Continuous hole in head deaths

[Vlad]

Hello guys,
Unfortunately, I have to start my first thread not bragging with something, but rather with complaining.

I'm experiencing continuous HITH fish deaths over the course of several months.
Not all at once but one by one every 3-4 weeks: 3 blue rams, and now I see HITH symptoms in my apisto female.
That could mean the only thing - I'm doing something wrong.

Let me describe my setup and routine in case you see some red flags in what I'm doing.
Setup:
55g, Fluval 206 canister with Seachem matrix and spoonge, UV sterilizer, 2 airstones.

kH: 2, GH: ~120ppm, pH: ~7, Ammonia/Nitrite:0, Nitrates: ranges from 0 to 10

Livestock:
about 5 endlers, 5 celestial danios, trio of blue rams, trio of apisto

Routine:
WC twice a week - 5/7 gallons each, siphoning leaf litter debris, 1/4 spoon of accid buffer to bring kH down from 3 to 2.
Feeding twice a day: flakes/pellets in the morning. Frozen food/grindal worms in the evening,

What I'm planning to change:
- Feed once a day.
- Do bigger water changes ~10 gallons twice a week. (Would be enough?)
- Add *more* plants
- Remove all the leaf litter completely
- Add powerhead

There's too much of controversial information on the internets, please, share your experience.

 

[gerald]

It's most likely a slow-growing bacterial infection, possibly Mycobacterium, and sometimes it becomes a problem even when you seem to be doing everything "right". Commercially farmed rams, dwarf gouramis, and rainbowfishes are notorious for being infected with it. All fish can be infected with it, but not all get sick from it. Read these two recent threads and see if your fishes' symptoms are similar. >>>
http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/threads/my-a-hongsloi-story-and-advice-please.19289/#post-94818
http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/threads/sick-panduro.19353/#post-94926

 

[Vlad]

Read the paper by D. Walstad referenced in one of those threads.
Assuming all fish deaths were caused by the same problem MB makes a lot of sense.

What bothers/tricks me is that one of the fish that I had chance to "treat" had some positive response to Metronidazole treatment.
This could probably be explained by secondary diseases.

In any case, if it's MB, my options are really limited. Which is frustrating.

 

[gerald]

Yes it is frustrating. However, in my experience its virulence seems to decrease after the first few months of killing fish, and the remaining fish get used to living with it, at least until they get old or get stressed by something else, at which point MB (or whatever it is) starts growing again and causing illness. Fish born and raised in a tank where this disease previously occurred (including from infected parents) seem to be relatively resistant to it. Although I'm mystified as to why the big farms that grow Rams, Steel-blue Apistos, Dwarf gouramis, Praecox rainbows, etc can produce fish that look healthy enough for sale, but then develop MB-like skin ulcers within a few weeks or months after sale. Unless maybe they're getting stressed & infected at the shipping and wholesale facilities, rather than at the farms ???

 

[Vlad]

An update.
Did everything I was planning to: more plants/daily WCs, no leaf litter, less feeding.
Running UV for day and night.

1 apisto female - died. She did have HITH which I believe accompanied MB. Cavities in the head gone after metro treatment. I picked the dead fish and figured there was some kind of tumor on the forehead filled with jelly-like white/bloody color.

1 GBR - already in the quarantine tank. No particular symptoms - just not eating and hiding. I don't think it'll last.
Another GBR - started acting weird today. I'll be watching it, but I bet, this is it.

Seems like daily WCs triggered spawning in remaining apisto pair. If not it I'd be already thinking to give up.