Dead Serpae

[mitche8359]

I lost another serpae tetra. Seeing if anyone can confirm the cause. The fish looked like it had ich, but instead of the small white spots it had a hairy large white spot. The white spot dissipated with ich medication, but didn't really go completely away with the first treatment. A second treatment was completed, but the fish died today.

Can anyone confirm if this large white spot was ich? I've lost a lot of fish in the tank within the last month and need to resolve the issue.

[docone]

Did the dead Serpae have any "holes" around the white spots?

[SNPiccolo5]

I've had several different "varieties" of ich, or at least parasites that get killed by ich medication... Depending upon if you stopped treating before the spot was gone could have effected it. I usually don't stop treating until all usuall symptoms are gone.

-Tim

[lanstar]

Does the hairy white spot resemble cotton or maybe wool? If so, you may be describing a fungus. Fungal infections usually begin at injury sites and are encouraged by poor to marginal water quality. The fish could have had an ich cyst that finally ruptured and the fungus took advantage of the wound left behind. So you may be dealing with 2 problems. The ich medicine took care of one but the other was hiding in the background, waiting, and took advantage of the situation.

If it happens to another fish, a possible treatment for fungus is to capture the fish and swab the affected area with povidone iodine or mercurochrome. There are also medications that you can put in the water to treat an entire tank for fungal infections.

Water quality can often be the root cause of many problems like these. You might want to consider a 5-day, 20% a day, partial water change program followed by at least 1 20% partial change a week afterward.

A few good indicators of general water quality that you can do with your "nose & eyes" test kit include: a very mild odor or no odor at all; good clarity; no surface scum; bubbles pop almost immediately when they reach the surface. Keep doing 20% daily partial changes until your water passes all these tests.

Best of luck...

Tim

[mitche8359]

hmmm.. yeah I'd say it looked like cotton. I've been doing water changes almost twice weekly since I set the tank back up in December. If you knew me a year ago, you'd think I was an evil twin or rather the good twin, since I seldom changed water. I don't know what's going on with the tank. Been having a lot of problems this time around. I think I'm going to let things rest for a while. See if things settle down.

[Jim Miller]

I had three serpaes one of which was a complete bully. I'm convinced that the little sores which turned white on the eventual other two dead serpaes were the work of the bully. He just pecked at them constantly. At times I would wonder if he was a Tiger Barb in drag.

I recently sent the bully back to the LFS. Good riddance.

jtm

[mitche8359]

Sounds like there is one in every bunch.

[Fish dude]

I have 5 serpae on their own in a 27 litre tank and they constantly pick on eachother making eachother look quite rough and fins slighlty torn so i a way they are quite open to fungus?finrot etc. but if you keep a group of 5 or more they esablisha kind of pecking order and they have a leader but the bullying is not concentrated on 1 or 2 others so no real harm is done.

[mitche8359]

I originally had a group of four, but I lost one tetra right off to not cycling the tank, which left three, and then two and then one. I don't want to take a rish of getting more nippers in the tank, so I'll just give the last one to the lfs.

[Got Fish?]

It could be a disease...