Fish disease case nr. 54 Angelfish Pterophyllum scalare with bacterial infection

Hello, dear fish keeper. Today we are at our case of fish diseases number 54. And we will talk about an angelfish which is suffering from a bacterial infection. Angelfish, Telophilum scalari, which is a very common fish we keep in our aquarium at home. Unfortunately, some people try to mix it with small fish like small tetras, but that's not recommended. It's a Chiclet. A cichlid needs a territorium, needs to be living with some larger fish, not too small fish, because he can be aggressive on them. And in this case in the aquarium, which was lacking some light here, but you see some of the fish here were separating heavy, heavy respiration. They had some skin lesions getting darker in color. And every week a few were dead and they were slowly wasting away. And when we start taking a skin scraping, as you could see here, we see a lot of black spots here. The scale was covered with a colony of bacteria. We see some rot shaped bacteria here. That's a little rot here. So it was a mix of bacteria covering the skin of the fish. And also the gills, you could see a serious damaged gills that the filaments are completely rotten off or necrotic due to bacterial infection. We call that gill rot. A lot of bacteria causing this kind of gill rot, which is kind of, how can I say, pneumonia for humans. And this is killing the fish. The fish will suffer and die because it will suffocate. The gill cannot take up oxygen and cannot secrete CO2 or ammonia. So this fish has a serious problem with this kind of heavy gill infection, and that's why they eventually die. And also inside we found a lot of rod shaped bacteria. You can see them all here. That's at about 400 magnification. And that's a different kind of bacteria, which in a laboratory you can help to define what it is. There are also some little spots there between which are spotlight. Sometimes you find two to three different types of bacteria. The spleen in the microscope showed a lot of melanomacrophage centers. We call that mmcs. And that is usually a reaction due of the organ to macrofax defense, the tissue of the spleen against the bacteria, against the infection. But then of course, it's taken away a lot of the healthy organ parts. So the fish is becoming very weak and susceptible to any infection, like a bacterial infection. And here there is a serious bacterial infection in the water and in the intestine of the water. And in the water it spreads, of course, to the other fish. And here you can see it's inside the fish, all those rods and pointed bacteria. Here you see a part of the spleen with the melanomic centers. A treatment for this angelfish with this kind of disease? Well, it's a proper antibiotic or antibacterial treatment. Usually you better ask your vet or your aquarium shop which is a good antibacterial treatment you can use to treat this. Sometimes a lab will define this for you because the laboratory can make cultures of the bacteria, particularly your breeder. You should try to invest some money in there so that the laboratory defines the type of bacteria and also the kind of antibacterial treatment you can implement. Because it can be different for each tank or each pond can be having a different culture of bacteria needs a different treatment. Some fish might be too badly damaged, so it's recommended to put them asleep. Like we recommend Narcomor plus from aquarium Muenster. And we try to recommend also to feed the fish next to the treatment against the bacteria. Also helping with the fish food. Like our Dr. Basler. Buy fish food, muco or grapefruit seed extract, moringa for a minimum of 20 days while you do not feed any other food. And this helps the fish to strengthen and to fight off the bacterial infection. The source of the problem might be frozen or live food because that can often contain too many pathogenic bacteria. Also poor water conditions or bad fish health management. Overcrowding can also be a reason of this kind of infection. On this angelfish, freshwater angelfish. So this is the kind of information I try to share with you on my Patreon. If you have questions, let me know. Bacterial infections are very common in our aquarium fish. Why? Because we keep them tropical. We keep them warm and bacteria like warm water and they proliferate and multiply much faster in tropical aquarium waters. Thank you for watching and stay tuned for my next video. Bye bye.