How often have you had to deal with diseases/illness?

[Mercfh]

I asked this question on another forum, as a new fish keeper im curious how "common" it is (Since you see so much about sick fish it's a bit anxiety inducing lol)

But yeah im curious for those (especially those that keep a lot of fish) how often you've had to medicate/deal with sick fish over your fish-keeping time?

 

Thanks!

[jwcarlson]

It depends on what you're doing, if you're breeding (some species get aggressive and you could end up with wounds/secondary infections), what you're keeping, etc.

I've been back in a hobby a couple of years and have put quite a lot of meds through my fish.  My discus in particular, but I've lost fish during a breeding fight (due to secondary infection/fungus), and from a seemingly random corydora puncture of a pencilfish's swim bladder.  I also worm new fish, so use quite a bit of levamisole.

Know that there is a bias for fish problems to seem more prevalent than they are because you don't have people post "my fish are fine today" all the time.  In other words, you're more likely to post about a fish you're having trouble with than one you aren't.  So it just makes it seem like a bigger deal.

[TOtrees]

Interesting question. 🙂

I would say that I use medication very rarely. I think that there are a number of reasons for that that are specific to my situation, many of which are related to the low availability of medications here in Canada. I think it’s also related to my own personal experience, which is that medication rarely fixes the problems (diseases) that I see. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I treat in a hospital tank, treat one fish or all of them, follow label directions or follow internet wisdom, treat the tank or prepare treated food, I don’t see any improvement or effect when I use medication.

What all this means is that on the rare occasion that I do see a fish that is sick with a diagnosable condition, I will generally remove and euthanize the fish, or at the very least quarantine and still expect to eventually lose it. Why spend money on medication, if it never changes the outcome? 

I also think that this has had the result that my fish, across all +/-15 tanks I currently keep, are generally healthier and more robust. I can literally go for months or years without seeing a death in a tank attributable to an active, communicable disease. Since I don’t have the tools (medication options) to treat therapeutically or curatively (and since my track record leans towards it not working even if I had it), I have to rely on good husbandry and seeing problems early to maintain the health of my tanks. When I do see a fish in a tank that is sick with something I can recognize as a disease, that would normally be considered treatable, it’s always been isolated. I.e. it’s always only the one fish, nothing follows with the others.

It has also had the effect of making me very choosy about what I buy and when. I almost never buy from a local fish store without a full quarantine period. And, I only have one true community tank. Most of what I have are species tanks, sometimes with an extra fish or two for clean up, but rarely more than that.

I do sell fish to a couple of local stores, and all the above gives me high confidence in the quality of the fish I sell. This is borne out by feedback from them about how well my fish survive, both in their tanks, and in their forever homes.

[Colu]

 Over the last 20+ years have  had a few diseases. ich  bacterial infection secondary fungal infection on an injury and dropsy. with appropriate treatment I kept my loses to a minimum prevention better than cure a good well balanced diet stable water parameters plenty of live plants keeping your fish in an appropriate sized tank will  lower stress and will help to keep disease outbreaks to a minimum. worse disease I had was a bacterial disease that only affected  my tetras didn't respond to any medication I used had a high mortality rate killing 8 out of 12 of my tetras I think my other  4 develope some level of immunity to the disease which means they could be carries if I introduced new fish to there tank they could develop the disease and my other fish wouldn't be affected so they will live the rest of there lives in the same tank With no new fish added