Serious question about a fish at the LFS

[crgeltn]

I have been keeping an eye on a fish at the LFS that I suspect has fish Tuberculosis. It is a rather large male flowerhorn. It has been losing weight over the last week or two and looks like it has acne (for lack of a better word) down one entire side of the fish. The LFS has been treating it for internal parasites for the last week and see no improvement. I dont know whay but they seem to think that an internal parasite would be causing such external problems.

I have only seen this one other time at a LFS where I worked for years. It came in that way from a distributor and we got rid of all of the fish in the entire box even though they were still in the bag. The owner knew what it was right away and stopped ordering from them for years because of it.

My question is should I tell the people at this LFS that I am 99.9% sure it is Tuberculosis? I am only really concerned that this can be transmitted to anyone working at the store. I also know that there are one or two people working there that consider themselves "fish experts" and would seriously argue that I was wrong instead of just getting rid of one fish. Maybe I should just speak privately with the owner?

Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[B_IN_SD]

Bring any printed info you you can to prove your case after that it is in thier hands.

 

[navygirl76]

i would definately tell them. all you can do is have some information, present it to the manager and see what happens.

let us know what happens!

 

[Yanbbrox]

If your so sure tell them, clearly this is effecting you as your posting about it. If they do nothing and ignore you then your conscious is clear. Hope it works out for you

 

[Lupin]

I have been keeping an eye on a fish at the LFS that I suspect has fish Tuberculosis. It is a rather large male flowerhorn. It has been losing weight over the last week or two and looks like it has acne (for lack of a better word) down one entire side of the fish. The LFS has been treating it for internal parasites for the last week and see no improvement. I dont know whay but they seem to think that an internal parasite would be causing such external problems.

What other symptoms does it have? Does it act listlessly around? It is another sign of fish TB.

My question is should I tell the people at this LFS that I am 99.9% sure it is Tuberculosis? I am only really concerned that this can be transmitted to anyone working at the store. I also know that there are one or two people working there that consider themselves "fish experts" and would seriously argue that I was wrong instead of just getting rid of one fish. Maybe I should just speak privately with the owner?

Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Your thoughts will weigh down their decisions. Speak to the owner first and then to the employees. Fish TB is very destructive when it affects other stocks. There is no cure for this and the fish simply weakens for weeks until it dies. The only way to stop it is destroy all the stocks in contact with it, sterilize all equipments and start over.

Look up my sticky thread. It has a site to the rainbowfish article where fish TB has been discussed. All details there are pretty accurate. I had fish TB myself and destroyed all my stocks after months of suspicion why the misdiagnosed 'bacterial infection' hasn't stopped from a series of treatments with antibiotics.
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2261716&postcount=22

 

[crgeltn]

I talked to the owner this morning. They had a local vet/fish guy check it out as well and he confirmed it. They only had to destroy two other fish in the small system it was in. The system and everything around it was being bleached this afternoon.
Thanks for all of your input. I feel much better now and would have felt horrible if anyone had become sick.