P. polleni - duck lips?

[MooseTheWizard]

The govt did the correct thing, if you are looking to lay blame, blame the millions of idjits that treat their animals willy-nilly, without the slightest clue. This should have been done many years ago. See past thread on this discussion for more info.

Fish Antibiotics Vet Only in Canada | MonsterFishKeepers.com

I can understand the reasoning, and I am aware that treating a pet fish is low on the totem pole, but I still think it is crass to sentence pets to death for something that is potentially treatable. An aquatic vet is not available to me, at least not that I am aware of. Searching https://www.wavma.org/find-a-fish-vet/ yields me one certified aquatic vet in my province, who is nowhere near me.

There is no industry to support this, and the government has taken what control I did have away from me. Fortunately there are means to still acquire these medications online, and I will stock up. I am not sure what other option I have going forward, other than potentially euthanizing my pet on the off chance that they get sick. Any ideas?

 

[MooseTheWizard]

Agree
Duck lips is a bacterial disease, and the gram- negative bacteria that cause it keep building resistance due to random antibiotic abuse.
People who randomly treat QT tanks or crowded grow out with antibiotics, without a known target, bring some of these infections upon themselves by creating super bugs.
Before you add any other fish to that tank, it, filters, nets, tubing, anything that touched tank water should be sterilized with bleach.
The bacterial spores that cause Columnaris can be inert, dry for months in a smudge of grit or dirt and reinfect when water is again added..
I realize this means cycling again from scratch, but it is necessary.

Sorry for the double reply. I tried to edit my original, but it has been longer than 15 minutes so I no longer can. I wanted to add this, and am hoping for some advice:

Re-cycling the aquarium doesn't matter to me as I have plenty of other aquariums with media I can draw from, but I am not sure if there is any benefit to this cleaning given that cross contamination has already occurred. I only own one other cichlid, with the rest of my fish being bichirs and catfish. Scrubbing every tank is not reasonable, as I would be likely killing off my stock with the ammonia spikes from having fresh media.

Open to suggestions on how I could best tackle this, as the last thing I want is to have another fish get sick. This is my first instance of an illness killing a fish of mine, so I am not sure how best to clean my fish room as a result. Would UV sterilizers work? I am not going to dose all my tanks with antibiotics obviously.

The most drastic solution seems to buy some stock ponds for my fish and move them all over with fresh, pre-cycled media and then tear down the old fish room and clean it out with bleach. This is months of work and a fair amount of money however, as I would need to replace a lot of equipment for the new systems while the old ones are cleaned.

 

[duanes]

Whether or not there was enough cross contamination may be the question.
I would surely clean the directly infected tank before adding any new fish to it.
Columnaris is not just a cichlid disease, but it does seem to sometimes tend to be species (family) specific, only time will tell.
And I agree, randomly using an antibiotic in many tanks is not realistic.
A UV will help kill planktonic bacteria, but not those on fish that can be spread by physical contact, and the bacteria can also often concentrates in detritus in the substrate and in filter media.
When it showed up in my tank, it was brought in by 1 new, infected fish and later killed 2 other that were brought in with, and Q.T.ed with it, but did not jump to other tanks.
I did use a separate siphons and nets for the QT tank.
It took about 2 months to completely bump off and spread to others in the QT tank, so it often doesn't present quickly, but once it does become obvious it kills quickly.

 

[MooseTheWizard]

Whether or not there was enough cross contamination may be the question.
I would surely clean the directly infected tank before adding any new fish to it.
Columnaris is not just a cichlid disease, but it does seem to sometimes tend to be species (family) specific, only time will tell.
And I agree, randomly using an antibiotic in many tanks is not realistic.
A UV will help kill planktonic bacteria, but not those on fish that can be spread by physical contact, and the bacteria can also often concentrates in detritus in the substrate and in filter media.
When it showed up in my tank, it was brought in by 1 new, infected fish and later killed 2 other that were brought in with, and Q.T.ed with it, but did not jump to other tanks.
I did use a separate siphons and nets for the QT tank.
It took about 2 months to completely bump off and spread to others in the QT tank, so it often doesn't present quickly, but once it does become obvious it kills quickly.

Alright, appreciate the insight. I will tear down the tank my polleni was in and likely discard the old media. I'd imagine the plants should be thrown out as well. I have a bunch of java moss which isn't a big deal for me to compost, but I have plenty of emersed growth in a HOB I would like to keep.

Do you have a method for cleaning sand? I guess rinsing it with bleach and water? I am not sure how well this works as I've never done it before.

The tank will likely sit dry for the next 4-6 months after that, as I don't want to add any stock until I am sure the rest of my fish are not infected by this. I have thrown out my old net, but will keep using the drain lines and pump as they've already been used in other aquariums, I don't think cleaning them at this point would add anything.

 

[duanes]

I bleached everything in the infected tank (the QT tank was a 55 and I poured a couple gallons of bleach in, filled with tap, and let it sit until the Chlorine off gased), including the substrate, whatever was in the tank, and let tops sit in the tank with the bleach water.
I poured bleach thru PVC and other tubing and let the bleach sit in those tubes about the same time as the tank sat.

 

[MooseTheWizard]

I bleached everything in the infected tank (the QT tank was a 55 and I poured a couple gallons of bleach in, filled with tap, and let it sit until the Chlorine off gased), including the substrate, whatever was in the tank, and let tops sit in the tank with the bleach water.
I poured bleach thru PVC and other tubing and let the bleach sit in those tubes about the same time as the tank sat.

Oh okay, that's simpler than I thought. My only problem is bleach disposal, as I can't put this down my septic. I will figure something out.

