Question about Duck Lips (Disease)

[Fat Homer]

As the title states, i have a few questions regarding the Duck Lips disease...

Yesterday (July 29) I lost my beloved 17 year old Polleni to a dreaded cases of acute duck lips took less than 24 hours for it to kill my fish and so naturally i'm now looking for some answers...

1) Does any one know how a fish gets duck lips?

2) Is it contagious? If it is, would taking everything out, then rinsing it and letting it dry out kill any remainders of the disease or do i need to do something extreme like bleach the tank?

3) Is there any cure to this disease? since i looked online yesterday but didn't really seem to find a solid answer...

There maybe more questions later on, but right now i'm kinda in a bit of a slump, since i really never expected my polleni to take a dive like that...

 

[petspoiler]

sorry to hear of your polleni :-( I know that's a sad loss for you.

 

[duanes]

Flexibactor columnaris aka Duck lips
is most virulent at temps above 84'F, so turning up the heat, as one might do for ich, brings on death even faster.
It is contagious, although after losing 2 beani to it in last summers heat wave, non of my other fish, on the same line of tanks, on the same sump were stricken.
I now turn off heaters in the summer, especially for my Mexican cichlids to prevent it.
Columnaris in its acute form, kills very quickly and must be diagnosed immediately to be effective.
Both my beani died within 24 hours, because I thought they had simply been lip locking, as at the time I was not familiar with the disease.

 

[Fat Homer]

@Petspoiler: Thanks, yeah just sucks coz i've had him so darn long, and then bam outta no where duck lips... i guess he was old though... so he had a good run so to speak...

@Duanes, that sucks to hear about your fish, and i did read a bit on your other thread but it didn't really answer everything... but at the same time might explain how it killed my fish so quickly, since i've always left my heater at around 26'C roughly...

So it is contagious then? i guess if the other fish in the tank are weak they may also contract it?

Either way, i've now emptied his tank out since it felt weird seeing the tank without the fish inside, and have decided i'll be turning it into a nice planted tank of some sort as a memorial for him since it was originally his tank and i don't really feel like going the monster fish route again in that size tank (60G)...

 

[duanes]

The bacteria is one of those that are always present in aquarium substrate, but only becomes a problem, if the fish is stressed, old or injured already.
It is thought that regular vacuuming of the gravel, and frequent water changes can bring the bacterial numbers down.

 

[Fat Homer]

Thanks for the info, but just so we're clear, do ALL tanks naturally have this bacteria present at some level, or is it only after a tank is affected that i have to worry about it being present at certain levels in the substrate?

Also, does this bacteria die if the tank is left to dry out? Or would it just start to reproduce again once there is moisture again?




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[woofy]

Its is highly contagious and in my experience a fish showing symptoms is already a goner. I battled this months ago and i had to euthanize quickly the effected and treat the non symptomatic. I realized fish go from normal to swimming very still and being very solitary one day, then lips then death. So when i saw the behavior first i had a chance to cure them before they got the duck lips. I was able to do it with repeated doses of parasite clear and antibiotics given through food. I only lost maybe 3 fish. So its not incurable.


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[petspoiler]

Homer, yeah I remember you talking about that polleni being a favorite & how many years you had it.

[quoting duanes] the bacteria "is most virulent at temps above 84'F..it is always present in substrate, but only becomes a problem if the fish is stressed, old or injured already.. "

your tank temperatures are pretty far below what speeds up the bacteria's multiplication & spread. the polleni's age seems like the only weak point.
I know it's a drag. but the years are a testament to your good care, having provided such a long life.

 

[duanes]

The bacteria seems to always be present, but not in lethal numbers. The fishes natural immune system keeps it in check, unless certain stress breaks the system down.
In my case, my tanks were up to 90'F last summer for at least a month, which may be near the top of the beani's optimum temp range, so that stressor and fact that heat usually causes bacteria to rapidly reproduce overwhelmed the normal immunity.

 

[Chinggiz]

Hmm one of my guppies had this and I quickly removed her from the tank.

Now I'm paranoid my other fish will get it...

So, lower temps and gravel cleaning helps fight it..