Aquarium Diseases

Some notes about the following disease identifications. I will be using a number of commercially available literature to identify the common diseases of fish. Each will be identified with the description by a reference number. A passage headed by a number in [] is a direct quote from the identified source, the source is numerically identified as completely as possible at the end of this document. There will be as many quotes as possible to give you as much published information as possible. My own personal experiences and what I use to treat a given sympton will be added as well. My experiences will not be headed by a number. Fish diseases are quite dificult to accurately diagnose without the use of relatively sophisticated equipment most aquarists would prefer to do without. As such, most rely on the diagnostic ability of local pet store personel. With experience, these staff are a valuable resource and should be consulted. In addition, read as much as you can on the assorted symptoms of diseases. Proper identification of a problem can often lead to the successful treatment.

Stress

In my experience, most of the problems covered in this section are simply a reaction to stress in the environment. I firmly believe that the largest killer of fish in the care of aquarists is the presence of ammonia and nitrite in the water. These toxins weaken and stress fish to the point where they are vulnerable to many of the sub-clinical diseases each carries. Just like every human carries a number of diseases around with him/her, the problem normally only surfaces when the organism is weakened in some way by a stressful environment or event. I call this environmental stress, and it's danger is amplified in the captive aquatic environment of the limited aquarium capacity.

Stress also occurs every time the fish is netted and moved from the water it is accustomed to swimming and moved to the environs of a new aquarium. Combine that with the cumulative stress of the break in period of building the bacterial populations required for proper Nitrogen purification and we have the makings of serious difficulties for the novice aquarist just beginning the fishkeeping experience in a brand new aquarium situation.

Other areas also create stress in the environment. Many ich infestations are temperature related, an extreme variation of temperature (over 2oC in day) can often cause enough stress to make a fish vulnerable to free swimming Ich parasites. Many other external pests as well can break through the weakened or missing protective slime coating around the fish

Overfeeding

Another large area where stressful ammonia and its by-products are generated is from overfeeding. Aquarists are particularly guilty of excessive addition of foods into th aquarium. A rule of thumb for feeding is simple - feed as much food as the fish can consume in TWO minutes with none of it hitting the bottom. Feed no more than twice a day except in the case of newborn fry. A single feeding is often much better, especially if you strictly adhere to the above rule. The physiology of fish is very different from man, do not make the mistake of anthropomorphicizing their needs as identical to your own.
Excessive feeding leaves lots of free floating organic material floating around, even with proper filtration, making the water conditions in an aquarium get progressively and rapidly worse. Regular aquarium maintenance will alleviate a lot of the problems, and keep a lot of mistakes in check. But these conditions will often lead to fungus of varying types. Whenever fungus is evident in the environment, treat is as a symptom of the problem and treat it as such. But attack the cause, almost invariably poor water quality, as well as the more obvious puffs and patches. You can solve the outward signs but if you don't recognize and remove the actual problem, the symptoms will just keep coming back.

  • argulis (fish Lice)

  • columnaris (black molly disease)

  • costiasis

  • dactylogyrus

  • dropsy

  • furunculosis (aeromonas - open lesions)

  • hemmorhagic septicemia

  • Mouth Fungus

  • Malawi bloat (bacterial disease - gram negative)

  • neon tetra disease (bacterial disease - gram negative)

  • saprolgenia Fungus infections (Fungus, eye, mouth, fin and tail)

  • secondary infections

  • swim bladder disease

  • swollen belly disease

    • Bacterial Infections

    External Parasites