Apisto survival rate

[dw1305]

Hi all,

the more common wisdom is to kill everything, sterilize the tanks, burn your house down and move to another country.

That is the problem with most people's advice, the cure is much worse than the cause.

I'd only prescribe that for Yersinia pestis to be frank. Or for religious fanatics.

Sage advice, I'm now avoiding religious fanatics like the plague.

cheers Darrel

 

[MacZ]

Sage advice, I'm now avoiding religious fanatics like the plague.

I expected you to do so even before.

 

[Andrew H]

That is the problem with most people's advice, the cure is much worse than the cause.

Looking at journal articles - seems like 30-80% of ornamental fish tested carry mycobacterium (microbiology test). I’m sure there’s quite a bit of variation between the strains and outcomes in your tank but my takeaway is that you can’t avoid it entirely.

 

[MacZ]

Looking at journal articles - seems like 30-80% of ornamental fish tested carry mycobacterium (microbiology test). I’m sure there’s quite a bit of variation between the strains and outcomes in your tank but my takeaway is that you can’t avoid it entirely.

On the other hand infection doesn't warrant a 100% sure outbreak. Think of all the opportunistic bacteria causing unspecific infections with dropsy and popeye.

 

[anewbie]

I know i did fix the start of popeye in my male agasizii (domestic); by moving him from an over populated 29 to a nearly empty 180; that was a year ago (one of the victims during my move of being toss into a 29 while deciding what to do); i purchased him as an adult - i've had him for 18 months so I guess that means he is at least 30 months old; he was bred by a fellow i know so a little more robust than the mass bred variety. He is a wee bit aggressive (i have him in the 180 with some keyholes and laetacara araguaiae but the larger fishes respect his relatively small territory. Anyway i can't remember why i purchased him - i think at the time the 29 was almost empty and i was just using him as a filler but when i moved a bunch of aquariums got combined while i figured out a few things which was a huge mistake.
--
Anyway my point was for me the cure was just a lot of clean water no meds. I've actually found that this fixes a lot of my issues and have been slowly decreasing tank densities.

 

[Andrew H]

Anyway my point was for me the cure was just a lot of clean water no meds. I've actually found that this fixes a lot of my issues and have been slowly decreasing tank densities.

Other than Ich, for which the meds pretty clearly work, I have never been able to cure anything with any other approach than big water changes. The state of fish medicine is not very advanced.

 

[Ben Rhau]

The only med that has worked for me is prazi for worms/flukes. Otherwise, my approach is to move sick fish to a small tank where I can manage large and frequent water changes easily, add tannins to the point where I can almost not see, and control feeding of live foods.

Over time, I suspect you'll detect more sources/types of stress before getting to that point, and the illnesses will be less frequent.

 

[MacZ]

The state of fish medicine is not very advanced.

I disagree. Even a layperson can make quite good diagnoses with the available veterinary literature. Thanks to aquaculture we have extensive knowledge of fish diseases and treatments. And with a simple hobby grade microscope you can ID most of the common parasites (eg. worms vs. flagellates). But there are differences in approaches in different countries as well as many hurdles a fishkeeper has to tackle.

In the EU many meds are banned or regulated as prescription drugs. This is due to the problem these meds are no longer considered safe for humans and as such banned to treat food fish. The regulations to not distinguish food fish and ornamental fish. Hence these meds are no more available. Additionally antibiotics are generally regulated to be on prescription. So no vet visit, no meds for many things.
As if that wasn't enough, you are hard pressed finding a vet that even takes ornamental fish cases. Koi are an exception. And then it's time to pay. We have universal health care only for humans.
- doctor's fees
- prescription fees
- the meds themselves
plus you will likely have to sacrifice the fish in question, as the vet would have to do a full examination which ultimately means killing one fish of the bunch. Now if you only have one fish with symptoms... I guess you see the problem. Also the whole process is pricey. If I want Praziquantel to deworm my fish, I'd have to sacrifice one fish for analysis (let's say a dwarf cichlid: 20€), pay fees: 100-150€, the med (smallest size): 50€. And of course it takes the time for all of this. That's 170-220€ and no fish has been treated yet and probably the only one actually affected has been killed for diagnosis. A lot of vets will ask people if they think it's really worth all the trouble and money for a 5€ fish. So unless you have a whole fishroom going down or a store/breeding/wholesaler stock to safe (and accordingly the money to do so) you have little choices.
On the other hand due to the lack of meds available (we still have some, but they are either worthless or only treat specific things, leaving whole diagnoses untreatable.) people have come up with not remedies but preventative care. We have a lot of focus on holding conditions and healthy feeding

In the US many people (not saying all, not saying people here on the forum, but a comparatively big percentage of people asking for help online) seem to not have access to reliable information and there are unbelievable rumours and explanations going round. Additionally you have more people willing to take some length to safe a mutt guppy. And would you know: The med-market is in my experience pretty much unregulated. You get strong antibiotics over the counter no questions asked.
What I see a lot is people nuking a tank with all kinds of meds on a suspicion. And now what always makes me just gasp when trying to help people online: The fish is obviously not going to survive, already in a near critical state. What happens is they throw all meds the store has to offer at the tank, no matter what the fish even has. Fish obviously has an internal problem, owner doses a med against skin parasites. Things like that.
Sadly the use of antibiotics has the downside of breeding resistant pathogens. I hear and read of resistant bacteria strains all rhe time. And that's where we come back to Mycobacterium: I'm pretty sure countries like the US, the UK (to an extend), Turkey, China and Australia, have several strains of fish pathogens in the aquarium population, that can not be treated anymore due to resistances. Canada has banned all fish meds possibly also because of this.

