Curved spine in guppy. TB? Scoliosis? Help me pin this disease?!

BubbleE1

BubbleE1

AC Members
Feb 8, 2010
169
0
0
Hello.
I was wondering if anyone could help me solve this:

Well you see, my brother got a 10 gallon tank a while back.
Right now he has:
-1 Guppy
-2 platys
-2 ottos
-4 golden pristella tetras

The guppy has developed a curved spine. This is what i need help with:

This is how he did it:
-He got the 4 tetras first.
-The tank was fine for a month.
-He got 1 guppy fry, and he raised it inside his tank.
-Moving on, his guppy gets to be about an inch and a quarter big now.
-He got 2 ottos.
-The tank was fine 2 weeks.
NOW HERE'S THE PART WHERE IT'S TRICKY.
-he went out and got 2 platys. Everything is completly fine that night. Acclimation goes well and the tank is fine.
-The next morning we wake up and find the guppy with a completly curved spine. NOt even a small curve, but a HUGE curve. So much, to the point where the stomach looks like everything is being pushed forward by the hump so it's about to burst.
[No she isn't pregnant. This fry was from a batch of mine and it's never been with a fully developed male guppy.]

So me and my friend researched this for my little brother THAT morning. He's young.
We ended up finding that it could in fact be fish TB.
We know not to touch the water and such, however, there were no other symptoms of TB.
We came to that conclusion, only because of how quickly it happened, and right after we had acclimated the platys the night before.
We had plans to completly wipe the tank but wanted to let it sit for a week just in case.
Well me and my family ended up taking a vacation and we came back to the tank.
It's now 2 months later after the curved spine.
No other fish seem to be getting any symptoms of fish tb AT ALL.
Not the platys or anyone. The guppy's spine still looks exactly the same, and she has no other symptoms.
So i figured since there's nothing else, i'd do some more research. I came up with another theory: scoliosis.
But that's really nothing of a theory.
And something about a vitamin deficientcy maybe?

Can anyone help me out?
I'm NOT a beginner. I just need help pinning it if this is TB so i don't get myself and my family sick.

P.S. If you're just going to post something stupid, derogetory, or about a QT. DON'T.
 
hey,there.a couple of ideas.first and foremost you can rest your mind about getting infected from your aquarium.last i learned there was only one zoonotic(transmission of infection from animal to human)disease one can get from fish.it is a form of tb but i dont believe there has ever been a reported case.incidently,touching the water,putting your hands in tank,etc. is something all fishkeepers do and personaly one of my favorite and relaxing parts of fishkeeping.since it appears the spine became bent overnight,and the other facts you mentioned ill give you a couple of scenarios.1.the guppy might have been attacked by other fish either in a predatory or territorial manner.2.being a young guppy,they can get sucked onto and/or caught on the filter intake causing injury.ive seen this even in adult fish.these two are the most likely.i dont believe scoliosis exsists in fish and dont feel that a vitamin deficiency or infection for that matter would have sprang up overnight.but,stranger things have happened.the worst thing you could do is start over or do anything drastic.cleaning up the environment,i.e. water change,vacuum the gravel,,cleaning filter pad(rinse in water from tank,dont throw away completely or you'll dispose of all your good bacteria)etc.,is always a good idea when something goes wrong before running to the medicine cabinet or starting over.also,make sure you are not overfeeding.in my experience this is the number one thing old and new fishkeepers do that negitavely affects the aquarium.remember,a fish's stomach is physically the same size of its eye.keep that in mind next time you "feed as much as the fish will eat in five minutes".fish are gluttons.if you fed a school of tiger barbs for three hours they would surely eat for that long.hope the post wasnt too long and you get some help from it.good luck...
 
You can most certainly catch fish TB, just search google and you'll find plenty of gross pictures. I think even someone on the forum had a related incident.
I would be using gloves in the tank until you are sure it's not TB. Also you can ask in the disease section, there are lots of disease experts in there that can help you figure this out. TB is a slow disease and can be hard to pinpoint. If it is TB you would pretty much have to euthanize your fish and sterilize everything to make it safe again. But I wouldn't jump to that until you know for sure. For now just take extra precautions and hopefully someone will come along that can provide more.
 
blue2fyre said:
You can most certainly catch fish TB, just search google and you'll find plenty of gross pictures. I think even someone on the forum had a related incident.
I would be using gloves in the tank until you are sure it's not TB. Also you can ask in the disease section, there are lots of disease experts in there that can help you figure this out. TB is a slow disease and can be hard to pinpoint. If it is TB you would pretty much have to euthanize your fish and sterilize everything to make it safe again. But I wouldn't jump to that until you know for sure. For now just take extra precautions and hopefully someone will come along that can provide more.
Click to expand...
:iagree:100%

I really hope it's not TB. Best of luck!
 
Fish TB only infects you through an open sore or cut, and even then if you wash your hands for 30 seconds per CDC recommendations the odds of catching it even with an open sore or cut are phenomenally low.

If it occured overnight, I'd be thinking injury...or perhaps no one noticed and it was always that way (it's easy with smaller schooling types of fish to miss things like that). Older fish sometimes can become bent backed.

Although I didn't do a path report, I've had an outbreak in one tank in the past that I'm pretty sure was fish TB...didn't dump the tank and scrub - just treated for about a month with the correct antibiotic (I can't recall if TB is gram positive or negative...but it is treatable) and did a goodly number of water changes (and euthanized fish showing sypmtoms who were not responding to treatment).

I lost nearly 2/3rds of my fish, but the rest survived (one is still in my tank - a 10+ year old clown pleco) and I only lost the 2 remaining cherry barbs about a year ago (they lived 5 years after the infection).

I highly doubt you have fish TB. If you do, you'll know fairly soon.

Eric
 
what kind of filter are you using it could be, it was stuck and got free with this injury. but you were right to take precautions in case it is more serious
 
Jayhawk said:
Fish TB only infects you through an open sore or cut, and even then if you wash your hands for 30 seconds per CDC recommendations the odds of catching it even with an open sore or cut are phenomenally low.

If it occured overnight, I'd be thinking injury...or perhaps no one noticed and it was always that way (it's easy with smaller schooling types of fish to miss things like that). Older fish sometimes can become bent backed.

Although I didn't do a path report, I've had an outbreak in one tank in the past that I'm pretty sure was fish TB...didn't dump the tank and scrub - just treated for about a month with the correct antibiotic (I can't recall if TB is gram positive or negative...but it is treatable) and did a goodly number of water changes (and euthanized fish showing sypmtoms who were not responding to treatment).

I lost nearly 2/3rds of my fish, but the rest survived (one is still in my tank - a 10+ year old clown pleco) and I only lost the 2 remaining cherry barbs about a year ago (they lived 5 years after the infection).

I highly doubt you have fish TB. If you do, you'll know fairly soon.

Eric
Click to expand...

:iagree:

I've had fish with bent backs and never really noticed. Always attributed it to genetics since they lived healthy lives.
 
I agree that it could be dropsy.
But, I did have a fish that had a severly curved spine
1-52.jpg
,
he would just lay on the bottom and hardly eat. His injury came from when he was smaller getting stuck in an ornament. He would always just lay on his side like that and the center of him was the highest point. He survived about 5 years like that. He was killed by the other two when the tank was moved.

But if his stomach is ballooning out I would place my bet on dropsey
 
This is why a QT tank is a very good idea..........
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom