L46 juv disease

[GoldWing]

Dear forum visitors, first greetings to you all.
I present you another question?
First briefly outline what is at stake.
I have a breeding position with three tanks of one meter.
There is a biological filter under of also one meter, is also a trickle filter and filter werverbed.
a UV lamp and occasional ozone device.
Each filter has an compartement inside too, mechanical sponge filter and watté.
The temperature is 30 C °
Every day there is a small partial water change done, automatically every day.
Population, small breeding group L46 grown in the top bin.
some 46 young juviniles , maybe still twenty in the second tank. Here are the problems occurred.
and some L66 breeding group en juv below.

Now some weeks ago had a sick fish. The symthomen it had a yellow belly.
especially behind the head to just past the pectoral fins. Furthermore, the skin of the first sick fish are not perforated.
Now a few weeks later the same phenomenon with an other juvenile, but with skin damage.
Can anyone using the pictures, estimate what it might be the problem, Determine
what is the issue? Tips on what action i should take..?
The hygiene in my Thanks, I thing are in good shape, no waste, no bedding, no dirty perlon wool in the filter, etc.
biolog filter is also cleaned once a year.
Looking forward to all the help i can get.
Thanks in advance.

[PlecoCrazy]

I have heard of some people having problems raising fry in bare bottom tanks as they can get a bacterial infection from the mulm coating on the bottom of the tank.

The solution was to make sure you siphon the bottom of the tank regularly even if there is no apparent debris to siphon up. Or add a thin layer of substrate.

Not sure if that's your problem or not but was the first thing that came to mind.

Another thing I've heard is that running a UV filter on fry that doesn't require UV lowers there immune system defense. Once the fish leave your facility or you quit using UV or bulb goes out then your fish are more prone to disease than fish raised in regular water.

[Bijn]

It might be the combination of UV and a barebottom tank.

The bare bottom causes a lack of "living space" for the good bacteria in your tanks. The UV prevents the good bacteria to enter your tanks. This wil result in a tank without the good bacteria. This means there will not be any bacterial degradation in your thank and thus there is a possibility that there are some places in your tanks with bad water conditions dispite the fact that in general your water is OK.

I think there is a chance you have a bad-water-microlayer on your bottom due to a bare-bottomed tank and sterile conditions.

[Narwhal72]

The fry looks malnourished but whether this is the cause of or symptom of what is causing the deterioration of the belly tissue is unknown to me.

I do agree with the previous posters that adding some substrate would be a good idea.

Andy

[GoldWing]

Makes sense. The UV is only via a bypas so only a therd of the water passes tru it. But never the less. The ozon is only on if there are problems. The lack of substrate could indeed mean something. But i suck of the waste dayly. And the juvs are already a few months old, en i previously lost a young adoult female in the same manner. Over a few days the abdomen gone yellow and then death follows.

[GoldWing]

all th other fish are indeed wel nurisched.
the decade most have hapend over a few days.
never seen that this fish was skinny before it went sick.

[Unungy]

do you have any updates on this?

[GoldWing]

For this moment no other Fish have gone sick. Keep my fingers crossed. So hard to pinpoint what the reason of these cases where.

[Unungy]

Thanks for the update.

did you give him any medication?

[GoldWing]

Done nothing, because the other fish look healty at this time. I tought the sollution would do more damage than the problem.
With the fish on the photo i went to the Vetrenarian, not his speciality fish. He recomended , that if i would us an antibioticum. i should use Enrofloxacin (Baytril®), found a good site with lots of explanation about dosis etc. But it's in Dutch. http://www.elfwdr.nl/vijver/Visziekten/Antibiotica.htm
if there is need and interest for i could translate it

[apistomaster]

I share the view of many others here that in general, I think pleco fry do better in a tank with at least a thin(>1 cm) layer of fine substrate and use some structure like bog wood.
I do not think it is very beneficial to use UV and or ozone when rearing pleco fry or any other tropical fish for that matter because eventually the fish may end up living in a new owner's tank where it may encounter bacteria which are normally present and harmless except for fish raised in almost sterile conditions where they have not had any challenges for their immune systems so when they hit more "natural" aquarium conditions they can be overwhelmed trying to cope with many of these ubiquitous bacteria and other common fish diseases. Te last thing in the world I would do is to introduce any antibiotics to this scenario.

