Diagnosing fish disease

[Marsiggy]

How does one diagnose fish disease or better said know what illness may be afflicting a fish?

I currently have 3 fish in my tank i'm worried about. An albino tiger barb, a buenos aires tetra, and a silver dollar. About 2 days ago i noticed a very large wound on the tiger barb and as i checked the rest of my stock i discovered that the tetra and silver dollar have begun to develop the same type of wounds. Their wounds aren't as advanced as the tiger barbs tho.

The tiger barb has a wound that looks much like a sore but there isn't any blood streaking thru it or anything which would approximate a cotton tuft. In fact it looks like its healing around the edges. The scales are completely gone in the area and i can see his muscle underneath since both the scales and skin are gone from the area where the sore is. In fact the area of the sore looks like a pink fish filet type of texture. But i soon discovered what looked like pink welts developing on the silver dollar and the tetra.

During the last couple of days i've been watching my fish closely and discovered my green swordtail has been agressively harrassing every fish in the tank and trying to mate with them. During the process he nips and pecks at the fish he's trying to mate with. He's the only swordtail in tha tank and have seen him harrassing the same tiger barb even dogedly persuing him around the tank picking at his sore as he tries to mate with him. So i'm wondering is my problem a disease or merely the result of a severely horny and agressive swordtail?

Other than those 3 fish mentioned i haven't seen anything aproximating these wounds on any of the other fish in the tank. They don't act as if their sick, either, and they still eat and are active. they follow me around when i stand in front of the tank.

So if my problem is a disease how would i go about diagnosing it to i can treat them? Or should i get some female swordtails and see if that corrects my problem?

[Cichlid Woman]

It sounds like you actually saw the swordtail doing it. My bet is that's what's causing the damage. Exit swordtail.

Diagnosing diseases: there are several good sites on the web that will help, some with pictures. That's what I use when I see something I don't recognize. Here's one of many: http://www.2cah.com/pandora/Disease.html#External

Hope this helps.

-- Pat

[Orbitorly]

It's not a fish desease, it's the swordtail obviously. Take him out and put him in another tank, I would recommend setting up a hostpital tank. Get some Melafix, the reason I mentioned hospital tank, is that Melafix kinda smells bad and leaves a foam on the top of your water, so you wouldn't have all this in you'r main tank.


Anyhow, melafix is great for healing up wounds, it's all natrual, no chemicals.

Good Luck!

[NJ Devils Fan]

Woah, orbit comming out of nowhere wit advice. ;)

[Faramir]

I'm a little skeptical of the swordtail causing this, but it may yet be.

I think you need to watch and wait. Remove the swordtail from the equation, and see what happens.

Look out for any other symptoms, even ones that appear unrelated. There are other possibilities here which we need to explore.

[FishBait]

I too find it hard to believe that a swordtail can cause this kind of damage. My guess is the disease (most likely a bacterial infection) was already present, the swordtail's harassment stressed the others, and with the added stress began to succomb to the illness. That said, the sword still needs to be removed as it will just keep picking the wound, further stressing your animals and making recovery that much more difficult. Melafix is a good start, but I hate to say it, you may need a q-tank for some anti-biotic treatment if there is no improvement after a few days.

[mt_marcy]

How do you know what disease is what/how to diagnose? Wewll basicly you have to learn/research them, there are plenty of sites on the web about fish disease and I.D,ing them as well as in some books like, the Freshwater aquaia atlas series(book # 1). Also in your case it sounds like your fish have been injured and in the healing process had developed some fungus(cottony stuff) Good luck,
mt_marcy!

[Marsiggy]

Thats just it, none of the websites i've come across have anything that remotely resembles what my fish have. The only one that looked remotely close was bacterial infection. But apart from the sore none of the other symptoms are present. These are the symtoms i've come across for bacterial infection:

(Red and inflamed areas on the body and fins, raised scales, skin ulcers, exophtalmos (pop-eye), dropsy or swollen abdomen, fin rot. Additionally, affected fish may be lethargic and anorexic

Internally there may be lesions or haemorrhages in internal organs and/or a build-up of often bloody fluid in the abdomen (ascites). )

First off none of the fish exhibit fin rot nor are they lethargic. Their all as active as before with the exception of the skin lesions.

Furthermore i got 4 female sword tails the night i discovered the male sword was harassing them and as a result he's left them alone. He busy chasing the females.

I've also noticed that the tiger barbs wound is beginning to skin over. the area is still scale-less but it looks like its healing. Its begun to grow pink skin over the wound.

I also read this could probably be a symptom of water conditions but i change 75 gallons of water from the tank every week. So i doubt this could be the result of say ammonie/nitrite/nitrate poisoning.

If this is a disease shouldn't i see some sort of behavior change? Cause as i've already stated they don't act sick. Up to now the only disease problems i've ever had was a bad case of ick when the tank was first extablished but that was about a year ago. I treated it and got rid of the problem but could this just be a some sort of dormant side effect of my ick outbreak? I doubt it but it never hurts to ask....