Half a black fish? Look no further

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Yank-Keeper-Scott

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 7, 2010
344
2
0
Gold Coast, Qld, Australia
Hey guys

I saw that some of you didn't know what the hell as going on, with a fish that has a completely black tail, well look no further.

"Any fish infected with Myxosoma Cerebralis may develop darker pigmentation in the caudal area of the body because of damage to sympathetic nerves controlling pigmentation" [1]

"Myxosoma Cerebralis can also cause radical skeletal deformation, it can cause deformed spinal column and skull failing to grow to usual size" [1]

I hope this has answered any questions you may have, so in short to summarise.

This DISEASE can either cause dark pigmentation in the tail, or severe deformation.


[1] Post, G, 1987. Textbook of fish health. 2nd ed. Australia: T.F.H. Publications.


Please make this a sticky!


Scott
 
This will also sometimes happen to fish if they slam into a lid or tank glass. Sometimes it goes away over time, sometimes it's permanent. We see it a lot in the discus community. It's always been theorized that it's nerve damage, so this would back up that claim.
 
I'm happy I could help

Yeah people seem to think its just a cool colour morph, but really nerve damage caused by disease.

This is not to be confused with melanistic fish, it's sad that people charge more for them.... Not good!


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"Infection can result in head deformities, axial skeleton deformities, deformed tails, and neural damage."
Click to expand...

this was found through another resource, also i have some evidence to support this.

[video=youtube;r3iXcA5mpTM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=r3iXcA5mpTM[/video]

the above video was posted to a Queensland aquarium forum by a member, who bought these fish from another member, needless to say, at 0:03 we see a small flowerhorn with this disease.
later on in the post the owner of this fish said:

He is, but it looks like the black half is in paralysis.
Click to expand...

this does seem to support the neural aspect of things, i will get an update of what happened to the flowerhorn momentarily.
 
[video=youtube;dBDjNS7v-oc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dBDjNS7v-oc[/video]

this is an updated video of that exact fish, the owner claims that the fish swims only a little 'retardedly' at times, this still could support the claims of damage

but one thing for sure it does not seem to hinder the fish's longevity. still i am not a fan of it at all.
 
I don't see how the fish is swimming differently? Was the flowerhorn in question officially diagnosed or is this just coming from observation of disease symptoms? I think we should be careful not to point to any fish that has a black tail and say it has this disease. This fish, to me, looks like a phenotypic expression of an inherited trait. (I could be wrong of course!) This is however, especially true with hybrid fish like flowerhorns that have unpredictable genotype combinations because of unknown ancestry. Who knows what is going to come out of a breeding.. I was interested in this because I have a couple of hybrid fry I am growing out right now that have a trait similar to that of the flowerhorn but they are completely normal and I'm sure it is just an expression of phenotype. I am also thinking of half-black angel fish as an example.. I guess we could know for sure about this particular fish if this trait was passed on to offspring.

Thanks for bringing this disease to our attention. I don't want to diminish what you are saying at all. I totally see what you are saying in the trout fingerling pic. I just want to be careful not to paint with too wide a brush.
 
the owner described it as having trouble swimming but hey, i dont own the fish.

yeah i see where you are coming from, in the whole flowerhorn thing.

what i find interesting is that the half black angelfish have black fins included, this flowerhorn and trout do not, i thought that presented a good arguement.
also i saw a member posted their SB green terror, which also had half black, i guess the SB is the disfugurement ;P
 
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