Sudden death of Auchenipterids

[CFC]

they start to get blood streaked fins and a pink hue to the body and die within a few days

CFC,
Have a look at today's picture of

Ageneiosus ucayalensis

. Is that what you mean with the above statement?

Btw: I know London is pretty big, but Wholesale Aquatics stocks Auchenipterichthys longimanus
Might that be a good replacement?

That pretty much looks like what happens to them, its a horrendous disease whatever it is, especially when you already know the outcome from previous experience.
Those Auchenipterichthys longimanus look pretty cool but i'm having a bit of time out from buying fish for a while and concentrating my funds and time on finishing my new fishroom, once its done i'll have 220 square feet (about 21 square meters) of floor space to fill with tanks of which one im going to make a dedicated Agenieosus tank with a huge ammount of flow and filtration rate to see if that helps.

Groke ive never been to Wharf but ive heard from many people that they are way OTT with their prices, although they do have some nice fish in. I'll get round to visiting it one day but Wildwoods does me for all my needs and is a lot closer to home.

[Marc van Arc]

That pretty much looks like what happens to them, its a horrendous disease whatever it is, especially when you already know the outcome from previous experience.

It still puzzles me, because you wouldn't expect (freshly caught ?) fish to have a similar disease.
Which leads me back to a previous thought: mechanical damages (in this case caused by the catching itself).
Perhaps they are extremely liable to stress??

[sidguppy]

I'm no expert on Ageneiosus but I've seen developments exactly like that in other fish, including cats. the symptoms are identical.

and these are fishes that are fed with other fish. using feeders is extremely tricky (as Marc can tell you as well); feeders can be contaminated with very nasty parasites and diseases.

First; I'd check out for skinflukes and gillflukes. Dactylogyrus and Gyrodactylus. these are far more common than you think, especially on piscivore fishes that have to be fed with feeders from time to time. Chaca, Sorubim, Ageneiosus, Boulengerella etc etc. all these fishes can be harmed with them.

the red discoloration and damage of the skin and fins is caused by bacteria. these can be Aeromonas, Pseudomonas, Flexibacter columnaris etc. very nasty bad diseases wich can and do clear out tanks in days.
BUT strange as it seems; you'll always see that some fish are literally rotting to pieces and dropping dead while other seemingly fragile fish swim around like there's nothing wrong, coloring up just fine, even breeding.....it's uncanny.

those diseases can be fought with the newer brands of antibiotics.
Be advised however that using strong stuff like that can and does harm biofilters a LOT. so you need a sharp eye on the parameters once you start using it. killing the benificial bacteria with the germs can result in ammonia-spikes and nitrites wich will hurt your fish.

BUT first you have to check the water itself for some sort of poisoning as well. some fishspecies are very fragile when it comes to ammonia-spikes, sudden pH drops, nitrites and the like. And there are other things that cause a fish to look like your dead Ageneiosids and die, days after it looked just fine. even weirder; you'll see that other fish are completely unfazed and unharmed.......
So check the tank (and the environment of it!) for:
-ammonia
-pH drop or peak
-skin/gillflukes on your fish
-drying paint in the same room as the tank
-anti-flea stuff on your cat or dog (!!)
-incense! breeze continue, spray can odours and those electrical outlet oil-vapour things......you wouldn't believe how nasty these are to pets (any pets!) but especially waterbased pets like fish and aquatile invertebrates (shrimps, lobsters, marine tank) or amphibians (axolotls etc).

the bacteria I mentioned are almost always secondary killers. A fish that suffers from finrot or red belly (like Flexibacter causes) is usually weakened by intoxication, bad water, stress, skinflukes, internal parasites......

good luck with finding the cause that killed your rare fish; hope this helps.
I have piscivores again too (Haplotaxodon among others), but managed to keep them on dead frozen fish and other food.
in fact the best and safest way to use feeders is to get a pair or group of fastbreeding fish, decontaminate them (de-fluke em thoroughly) and breed your own.

[CFC]

Parasites is a possible cause i hadnt looked into, i hadnt seen any of the classic signs of infection such as flicking rubbing and heavy breathing prior to death but its certainly not something to write off.

I dont use live feeders (apart from for my Chaca, and i breed my own for that)as i have never had problems getting fish to take frozen and i find using live fish morally wrong, i have an extensive collection of predatory fish and all of them feed on frozen human grade foods (whitebait, mussel and prawn). However this doesnt mean they didnt come already carrying parasites (these are wild caught fish after all)which managed to spread unchecked in the closed captive enviroment, this is something i will definately look into more closely for future purchases.

