I’m probably not supposed to talk about this, but I’m getting really frustrated with what is going on with some of my eye biters. So this will be part rant, part explanation of the situation and a question at the end. I’ll also have a brief summary for those of you who don’t want to read my rant. Its too much to write from my phone, where the pics are, so I’ll post them after. They are cell phone quality, but I think its clear enough to see what I mean.
About a month ago I noticed that my juvenile eye biters had some redness on their faces, enough that made them look like really large rummy noses. I spoke to my supervisor and our animal welfare guy. My supervisor took my worries seriously, while the welfare guy said "they're eating and acting normal, so I don't think its a problem." Now, I worked at PetSmart for almost 6 years I have seen just about everything (vendors are ok, but the fish warehouse is horrible) and I haven't seen anything like this before. But I do know that redness is never a good sign and was sometimes a precursor to mouth rot. My supervisor convinced the welfare guy and the techs to treat with methylene blue. Because of the UK rules on animal welfare its one of the few things we can use without vet approval. However, the tech guys treated one day and then stopped, saying it didn't do anything. The fish are on a central system in each room, so they all get the same water unfortunately. We finally got the tech guys to treat long enough to make the juveniles start to heal up. Unfortunately, by this time it had spread to three or four other eye biter tanks, which did mean I am now being taken seriously. Its also getting worse, there is now redness where all the fins connect to the body, dorsal spines, caudal peduncle, and into the fin rays on some of the fish. I also stripped some eggs from a couple of females and noticed redness on the eggs. This to me is more evidence that it is bacterial in origin, which is counter to the welfare guy and the tech guys telling me that its just inflammation. A week after completing a treatment with methylene blue on one tank it came back in that one and it is now in all my eye biter tanks (that's 12 tanks). I wrote out my concerns to the animal welfare guy and he did finally get the vet in to look. The vet is a mammal guy though and just said "they seem happy so I don't see much of a problem." Because they are all still eating apparently it is not something to take too seriously according to the vet. However, I have noticed some skinny females and this resulted in me feeding them multiple times a day and those females have not been gaining weight and a couple have died. The welfare guy said those that died were due to aggression, but I don't think I can say it is for sure because it could be due to the infection. We are sending fish out on Monday to be looked at by another University to get a pathology but from what we were told by the welfare guy this could take weeks to receive and weeks more to analyze until we can get a prescription. I'm trying not to get really pissed but I'm basically getting told that its better for the fish to have them die, lose weight, spread infection, get worse and who knows what else than it is to treat with a general antibiotic. Because the antibiotic could stress them, I'm pretty $@&#ing sure that having a bacterial infection is much more stressful and painful for them. The weird thing is that the other species (Labeotropheus fuelleborni, Tropheops "red cheek", and zebras) aren't showing any signs, just the eye biters. The system is highly regulated so ammonia is always zero, nitrites are zero, nitrates are about 40 and pH is 7.8, the first thing they did when I brought it up to them was to test the water. Its tested every day anyway, but they redid it just in case. Because they also thought it was general inflammation they moved four of my juveniles to another room for a week to make sure it wasn’t something with the water. I wasn’t a fan of this because I am worried it could have spread whatever was going on into the other room. So my question is, has anyone ever seen anything like this and if so how did you treat it? I’m thinking of just taking hours out of my day every day to start salt dipping all 100 of them. . .
TL;DR: Some of my fish have a red infection that looks like nothing I’ve seen and could be bacterial. The only species affected is the eye biters, others are fine. Room with central circulation. Have been treated for a week with methylene blue and water changes, which helped but didn’t cure it. Fish are now losing weight and dying which may or may not be related. Vet and welfare guy think fish are fine. Will be sending out for pathology on Monday. I’m super angry with a welfare system that is supposed to have my fish’s best interest in mind, but is making it nearly impossible to heal them and resulting in deaths. Ammo=0, nitrite=0, nitrate=40, pH=7.8
About a month ago I noticed that my juvenile eye biters had some redness on their faces, enough that made them look like really large rummy noses. I spoke to my supervisor and our animal welfare guy. My supervisor took my worries seriously, while the welfare guy said "they're eating and acting normal, so I don't think its a problem." Now, I worked at PetSmart for almost 6 years I have seen just about everything (vendors are ok, but the fish warehouse is horrible) and I haven't seen anything like this before. But I do know that redness is never a good sign and was sometimes a precursor to mouth rot. My supervisor convinced the welfare guy and the techs to treat with methylene blue. Because of the UK rules on animal welfare its one of the few things we can use without vet approval. However, the tech guys treated one day and then stopped, saying it didn't do anything. The fish are on a central system in each room, so they all get the same water unfortunately. We finally got the tech guys to treat long enough to make the juveniles start to heal up. Unfortunately, by this time it had spread to three or four other eye biter tanks, which did mean I am now being taken seriously. Its also getting worse, there is now redness where all the fins connect to the body, dorsal spines, caudal peduncle, and into the fin rays on some of the fish. I also stripped some eggs from a couple of females and noticed redness on the eggs. This to me is more evidence that it is bacterial in origin, which is counter to the welfare guy and the tech guys telling me that its just inflammation. A week after completing a treatment with methylene blue on one tank it came back in that one and it is now in all my eye biter tanks (that's 12 tanks). I wrote out my concerns to the animal welfare guy and he did finally get the vet in to look. The vet is a mammal guy though and just said "they seem happy so I don't see much of a problem." Because they are all still eating apparently it is not something to take too seriously according to the vet. However, I have noticed some skinny females and this resulted in me feeding them multiple times a day and those females have not been gaining weight and a couple have died. The welfare guy said those that died were due to aggression, but I don't think I can say it is for sure because it could be due to the infection. We are sending fish out on Monday to be looked at by another University to get a pathology but from what we were told by the welfare guy this could take weeks to receive and weeks more to analyze until we can get a prescription. I'm trying not to get really pissed but I'm basically getting told that its better for the fish to have them die, lose weight, spread infection, get worse and who knows what else than it is to treat with a general antibiotic. Because the antibiotic could stress them, I'm pretty $@&#ing sure that having a bacterial infection is much more stressful and painful for them. The weird thing is that the other species (Labeotropheus fuelleborni, Tropheops "red cheek", and zebras) aren't showing any signs, just the eye biters. The system is highly regulated so ammonia is always zero, nitrites are zero, nitrates are about 40 and pH is 7.8, the first thing they did when I brought it up to them was to test the water. Its tested every day anyway, but they redid it just in case. Because they also thought it was general inflammation they moved four of my juveniles to another room for a week to make sure it wasn’t something with the water. I wasn’t a fan of this because I am worried it could have spread whatever was going on into the other room. So my question is, has anyone ever seen anything like this and if so how did you treat it? I’m thinking of just taking hours out of my day every day to start salt dipping all 100 of them. . .
TL;DR: Some of my fish have a red infection that looks like nothing I’ve seen and could be bacterial. The only species affected is the eye biters, others are fine. Room with central circulation. Have been treated for a week with methylene blue and water changes, which helped but didn’t cure it. Fish are now losing weight and dying which may or may not be related. Vet and welfare guy think fish are fine. Will be sending out for pathology on Monday. I’m super angry with a welfare system that is supposed to have my fish’s best interest in mind, but is making it nearly impossible to heal them and resulting in deaths. Ammo=0, nitrite=0, nitrate=40, pH=7.8
