Longola slowly wasting away. Diagnosis?

[murdock314]

I picked up 8 longola about 6 weeks ago and all but three have not adjusted to eating commercial food. I removed the 5 that were becoming emaciated and put them each in thier own 40 breeder to recoup. One male will eat krill no problem and has since started to beef up. The others refuse all food i have given them, (hbh spirulina pellets, krill, jumbo mysis, shrimp mix, and various concoctions blending these together into a paste) but initially would graze off algae covered rocks i would place in the tank. Slowly they began to refuse to graze. I have treated with Flubendazole 3 times as it is an anti protozoal and a deworming med, and doesnt have to be eaten to be effective. They all just continued to waste away exept for the male that is eating krill. About a week ago i lost 2 of them. Today i went into my fishroom to find one dead and one barely breathing. I watched her for about 20 minutes as her respiration got slower and slower and then she was gone. Damn. I figured since she was freshly dead i could do a necropsy and see what exactly was going on internally. As soon as i cut through her belly a viscous, clear jelly like substance flooded out, i presume from water retention due to kidney/liver failure? Here are some pics

1. Here you can see the kidney at the top which has some speckling and discoloration. The intestines are completely empty and almost jelly like. The liver is the dark ball under the kidney


2.Ovary. Dont know if the speckles are undeveloped eggs or cysts?


3.In the center of the pic is the heart i believe. Not lookin so hot


4. Another shot of liver, kidney, stomach and intestine


5. Heart and intestine


im by no means an expert on fish anatomy, and most of what i believe im looking at is drawing on 10 year old information from high school bio, and some internet photos. If you guys know whats going on please point me in the right direction! I was almost in tears when i cut her open! Vastly different then filleting up some crappie!

I don't know the ins and outs of fish anatomy, or exact disease processes in fish, but I can chime in with my opinion.

Wild caught petros wasting away is not unheard of. Some never take to feeding in captivity and just give up. I think you'll find differing opinions as to why, varying from not liking the food offered to illness. All of which could be correct. For me, if a med I was trying didn't seem to have the desired effect I would move on and try something else. Nitrofuracin green, metro, clout, just try different meds until you see improvement. Most of the time, time is all that is needed and the fish will start eating but there are times when more aggressive action is required. Sorry for the trouble you've had. It sucks to spend alot of money on an awesome group of fish only to watch them crap out on you one by one.

[murdock314]

It pretty much sucks going into the fishroom every morning thinking ok now who is dead/dying. I should invest in a microscope and see if I can id if there is a pathogen at work here. I really want to keep longola as they are great looking petros, but I'm hesitant to start another tank til I know what's going on. at least the macro rainbow are doing good, I've gotten pretty regular spawning from them

[corky]

Originally Posted by murdock314

It pretty much sucks going into the fishroom every morning thinking ok now who is dead/dying. I should invest in a microscope and see if I can id if there is a pathogen at work here. I really want to keep longola as they are great looking petros, but I'm hesitant to start another tank til I know what's going on. at least the macro rainbow are doing good, I've gotten pretty regular spawning from them

Usually the problem you have has come in with the new fish. We found that wild fish come in and seem okay but something is not quite right and they don't feed properly or as in your case not at all. Then at around the 6 week mark the deaths began. Dimetronidazole as an antibiotic not metronidazole was a very good cure and we would treat all new fish with it. We found this by being in contact with a university in Scotland that specialised in fishy ailments.In your case I personally would be getting on to the supplier of the fish and start investigating what has happened. I've seen cases where over a hundred Petro's from one shipment supplied to different people have had the same problem.

[JkdJedi]

Originally Posted by murdock314

It pretty much sucks going into the fishroom every morning thinking ok now who is dead/dying. I should invest in a microscope and see if I can id if there is a pathogen at work here. I really want to keep longola as they are great looking petros, but I'm hesitant to start another tank til I know what's going on. at least the macro rainbow are doing good, I've gotten pretty regular spawning from them

You ever think of getting f1 longola instead?

Sent from my DROIDX

[murdock314]

yes, since i started this thread i have lost all my wild caugt but, i do have 9 f1 i picked up that are growing out and looking fat and happy

[Gene D]

Man I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your group. I have been fortunate with the wild groups I have brought in and only a had a few who refused food. I realize this is after the fact but in the future you could try producing algae screens with an algae scrubber. That or shrimp mix has worked pretty well in getting new wild caughts to eat. Below is a video of a friends freshly imported Polyodons. The refused everything he threw at them until they met the algae screen.

[murdock314]

do you run the scrubber in your sump, or as a stand alone system? They look simple enough to produce, i would just need to rearrange my filtration.

[JkdJedi]

Originally Posted by Gene D

Man I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your group. I have been fortunate with the wild groups I have brought in and only a had a few who refused food. I realize this is after the fact but in the future you could try producing algae screens with an algae scrubber. That or shrimp mix has worked pretty well in getting new wild caughts to eat. Below is a video of a friends freshly imported Polyodons. The refused everything he threw at them until they met the algae screen.

This is way to cool, could we get some more details on how to make one of these?

Sent from my DROIDX

[murdock314]

you can find designs on youtube but basically its just a screen hanging from a pvc spraybar with a lightsource beaming on the screen. In a closed loop system you have a recirculating pump hooked up to the spraybar and voila! algea grows on the screen