Enviromental causes is less likely, the tanks are all in a fishroom so no noxious substances go near them and the room is shared by my wifes tarantula collection so any airborn pollutant would effect them before the fish. All the usual water parameters checked ok out at the time and though it doesnt mean there wasnt a problem which went unoticed it is fairly unlikely as my maintainace routine is like clockwork, all tanks get 30% changes every weekend and uneaten food/waste is removed daily as seen.

One thing that did happen a few weeks prior to the deaths was that the fishroom heater blew a fuse and the room and tanks became quite cold before it was noticed, at the time i did lose a stingray and a peacock bass but the other fish appeared ok other than being lethargic and were back to normal as soon as the water warmed up again. In hindsight this period of cold could have given the bacteria the foot hold it needed to attack the fish while their natural deffences were down, but it doesnt explain the previous Ageneiosis deaths ive had from the same symptoms.

[sidguppy]

uh oh

did you say Tarantula collection?
as in Theraposidae?

you ARE aware that the New World Theraposidae have urticating hair, yes? rooms where there are a lot of New World tarantula's in tend to get fairly saturated with submicroscopic and truly microscopic tiny hairs.
these hairs can cause harmful effects on animals and humans alike.

striking effect is that while one human (or animal) has no effect whatsoever another one might very well get an anaphylactic shock or similar effects.

these tiny hairs get EVERYWHERE. yes, they get in the water, yes, they get in the fishes' gills, mucuslayer, skin etc. while some fish might not have any side-effects from this, others might!
it's something that builds over time........

There are two options if your wife wants to keep her spiderhobby:
-set them up in a different room. obviously none of you are allergic, so that shouldn't be a problem.
-switch to Aziatic and African spiders wich have all the charms of big hairy Theraposidae minus the itchy hairs. animals like Ceratogyrus or Poecilotheria are well worth keeping.

you might check THIS out, especially the electromicroscopic pictures on tarantula hair and apply it to your catfishes' unexplainable deaths.....

FWIW I too have both fishes and spiders. mine are members of Brachypelma and Grammostola; both hairkickers. these NOT in the same room (or even the same house) as the fishes. 1 fishtank is in the same room as the spiders, but these are Malawian Mbuna, the more common species, tough as old boots. and this 'room' is about 8mx11mx3m. quite big. and very well ventilated.

btw I like the idea of a wife keeping spiders for a hobby! it's highly unusual and quite refreshing to hear about people who step right out of the usual 'role model'.

[CFC]

Hmmm, it seems unlikely but i supose its a possibilty, there have always been taratulas in the room when these unexplained deaths have happened but why would it only effect Ageneiosids? (although i did lose 3 ornate pims and some Pimelodella sp to something similar about 5 years ago but put that down to bad stock and no quarentine).

My wife has quite a few of the nasty little critters in her collection, she has a few of the normal Brachypelma and Grammostola species as well as a Theraphosa blondi, a giant zebra legged (i wouldnt even think of trying to give the scientific name)a giant pink toe and some horrible black thing that webs up everything in its viv.

My new fish house should be finished this summer so my fish will no longer have to share with the spiders, i wonder if it will make a difference?

[sidguppy]

well, I don't know if certain Ageneiosids are suspectible to Tarantula hair.

but I try to use the ol' Sherlock Holmes method.....once you eliminate all the causes the one remaining highly improbable cause is a likely candidate.....

so far we eliminated chemicals, diseases, incense, toxins etc.
Those fish didn't drop dead just because of nothing!

the culprit is bacteria, but those bacteria only kill fishes that have been weakened by something else. now we're trying to find out how far we can get with the 'something elses'......

There are a few things we DO know so far.
#1: not all fishes are fragile or dying. some stay healthy while others get sick and die. this phenomena is something we see with all diseases, toxins and other causes.

#2; it is caused by something that builds up over time. your fishes don't die right after buying them. at first they thrive, eat and grow, but then they get sick and die. so we can rule out wrong waterparameters like nitrates, ammonia, wrong pH etc. these would cause the fish to get sick and falter from day 1.

#3: we can also rule out a whole list of non waterpatameter toxins or pollutions. no paint, no aerial refreshment chemicals, no pesticides.

#4: if the Chaca is the only live feeder we can rule out contamination by nematode parasites and perhaps flukes as well. I assume the Chaca is in a tank of it's own due to the pH effect Chaca's have on water and tank co-inhabitants? so we can rule out any parasitic worms that can be carried by feeders.