So sometimes it's the availability of therapies, or the lack of available information and an excess of (unintentional) misinformation, sometimes the lack of affordable veterinary expertise, sometimes the approach of the individual fishkeeper. But I don't see how veterinary medicine is not advanced.

 

[Andrew H]

So sometimes it's the availability of therapies, or the lack of available information and an excess of (unintentional) misinformation, sometimes the lack of affordable veterinary expertise, sometimes the approach of the individual fishkeeper. But I don't see how veterinary medicine is not advanced.

Agree - I probably should have said "the state of fish medicine available to the hobbyist is not great". The goal for most of us should be to avoid the illness in the first place. But in the case of mycobacterium, even multi-million dollar facilities (e.g. Zebrafish R&D) have not been able to control it well. It's a bulletproof bug - I was exposed to TB as a kid and had to take isoniazid for a full year!

 

[Don cheech]

I disagree. Even a layperson can make quite good diagnoses with the available veterinary literature. Thanks to aquaculture we have extensive knowledge of fish diseases and treatments. And with a simple hobby grade microscope you can ID most of the common parasites (eg. worms vs. flagellates). But there are differences in approaches in different countries as well as many hurdles a fishkeeper has to tackle.

In the EU many meds are banned or regulated as prescription drugs. This is due to the problem these meds are no longer considered safe for humans and as such banned to treat food fish. The regulations to not distinguish food fish and ornamental fish. Hence these meds are no more available. Additionally antibiotics are generally regulated to be on prescription. So no vet visit, no meds for many things.
As if that wasn't enough, you are hard pressed finding a vet that even takes ornamental fish cases. Koi are an exception. And then it's time to pay. We have universal health care only for humans.
- doctor's fees
- prescription fees
- the meds themselves
plus you will likely have to sacrifice the fish in question, as the vet would have to do a full examination which ultimately means killing one fish of the bunch. Now if you only have one fish with symptoms... I guess you see the problem. Also the whole process is pricey. If I want Praziquantel to deworm my fish, I'd have to sacrifice one fish for analysis (let's say a dwarf cichlid: 20€), pay fees: 100-150€, the med (smallest size): 50€. And of course it takes the time for all of this. That's 170-220€ and no fish has been treated yet and probably the only one actually affected has been killed for diagnosis. A lot of vets will ask people if they think it's really worth all the trouble and money for a 5€ fish. So unless you have a whole fishroom going down or a store/breeding/wholesaler stock to safe (and accordingly the money to do so) you have little choices.
On the other hand due to the lack of meds available (we still have some, but they are either worthless or only treat specific things, leaving whole diagnoses untreatable.) people have come up with not remedies but preventative care. We have a lot of focus on holding conditions and healthy feeding

In the US many people (not saying all, not saying people here on the forum, but a comparatively big percentage of people asking for help online) seem to not have access to reliable information and there are unbelievable rumours and explanations going round. Additionally you have more people willing to take some length to safe a mutt guppy. And would you know: The med-market is in my experience pretty much unregulated. You get strong antibiotics over the counter no questions asked.
What I see a lot is people nuking a tank with all kinds of meds on a suspicion. And now what always makes me just gasp when trying to help people online: The fish is obviously not going to survive, already in a near critical state. What happens is they throw all meds the store has to offer at the tank, no matter what the fish even has. Fish obviously has an internal problem, owner doses a med against skin parasites. Things like that.
Sadly the use of antibiotics has the downside of breeding resistant pathogens. I hear and read of resistant bacteria strains all rhe time. And that's where we come back to Mycobacterium: I'm pretty sure countries like the US, the UK (to an extend), Turkey, China and Australia, have several strains of fish pathogens in the aquarium population, that can not be treated anymore due to resistances. Canada has banned all fish meds possibly also because of this.

So sometimes it's the availability of therapies, or the lack of available information and an excess of (unintentional) misinformation, sometimes the lack of affordable veterinary expertise, sometimes the approach of the individual fishkeeper. But I don't see how veterinary medicine is not advanced.

Impressive knowledge !

 

[MacZ]

But in the case of mycobacterium, even multi-million dollar facilities (e.g. Zebrafish R&D) have not been able to control it well.

Money doesn't cure a multiresistant pathogen. I'm pretty sure cases like that one are due to longtime overuse of meds until the bacteria adapted.

I was exposed to TB as a kid and had to take isoniazid for a full year!

Mycobacterium species are different from each other. M. tuberculosis needs different measures to be taken than M. marinum, M. bovis or M. leprae and they respond differently to diffrent types of antibiotics. My infection with M. bovis was not detected until after I was through with it, having had no symptoms. They found antibodies when doing a standard test. (We're talking about 1990/1991, I guess you've been battling it in the 80s). In western countries with proper health care it is not a big issue in human medicine anymore.

So, even considering M. tuberculosis a very tenacious bacterium, if it wasn't for resistances we might have eradicated it already.