Over my more than 4 decades of involvement in this hobby I have seen problems arise among Angelfish, Discus and Fancy guppies which are raised in extremely clean environments and were in peak condition. These fish would frequently get sick after being introduced to less intensely maintained aquariums. Sometimes it is good for maximizing productivity to use hyper clean conditions and forced feeding but whenever I have used this approach I prepare my fish prior to sale by gradually changing my husbandry to be less intensive so as to "toughen" the fish for real world shop and hobbyists aquarium conditions. I have always found that doing so greatly reduces losses among my customers.

I recommend that you give some of the suggested changes serious consideration.
As to that particular H. zebra it could have died for any number of reasons. In every brood of any fish there are nearly always a few with some problems from the very beginning and anytime one deals in raising living organisms some just are doomed from the beginning.
When I raise Discus for example, I am very likely to cull 10% because of their lack of vigor and dim prognosis for normal growth. I have not had that high of a percentage of my plecos requiring culling; most simply still have enough genetic diversity and retain normal characteristics. Hypancistrus zebra are the one pleco which is being bred from a relatively small number of original stock and defects are beginning to emerge. That aside, they are also a delicate species to begin with compared to most of their related species.

[GoldWing]

let it be clear that i am not going to use antibiotics in my tank rack. But i came up on the issue antibiotics via advise of a vet. just to use it for saving a sick indivdual in a quarantaine tank.

[Unungy]

so did you quarantine the fish?

[GoldWing]

no, DOA

[TwoTankAmin]

Just so both sides will be heard on this issue, I have spawned and raised 100s of zebra fry in bare bottom tanks without any issues. I do use a lot of rock and wood in these tanks. I also tend to break them down ever 304 months to get head counts or to move fish around or to pull them for selling. At such times I will give the bottom glass a good scrubbing using an algae sponge.

I have also been spawning contradens in bare bottom tanks.

[mistern2005]

This is my first year spawning zebra plecos, I've had them much longer than that.

There was a learning curve for me to properly raise the fry. I've had successes and failures in both leaving them with the father and taking them away. I know there is debate on this topic, so I won't get side tracked.

All my tanks have fine gravel/sand. My breeding tank and one grow out tank have old EcoComplete, the other grow out tank has Xingu river sand. I have used a UV sterilizer, but discontinued use because it didn't seem to do anything, was extra maintenance, a potential leak, and saw no real upside. Someone also told me it might not be good to be blasting dead stuff throughout the tank all them time, which seems like a valid point. There might be something to the bare bottom tank theory, but UV sterilizers certainly don't make the tank sterile.

Of the 80+ fry I've been fortunate enough to raise, several didn't survive. Some was due to my own learning curve, some due to an overcrowded grow out tank, and some for seemingly no reason at all. Thankfully, I have not lost a fry that was older than about 10 weeks. One of the oldest fry I lost had the yellow bulge, similar to the picture in this thread. However it had this bulge for a very long time (maybe 3 weeks) before dying. I figured it was part of the yolk sack that was not properly absorbed - it was just an initial thought, and I am not sure if it has any merit. It was not from a tank that had a UV sterilizer or a bare bottom.

Surely my survival rate is far better than it would be in the wild. However, I am always looking for ways to improve. If anyone else has more ideas about the disease/problem the zebra shown, I'm certainly interested. Thanks to all the good comments on this thread as well.

[GoldWing]

The Fish in the photo, was a few months old.
It was indeed having the coloration, some weeks in advance. And yes it reminded me also of the yolk sack. But this fish was already outgrown the yolksack For months before the Yelow yolkish bellow appeard. First i Tought it looked like swollen liver.To rich food or something, but then it came out like a ripe ulcer.

[Unungy]

Personally I would have place him on a quarantine tank and treat him with a small dose of sulfa for two weeks and he would have been fine.

I believe that whatever the reason maybe in cases like this fish should be isolated for observation or treatment.

The tendency for disease in well established tank is always a possibility that we need to be very aware. It is also very common when introducing new species from the wild.

It is up to us to control any possible outbreak in the tank. Sometimes the whole tank needs to be treated.

[mistern2005]

Is there a particular sulfa drug that you use?  There seem to be many options and I always like getting a recommendation based on experience.

[Unungy]

Yes I have found triple sulfa to be very effective in cases like this.

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.j ... d=10850836

My recommendation will be to quarantine in small tanks.
A 20G will be perfect. The reason being is that the dose can be apply more effectively.

It doesn't matter how different our setups are any bottom's tank glass should be clean up on a regular basis to avoid and possible disease from happening. Normally I use an sponge with a bit of super ick because it has Benzaldehyde Green and I clean all wall and bottom.

I hope it helps.