#5: we simply don't know for sure if it IS the spiders' urticating hair. but we also DO know that this hair affects some organisms while it doesn't affect others. it's a random effect.

#6: we also DO know that New World Theraposidae carry those hairs for a single purpose: it's a highly developed defense mechanism and it is specifically designed as an irritating agent. it can and does affect mucus membranes, eyes, respiratory organs, nose- and eye-tissue and can causes skin irritation and rashes. it is NOT a harmless substance because it wasn't evolved as such; it's a harmful substance to ward off the enemies of the spider.

#7: we also know for certain that the concentration of urticating hair in your fishroom is many times higher than anywhere in the wild, save in a spiders' den! This I can deduct from the fact that a "collection" doesn't contain just 1 or 2 spiders.
Tarantula's (save just a few species) are not known for their social habits. they're kannibals, so they live spread out. quite a bit.
wich means that with the example of the inside of a Tarantula burrow or the living webtunnel of a treedwelling Avicularia no area in the rainforest or in the water beneath the rainforest will contain as many hairs ppm as your fishroom.
In this, Tarantula's are like cats. if you have a cat, cathair gets everywhere. dead cat-skin cells get even more everywhere. no matter how often you vacuum, the stuff gets all over the place. this is why someone allergic to cats has no life in the house of a catperson. with the tiny microscopic Tarantula-hairs this problem is magnified. many times, maybe hundreds or thousand times as much, at least in the fishroom. the hairs are so small they can get into tiny drops of water, on fingertips, on windowpanes, in condense, anywhere......you'd need diatomfilters to get at them and even then you can count on them getting in your tanks from above.

we still don't know if these are the cause, but it's about the only cause left......
maybe you could test it? get a fishbowl with guppies, handle a spider over it and wipe hands above or in the bowl afterwards? how does it affect the guppies? this is no animalfriendly test.....

[CFC]

When you put it like that it does kind of point in the way of the tarantulas.
Well ive always said spiders are evil little creatures and now it looks like they are killing my fish too, maybe its time they had a meeting with Mr arowana and see how well those hairs work as they slip down his throat

At least i now have a good reason/excuse for ploughing time and money into the new fish house, i can tell her its either the fish house gets built or the tarantulas have to go, every cloud has a silver lining and all that

[sidguppy]

Picking it up from where we left (and not harming Marc's Auchenipterid topic anymore) I quote and aswer:

Grokefish wrote:

Ive been thinking about the spider theory and I wonder if it is a defence mechanism of the spiders directly to these fish in the wild. Alot of wood cats are insectivores (and they don't know the scientific difference between insects and arachnids before some smartarse points this out) and these fish would probably be big enough to eat them in the wild so possibly a defence has been conjoured up by evolution/mother nature specifically between these animals.
Just another note arowanas do eat spiders in the wild so it would be a shame to deprive him of such biotopically correct delicacy for much longer......

This defense mechanism is NOT aimed at fish.

simply because of this: tarantula's can't swim! by the time a fish (Arowana, catfish any fish) can get at them the spider will die 100%. so even if an Arowana would spit out the spider due to the hairs, the spider would drown. a defense mechanism wich doesn't result in surviving animals doesn't make sense.

no, the trick with urticating hairs is that these are so small and so light that they can float in air. their shape is irritating on mucous membranes (eyes, nose, mouth), skin and respiratory organs of landbased vertebrates.

they're pretty useless against invertebrates, that's why army ants can and do kill and eat tarantula's.

Ageneiosidae are riverine fish. they don't live in temporary pools but they can live in a floaded forest. such a forest is huge. the effect of spiderhairs in the flooded forests of the Amazonian Rainforest is nil.

especially when compared to a small fishroom, moderately sized tanks and an airpumpsystem wich sucks spiderhair-saturated air in and distributes it through the water.

we STILL don't know for sure IF it was the spiders' hair that did in those Ageneiosus, but we pretty much eliminated every other source.....

There's another fault here and I spotted it only just now....it's highly unlikely the spiders' hairs can pass through a wet airstone! maybe some air travels through or powers filters? there the bubbles escape freely from the airhose and hence can carry the hairs.
but the hairs DO pass freely through the air and they do land on the surface of the tanks or travel from fingertips to the tankwater.

it's difficult.
I cannot see the room, i don't know wich species of spider we're talking about, I cannot take samples of the tankwater and put it under a microscope and i cannot dissect or check a dead catfish......


but I DO know that the spiders defense mechanism wasn't developed to deal with fish. if the culprits are the spiders it;s an unhappy coincidence.

