Fish Problems: Old Age or Parasite or Toxin?

[madlos123]

I have been keeping 7 blue green chromis for 4 years, bought them all together. They were super healty, eat all everything i feed them.
They even started laying eggs multiple times in the past.

When i bought more smaller ones recently, i feel like they came with some kind of parasite because my 6 of my older chromis started to loose eyesight and the new ones slowly died off.
They had tiny black spots on their scales.

I did fully quarantine them for 6 months with ttm and prazi and freshwater dip if it was black ick. I should have done formalin.

But after 6 months the black spots disappeared.

I did notice that the newly added fish have lost some appetite or are somewhat blind because they couldnt catch the food.

Now i notice some black spots or specs on a couple older chromis that lost eyesight and wasting away.

No white stringy poop visible.

Then after a few months , The older chromis i had , i notice they started difficulty catching food with their mouth such as the frozen mysis shrimp in front of them like they would in the past. They would open their mouth and miss the food.
When i put the frozen food in the water, they can smell the food yet couldnt pin point where its at even its in front of them. While the other fish are gobbling the food.

So in the past 2 months the chromis that lost some eyesight are slowly loosing weight.
And whats wierd is all 6 chromis, it happened all at the same time.

A healthy fish can pinpoint the food coming out the return pump or swim exactly right up to the food either eat it or stop dont eat.

While the blue green chromis i have that lost sight seem to swim in the water without specific direction even the food is floating in front of them.

And No bullying present
No uronema present externally but it could be internally

So the question is this-

Is this due to age?
Or is it due to the black spots from the newly aded blue green chromis? Somekind of disease that causes vision loss?
Internal uronema?
Or is this some kind of toxin in the water like palytoxin but my other fish are unaffected.
Or is this due to cyanide from when they were collected but why the older fish too.

Some wierd unexplainable things i guess.

 

[fishguy242]

#fishmedic

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I have been keeping 7 blue green chromis for 4 years, bought them all together. They were super healty, eat all everything i feed them.
They even started laying eggs multiple times in the past.

When i bought more smaller ones recently, i feel like they came with some kind of parasite because my 6 of my older chromis started to loose eyesight and the new ones slowly died off.
They had tiny black spots on their scales.

I did fully quarantine them for 6 months with ttm and prazi and freshwater dip if it was black ick. I should have done formalin.

But after 6 months the black spots disappeared.

I did notice that the newly added fish have lost some appetite or are somewhat blind because they couldnt catch the food.

Now i notice some black spots or specs on a couple older chromis that lost eyesight and wasting away.

No white stringy poop visible.

Then after a few months , The older chromis i had , i notice they started difficulty catching food with their mouth such as the frozen mysis shrimp in front of them like they would in the past. They would open their mouth and miss the food.
When i put the frozen food in the water, they can smell the food yet couldnt pin point where its at even its in front of them. While the other fish are gobbling the food.

So in the past 2 months the chromis that lost some eyesight are slowly loosing weight.
And whats wierd is all 6 chromis, it happened all at the same time.

A healthy fish can pinpoint the food coming out the return pump or swim exactly right up to the food either eat it or stop dont eat.

While the blue green chromis i have that lost sight seem to swim in the water without specific direction even the food is floating in front of them.

And No bullying present
No uronema present externally but it could be internally

So the question is this-

Is this due to age?
Or is it due to the black spots from the newly aded blue green chromis? Somekind of disease that causes vision loss?
Internal uronema?
Or is this some kind of toxin in the water like palytoxin but my other fish are unaffected.
Or is this due to cyanide from when they were collected but why the older fish too.

Some wierd unexplainable things i guess.

Thanks for the very thorough description of the problem.

I can't tell you exactly what is going on here, but it isn't related to cyanide (that affects fish sooner, not later). Internal Uronema also shows up on newly collected chromis, and is not seen in long term captive fish. A toxin in the water would affect all fish more of less equally.

One disease that has multiple symptoms, and can cause what you are seeing is Mycobacterium, fish tuberculosis. It normally affects older fish. The only symptom that doesn't match up are the "black spots". If you had a picture of that, I might be able to tell more.

Jay

 

[madlos123]

Thanks for the very thorough description of the problem.

I can't tell you exactly what is going on here, but it isn't related to cyanide (that affects fish sooner, not later). Internal Uronema also shows up on newly collected chromis, and is not seen in long term captive fish. A toxin in the water would affect all fish more of less equally.

One disease that has multiple symptoms, and can cause what you are seeing is Mycobacterium, fish tuberculosis. It normally affects older fish. The only symptom that doesn't match up are the "black spots". If you had a picture of that, I might be able to tell more.

Jay

Yeah ill take a picture of them tomorrow

 

[madlos123]

you see the small black dots on the body

From last week

 

[madlos123]

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I think the spots are incidental to the underlying issue.
The turbellarian worm that can cause black spots like this is rare on green chromis (I’ve never seen one with it) and only involves newly imported fish - so we can rule that out.
As I said, the fish are showing signs of chronic, progressive disease, like the mycobacterium I mentioned. Trouble is, there is no treatment if that’s what this is.
Jay