NTD and Cardinals

[Faramir]

Quick question for the experts - can Cardinal tetras get NTD?

[slipknottin]

yes

[Sensei_the_dojo]

I believe all members of the tetra family are susceptible.

[Faramir]

Thanks.

Can anyone point me to an authoritative source? The idea that Cardinals are not susceptible seems to be quite common. I'd never heard of it before and I'm sceptical.

[OrionGirl]

Says cardinals won't get it:

http://freshaquarium.about.com/library/weekly/aa092601a.htm

Averywhere else that said cardinals weren't prone to it sited this page. I woudn't consider about.com to be an authoritative resource. Some of other fish related advice on that site is poor to misleading.

Couldn't find anything other than anecdotal--ie, my best friends' brother's neice had a tank...

[wetmanNY]

It's best to leave the name "Neon Tetra Disease" behind and go to Pleistophora With that you can collect some biologist info (not LFS info) on this parasite and do a www.google.com search for "microsporidia" the group it belongs to.

There's not much about Pleistophora at www.skepticalaquarist.com (Health/Diseases, under "Parasites") so I'd be grateful for any genuine biologis- type leads.

[RTR]

In a former life I was a biologist, but not in this area, so any advice from me is worth exactly what it cost.

My understanding of highly host-specific diseases was they are found in the wild in primarily a single species. In the confines of a tank, with GOK what general water conditions but we can assume some non-trivial degree of pollution, some stress and associated immune suppression, and given someone leaving the dead in the tank to be consumed at least in part by their tankmates, I would expect to see cross-species transmission of such parasites. Not large-scale, and perhaps not with same outcome as most visible NTD in Neons, but I do not believe the species barrier to be absolute - this is not a three-stage life cycle such as black spot, this is single-host direct transmission.

AIDS was after all in some other primate first. And prions/infectious proteins or whatever they are called these day have been know to jump species, and they are not even viruses or bacteria. Those I did have some working knowledge on.

In confined, more or less unheathy, environments, species specificity is luxury, not a safe limit.

The best ref I know on the web (human, not fish, but it does sho the life cyle well) is:

http://www.stanford.edu/class/humbio103/parasitepages/ParaSites_2002/microsporidiosis/index.HTM

[Faramir]

My Handbook of fish diseases says that cardinals can't get it. I've had to concede on this one.

I remain suspicious that a minor mutation of the infectious agent could easily change this state of affairs, nevertheless.

[wetmanNY]

Other species of Pleistophora infect humans with compromised immune systems, as in AIDS. So RTR's thought about the compromised immunity of tropical fish under mildly stressful conditions isn't off-track. So not to be swamped with AIDS information a good www.google.com search is " Pleistophora hyphessobryconis "

Pleistophora isn't the only microsporidian to infest fishes. And other Pleistophora are parasites of amphibians and reptiles.

I wouldn't place to much reliance on any statement that any characin was "immune." At any rate to go on calling it "Neon Tetra Disease" doesn't unlock any information.Pleistophora hyphessobryconis.

At any rate, slightly blurry photos of Cardinal Tetras said to be infected with Pleistophora are at Aquaworld: http://aquaworld.netfirms.com/Disease/neonziekte.htm

[RTR]

Ha! wetmanNY beat me too it - I was just about to add that URL to the pot. Not that a photo is in any manner diagnostic of NTD.

Edit: and do note that the species name of the presumptive parasite responsible is from a Tetra genus name, not a species name...hmmm...

[Faramir]

I posted those pictures in my original discussion that gave rise to this question.

The truth it seems is not clear. However, I've conceded on the grounds that I can't prove my case.

[RTR]

I would be unwilling to state that any Tetra is "immune" to NTD. Degree of sensitivity or succeptiblity to the infection is highly debatable. I would not concede immunity without proof.