3 things:
-I wouldn't write off the possibilities of gillflukes or skinflukes yet.
-I need to know the species of spider present in that room. some are so much more virulent when it comes to urticating hairs than others. for example Theraposa leblondi, Brachypelma and Acanthoscurria are very nasty hairkickers, whereas Psalmopoeus and Holothere are far less 'itchy'.
-I discovered I'm allergic to the hairs myself. usually in my case allergies show by extensive sneezing, red eyes and a shortage on air. now I just got very irritated eyes.....so I'm forced to switch from the American Theraposidae to the Asian spiders. no hairs there but no handling either! Spiders like Poecilotheria, Ceratogyrus, epebophus and the like are non irritating, but far more agressive and quite poisonous. so my home collection will be less itchy but a fair bit more dangerous.

[grokefish]

Hooray for planet catfish! we even get to learn about spiders here!
Thanks sid.

[CFC]

Well oddly enough the spiders she has are a Theraposa blondii, 2 from the Brachypelma genus ( a flame leg and a red knee, dont ask me the full names)a chilli rose and two tree dwelling types, all aggressively active hair kickers.

The tank the Ageniosus were in is one of the tanks closest to the rack with the spiders on, i dont run air pumps but there are pleanty of other ways for microscopic particals to get into the water.

For now im not adding anything to my collection until ive moved into the new fish house, i've taken a small loan out to get things started properly and hope to have it on a basic running basis by june.

[apistomaster]

All this talk of tarantulas' urticating hairs is giving me flashbacks too when I was the project manager of a major asbestos abatement project for a public agency in Seattle 20 years ago. I have visions of microscopic fibers floating around me although all I have to worry about here are Black Widows and Hobo spiders.

Sid,
What are your top choices of antibiotics available for bacterial fish diseases? I once placed reliance on Chloramphenicol but the FDA has placed severe restrictions on it and is no longer available in water soluble capsules. Only in injectable nonwater soluable ampuoles that cost $150ea and are useless for fish anyway.

[sidguppy]

Apistomaster;
That question is impossible for me to answer, cause the brandnames here in Europe are quite different from what is available and used in the States.

also, we have different environmental/healthcare laws.
so what is legally for sale on your side of the pond might be restricted here and vice versa.....

CFC, the Spiders are Brachypelma smithi (Mexican Red Knee), Brachypelma Boehmei (Flame leg), Grammostola rosea (Chilean Rose) and likely the treedwellers are Avicularia or Psalmopoeus etc.

These are known kickers except the Avi's wich are usually docile.
yes, it's obvious she's collected the most hairy tarantula's and these are often kept.
i just miss about 2 very common other hairkickers; the Salmon pink Toe (Lasiodora parahybana) and the Brazilian Whiteknee (Acanthoscurria geniculata).

ugh, hairy spiders. maybe if the spiders and the fish are separated the problem is solved. if neither of you is allergic: tarantula's do great in the house (not on the loose ) and it reduces heating costs. if I wasn't getting more allergic I would likely add a few more Braachy's and Grammo's and keep them at home. i like em.


but I like tropical catfishes even better.
unfortunately my tapwater is very unsuitable for rainforest-fishes like Ageneiosus. Ageneiosids are beyond cool. I'm not as fanatical as Marc (I like to see my fish), but as far as Auchenipterids go (and they all DO look great), at least Ageneiosus are fairly visible wich is unusual for this family.
and the "shark look" is also a pre.
it wasn't just for the looks that I switched to Tanganyikans; I avoided a lot of trouble and ended a 23 year old struggle of having trouble with changing tapwater and and increase of more dead riverine cats; most recently the debacle with the Gymnallabes wich costed me my Amphilius. shortly after that I stopped keeping riverines for good.

[Marc van Arc]

What are your top choices of antibiotics available for bacterial fish diseases?

We used to have a medicin called Ceporex (trade name), which was an antibiotic for cat and dogs. It worked marvelously on fishes as well. Don't know what was in it; didn't bother in those days. But fish that had already been given up, recovered miraculously. This medication was only accessible through a vet!

[apistomaster]

Hi Marc,
Sounds like a cephalsporin type drugs.Another class of antibiotic I want to test is azithromycin. Both are good for many bacterial diseases affecting mammals when older ones fail. I have wanted to test these out on fish but haven't done so yet. None are cheap.