Gerald Bassleer examines an Otocinclus catfish with severe bacterial gill damage, white lesions, and emaciation. The fish had necrosis and hemorrhage in the gills plus heavy bacterial infection in the liver. He recommends antibacterial treatment like oxytetracycline before tackling parasites.
Questions this video answers
Case number 116.
Otocinclus (a South American aquarium fish).
Oxytetracycline (mentioned as sometimes helpful).
Chapters
Hello, dear aquarists, today another case of fish diseases, number 116 in the background. Oh, this site. There's a young fisherman in Cameroon, at Lobe river, at the waterfalls, collecting some pelvic acromies. That's many years ago when I did some exploration and with visiting, collecting areas and exporters of fish. Well, today it's not about a fish from Cameroon, but it's a fish from South America, which I discuss in my presentation. So I will share my screen with my PowerPoint like I do usually to discuss today a case of a sick autocynclus which arrived at the importer. And we examined it and we explained the infectious which we found on the fish. You could see that the fish, when they offered it to me, it was showing bad lesions like here, the white lesions that look skinny. The importer received a couple of thousands of these fish and some were dying. So there was a risk of serious problems which we tried to solve as soon as possible. So we can cure the fish and make them ready for you. The hobbyist for the pet shop, so you can have a happy, healthy autosynchus. Because keeping or receiving fish is sometimes dealing with problems. This is the life of the biology. And then you receive this kind of auto synchronous, which are skinny, they have lesions and they have mortality. Well, you have to take actions. And the first action is to do a good examination what's going on with the fish. And what we found was in the gills. You could see here that some parts of the gills have completely rotten away caused by bacterial infection. So that fish will suffer badly here. Other parts are involved were heavily infected and demolished by bacterial infection. Here we see also fusion, the hemorrhagic lesions. So fish badly, maybe by the stress of shipping, the handling over medicating medication, maybe to high ammonia content in the water. Many things that can cause that the gills can become damaged and have bacterial infections. Look here, those gills are completely gone. They're not functioning functional anymore. So the fish will have respiratory problems. And also we found a few gill flukes like we show here on the video. It is common to find parasites and bacteria together. You have to take appropriate actions. So some parts of the gills here, that's bad, some are reddish and ragic. Some look a little bit normal here. See other parts of the gills with some gill flukes, see them moving around here. That's why a microscopic examination of very bad and very sick one helps you to find out what is causing the losses of deuterontosynchronous internally we found the organs here, like the liver, in very poor condition caused by bacterial infection. Which we show here on the video. You see the millions of tiny moving spots, whitish and blackish white spots. Spots moving around, which are different kind of bacteria. And this high kind of high volume. Shows that there is a bad risk of bacterial infection. So what can we suppose recommend here as a treatment? Well, the first thing you should think about that the fish like this autosyncrasy you receive from supplier. That you should apply a good acclimation procedure and apply and adjust the protocol. A protocol that is designed because she did a diagnosis of the problem. You did a good treatment. And sometimes that tells you what you can do in the future. And you receive autosynchronous from the supplier. Here we found today a combination of a bacterial and an parasitic infection with a few gill fruits. The reason might be the poor handling and the transport of the fish. The first thing you should control is the bacterial infection. Because that's the biggest killer. Particularly when we saw the gills which are badly infected. And use an antibacterial medication. Sometimes oxytetracycline might be helpful. But ask your fish doctor. He should be the one who tells you what you can use. He has experience and knowledge. Later on you can apply a medication against the guilt flukes. We can recommend that you use during the treatment already. Or Dr. Basley and Bipers food garden or professional treat to help the fish to recover. But act quickly. The sooner you act, you can save many fish by improving the immunity and recovering the damaged tissues. Learn more from in my books on fish diseases which are available in different languages. Or become a patron on my Patreon channel where I give expertise expertise training on fish diseases. Thank you for watching my videos and my explanation which make you become a good experienced aquarist and save a lot of fish. Thank you for watching.
