actively with no sores. They had redness but it cleared up. So @Colu's treatment once again, may be killing off the pathogen. 

And yes @Jawjagrrl, the acaras are unaffected oddly enough! They all came down with ich but that's already half gone now. I couldn't agree more about QT. I've seen fish in QT for 2 weeks that are fine, still coming down with something a week later. After that I got a separate set of everything per tank to avoid cross-tank. After this, I may get a separate room and a hazmat suit for QT!  

 

On 6/16/2022 at 12:09 PM, Odd Duck said:

 I’ve not seen infections spread so fast on a fish before, so whatever it was, was incredibly nasty.

 

On 6/16/2022 at 12:09 PM, Odd Duck said:

Mark them as to what kind of stain they are and send them to me or post them.  I’ll do my best to help out.

 

On 6/16/2022 at 2:46 PM, anewbie said:

I'll probably also have one zebra loach die but the other 9 seem ok. All tetras died but the plecos and cory seem unaffected. Nasty disease.

 

On 6/16/2022 at 3:45 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:

treatment is clearly working. The disease was so fast but the ones that survived have lost all redness and eat like crazy now. It's only day-3 of the treatment! So naturally I don't want to stop it too early as it's really working well but is there something I can add to treat the ich simultaneously?

I brought all the quotes together in case anyone doesn't take the time to go back and read everything.

@Odd Duck if I manage to get my hands on the research I will send it to you, as it would appear this particular microbe is appearing more often. I was almost positive NMSU had done some research on it, as an ag school. I can't remember who in the forum works/worked with fish farms? That was the first paper I read on this, was a flesh eating disease that spread rapidly through a fish farm (my memory is faulty ever since the stroke, but I want to say less than a month from first loss to total loss).

What I saw in a couple of forums, and in several antidotal reviews, was it consistently seems to wipe out one species, but a less stressed species only gets ich. My original question when I first read about this (near the beginning of covid) is are we witnessing in real time how elevated temps are altering what used to be the equivalent of the common cold, in the replication process (speeding up the process, and thereby also speeding up the opportunities for recombination errors that may be more lethal to the host).

Then I had my stroke, and obviously I didn't follow up.

@dasaltemelosguy it was the fact you referenced both the apparent flesh eating moving rapidly plus seeing ich, that allowed my brain to make the connection. Most of the cases I have read about, death occurred less than 24 hours after the appearance of the first lesion only in cases that responded specifically to gram negative antibiotics. 

However, it was slower when it responded to gram positive antibiotics.

Regardless of response, ich appeared on other species in the tank that didn't develop the flesh eating sores.

Hopefully, seeing multiple stories of similar experiences together in one place, someone who has access to more testing capabilities can nudge some forward action. Maybe someone in the forum has already seen the research done for the fish farms, and can share the research.

Regardless, I hope the meds continue to work for you dasaltemelosguy. I do know (because it was similar to medical healthcare standard of care for MRSA) that stains were recommended and antibiotic compliance was indicated to continue until there was no longer any of the specific bacteria present. I think that was also in the paper I linked above. Thank you for bringing this to everyone's attention, because if both you and @anewbie are dealing with this, how many more in the forum will see something similar? And the secret to successful treatment seems to be treat everyone as soon as the first sore is identified, but no one knows what it is until they see it progress this rapidly (unless we all get microscopes and stains).