Poll: What fish diseases have you encountered?

[dbl]

Had a member suggest a poll that looks at what, if any, fish diseases we have dealt with in our reefing careers. I have to say I've been lucky and haven't had any (at least that have shown visible signs anyway). I hope I didn't just jinx myself. We have some tremendous members that work tirelessly in the disease forum to battle these issues, so I would recommend taking a look in that forum if you need specific help.

But this is just a simply poll to see what you've had to deal with in the past. Too many to list all of them but I've tried to capture the most "common" ones I could think of.

 

[4FordFamily]

I think people frequently misdiagnose velvet as ich. I’ve seen almost everything except brook. I probably have run in to brook years ago but thought it velvet.

 

[rich nyc]

Marine velvet. Yuck. My dt went to fallow then now my nano. Will be done this weekend. My nano fish that were qt's are now in my fuge. They cant wait to go from a 10g fuge to a 20 gallon nano. Now all of my fish get qt'd. sucks that I have killed more than half of my fish in qt because I believe I over coppered them.

 

[danreefman]

Got something that killed all my fish. Was gonna buy some fish last night. But didn't see anything rare or unusual and thought my corals are looking fantastic without fish. Didn't want to mess up that chemistry. I guess if I see something cool and rare I might buy it. For now fishless. Still swallowing the 4-5k that was lost in this last loss of fish.

 

[happyhourhero]

I had a Molly Miller Blenny that I collected. I had it for a few months and then something started making its face waste away. It was so bad that one side of its face was almost gone and you could see bone. The affected area was about the size of my thumbnail at its worst. I couldnt catch the fish and no other fish were affected so I just let it run it's course. It stopped spreading and the tissue on the face grew back to the point where after a couple months, you couldnt tell anything had ever happened.

 

[MightyMouse85]

4 years ago I never ran across hlle, ich, velvet, or bacterial issues. I started my new tank last year and a QT due to size and valume of stock. Now I have lost 3/4 of my fish from thses issues

 

[don_chuwish]

Crypto, HLLE and one bug-eye for me, but that's just the ones that were identifiable. I really hate the 'mystery' deaths - no obvious signs of anything but they just start hiding and fade away.

 

[NowGlazeIT]

Pop eye,ich, bacterial/fungi infection, flukes and white stringy poop. I’ve lost fish before in the FW days but I have always taken an interest in fish health,symptoms, cause and cures. Currently I am treating 8 fish with two different QTs and I haven’t lost a soul in QT since I started. Thanks to R2R and the fish disease forums

 

[revhtree]

Dealing with disease is part of owning an aquarium. I have been blessed to only face mostly minor issues when it comes to sickness. Ich being the main problem.

 

[mcarroll]

Just a thought...

It would be interesting if we could know how many (if any) of the posted diagnoses were correct since almost nobody ID's fish pests except by eyeball.

I haven't read anything that indicates it's really possible to ID ectoparasites by eyeball....only the opposite, that it's easy to confuse parasites with each other that way.

I'd encourage anyone planning to keep fish to have a basic microscope on hand for this purpose. It doesn't have to cost much at all ($10 and up). See: Selecting a microscope You can take pics and movies with your smartphone and post them online to get help making the actual ID.

 

[vlangel]

Having seahorses it is expected that I would deal with bacterial infections. Fortunately the rate of cure using antibiotics is quite good.

Even when I had other fish I did not have disease much. I tend to stock my tank and then leave it alone. I have had fish live to be over 10 years old regularly and I attribute it to not bringing in new tankmates all the time and feeding them well.

 

[Humblefish]

The worst of them all... parasitic isopods

And don't forget about the eating isopod

 

[Humblefish]

Having seahorses it is expected that I would deal with bacterial infections. Fortunately the rate of cure using antibiotics is quite good.

Which antibiotic(s) work best for treating seahorse infections?

 

[LiquidFunk]

Anger! My fish suffer from road rage and anger. They do not put up with rookies in their home.

 

[4FordFamily]

Just a thought...

It would be interesting if we could know how many (if any) of the posted diagnoses were correct since almost nobody ID's fish pests except by eyeball.

I haven't read anything that indicates it's really possible to ID ectoparasites by eyeball....only the opposite, that it's easy to confuse parasites with each other that way.

I'd encourage anyone planning to keep fish to have a basic microscope on hand for this purpose. It doesn't have to cost much at all ($10 and up). See: Selecting a microscope You can take pics and movies with your smartphone and post them online to get help making the actual ID.

If you know the lifecycle of a given parasite, it’s very simple to diagnose (IE velvet and ich) without a microscope.

 

[mcarroll]

If you know the lifecycle of a given parasite, it’s very simple to diagnose (IE velvet and ich) without a microscope.

Very simple for who?

 

[4FordFamily]

Very simple for who?

Anyone that can observe how long a particular spot or several spots are on a fish, and can read a forum post!

 

[NowGlazeIT]

If you know the lifecycle of a given parasite, it’s very simple to diagnose (IE velvet and ich) without a microscope.

Or symptoms like white stringy poop

Very simple for who?

He means you can narrow down diseases by keeping track of symptoms (life cycles) and effectively treat accordingly for example ich or velvet

 

[Humblefish]

Or little white sprinkles all over the fish... obviously an immune response (excess mucous) to an ectoparasite of some sort.

90% of the time copper or Chloroquine takes care of the problem. I like those odds. Better than doing nothing.

 

[dede]

Velvet, ich, black ich, uronema, bacterial/fungus infection, lympho, popeye and flukes all from the same LFS. So trying now online to see if I have better luck. In the hobby less then a year.