 

[tlindsey]

let it sit until the Chlorine off gased

You should be safe to dispose the water.

 

[RD.]

........ and if you want to be extra safe, treat the tank water with a reducing agent such as Prime before putting it down the drain.

 

[RD.]

I can understand the reasoning, and I am aware that treating a pet fish is low on the totem pole, but I still think it is crass to sentence pets to death for something that is potentially treatable. An aquatic vet is not available to me, at least not that I am aware of. Searching https://www.wavma.org/find-a-fish-vet/ yields me one certified aquatic vet in my province, who is nowhere near me.

There is no industry to support this, and the government has taken what control I did have away from me. Fortunately there are means to still acquire these medications online, and I will stock up. I am not sure what other option I have going forward, other than potentially euthanizing my pet on the off chance that they get sick. Any ideas?

My suggestion would be to utilize a long quarantine period, so the exposure to illness is limited. Antibiotics should not be something that is constantly needed in anyone's fish room, and if you took the time to read the info in the past discussion regarding this you should now understand that in many cases, antibiotics are often useless due to the current drug resistance in both commensal and pathogenic organisms commonly found in tropical fish.

Then add into the equation people that can't afford prescription drugs (USA) and are buying antibiotics at Petco etc, you now have pet stores that no longer want to expose themselves to the public backlash, or the potential legal ramifications. Again, the blame is not with the govt of Canada, it was a smart move on their part & should have been done 40-50 yrs ago, world-wide. I fully support the science, and the logic behind this. Too many fools out there, and that's where the blame lies.

You assume that the "correct" meds would have saved your fish, I assume that you are wrong, and the odds favor my assumption over yours.
It sucks, but it is what it is. IME the vast majority of hobbyists use a shotgun approach at treating their sick fish, with very limited knowledge as to what they are even treating. The health issues that can be treated with simple means such as temperature, or salt, are often resolved successfully, but the reality is that most seriously sick fish, for whatever reason, eventually die. That would certainly be the case with this pathogen when it involves one of the more virulent strains of Flexibactor columnaris aka Flavobacterium columnare aka Duck Lips.

 

[MooseTheWizard]

My suggestion would be to utilize a long quarantine period, so the exposure to illness is limited. Antibiotics should not be something that is constantly needed in anyone's fish room, and if you took the time to read the info in the past discussion regarding this you should now understand that in many cases, antibiotics are often useless due to the current drug resistance in both commensal and pathogenic organisms commonly found in tropical fish.

Then add into the equation people that can't afford prescription drugs (USA) and are buying antibiotics at Petco etc, you now have pet stores that no longer want to expose themselves to the public backlash, or the potential legal ramifications. Again, the blame is not with the govt of Canada, it was a smart move on their part & should have been done 40-50 yrs ago, world-wide. I fully support the science, and the logic behind this. Too many fools out there, and that's where the blame lies.

You assume that the "correct" meds would have saved your fish, I assume that you are wrong, and the odds favor my assumption over yours.
It sucks, but it is what it is. IME the vast majority of hobbyists use a shotgun approach at treating their sick fish, with very limited knowledge as to what they are even treating. The health issues that can be treated with simple means such as temperature, or salt, are often resolved successfully, but the reality is that most seriously sick fish, for whatever reason, eventually die. That would certainly be the case with this pathogen when it involves one of the more virulent strains of Flexibactor columnaris aka Flavobacterium columnare aka Duck Lips.

I agree with what you're saying. My polleni was never with new fish for his entire life. He was with bichirs for most of his life, and then in the last year moved to his own aquarium as he was bullying the bichirs. The only way I could imagine this coming from a new fish was cross contamination on water change equipment or my hands from quarantined fish earlier this year, which I am sure is possible. This would mean the bacteria has been in my water for the better part of 2021, and for whatever reason the polleni just now succumbed to it.

I remember reading your posts about using probiotics years ago, and I still have a huge tub of bio-clean as I never actually pulled the trigger on using it. I am dosing my tanks with bio-clean now to try and out compete the bad stuff in my whole fish room. I'm going to assume that if I have no more sick fish in 6 months time, I should be pretty safe moving forward. I agree that most hobbyists seem to have a pretty aggressive medication approach. I have always believed that clean water, a good diet, and a naturalistic habitat (bioactive, lots of plants, snails, etc) was my best bet at keeping my fish healthy and for my entire hobby till now this has been true. Given the antibiotic resistance I am sure it is still my best bet. I am hoping that using this bacteria will help to create a healthy ecosystem in my tanks. I know there is no way to completely eliminate illness, but it seems imperative to try our best to do this given our control lies almost exclusively in the prevention of illness.

It is obvious to me that this legislation is not fixing things, however. Wholesalers and retailers within Canada are 100% still mass medicating their fish. I understand why this legislation is important and I know these problems are factual, but the implementation does not seem successful. Fish are still being mass medicated in farms out of country, and then again in Canadian wholesalers and retailers. When I was asking around to see if anyone had meds, the local fish stores in my area got pretty clammed up when I asked them, "Are you treating your quarantine room with anything?" This problem goes beyond the scope of this forum though.

Things are not helped by the amount of Aquarium "influencers" pushing their garbage products to their audience.

I've reached out to an exotic vet in the nearest city to see if they offer any services regarding fish, so we'll see if that goes anywhere. I doubt it but who knows. I've no need for a vet currently, but I would love to find one. I do not keep schools of fish, or have tanks of fry. All my fish are pretty large and to me the equivalent of a dog or a cat. I'd be less bothered by this whole situation if I had more options.

Appreciate the discussion here. I hope I am not coming off as hostile. My initial post about the dumb government decision was quite emotion-fueled, as my pet was dying.