Gerald Bassleer diagnoses velvet disease (Oodinium) in a wild-collected Sicyopus goby showing weight loss and black spots on its gills. He recommends copper sulfate products or salt baths at 5 g/L for 4-5 days, retreating after seven days, plus garlic-enriched food to support recovery.
Questions this video answers
5 grams per liter for four to five days.
Retreat after seven days.
Copper sulfate; product example: Oodimore from Macari Muenster.
Use Dr. Bassleer’s garlic food/matrine product and avoid other food for 20 days.
Chapters
Dear aquarists, greetings from the south of Spain. Today our fish disease case number 76 about the goby, a gobi with a very special name, Zykiopus. I share you my screen to explain the scientific name totally and explain you the diseases we will find on this fish. The gobi is called Sikiopis exalisquamulus. Wow, what a name. Exalisquamulus. That is not what we encounter every day. And also this gobi is, well, it's not so very common. But for the people who love special fish like this kind of goby, which is a wild collected goby, sometimes the wild collected ones can also have serious problems. Like this one showed that they became skinny, some were dying. And we found a parasitic Oodinium infection. These are fish disease number 76. And you see some are very skinny sitting here separate the one here up front of the glass. They're hungry, they're looking healthy, they don't show major problems, but in between some are looking well, seem to be having a problem they're suffering with. And, and that is something that I will explain in my diagnosis what we did find. Also see the gills here, which are flared gill covers which are flared open. So there's also a gill problem. That is maybe the main reason why the fish is so skinny. Because the fish becomes skinny well, because he's not eating properly, because he's not feeling well. And the fish is not feeling well, he will not eat properly and he's slowly, well, getting weaker and wasting away. We found nothing special on the skin, but in the gills we saw many black spots inside the gills. See all those black spots here? This is sometimes not clear to find what the causes are because it usually is a kind of extra stress gills causing a kind of pigmentation that collects here together can be by chemicals in nature, can be this. The one thing that concerned me was this one spot here, look here where I panned out for you, which will be examined in the next slides. And as we see here, the black spots which are clearly obvious, which is not a parasite, but the Parasites are these two microorganisms, one cellular parasite. 1, 2, 3, 4. We see here and it's called Oodinium, it's called velvet disease. The scientific name for the freshwater fish is Piscinodinium. So a few here are here, here we see one sticking here out. So that is obvious to see. And in the video show you my microscope observation. When you, you turn, you know, you move your, your microscope lenses, you can see the different spots all over Sitting on the gill filaments. See 1, 3, 4, 5 here. All sitting here. And they are sitting attached to the gill tissue and causing damage, causing a risk of bacteria intrusion. So this is a parasite which we can easily observe by using a microscope. What can we do as a treatment? Well, the black spots leave it like it is. The suffering is limited from those black spots. But it's the Oodinium, the Pcnodinium that we have to treat because that's a parasite and it can spread quickly in your aquarium. And you have to use products which contain copper sulfate. Because copper sulfate is about the best to cure. Just watch out. When you have invertebrates in your tank or shrimp, then you cannot use copper sulfate. But copper sulfate is one of the better cures for this disease. And it's also available in the product Oodimore from Macari Muenster which is a safe way of treating your fish. But follow the directions because you have to retreat after seven days. Because a parasite has a cycle which I explained in my videos on non fish diseases. You can look it up. When I talk about Oodinium in my Patreon I give a special section about velvet disease Oodinium common on certain fish and explain you about the cycle and how you best treat. Also salt. Salt is an extra help to control further outbreaks of the parasite. Controls the outbreak because the dinoflagellates to spread out controls it's less spread out. So 5 grams of salt per liter. I recommend sea salt per liter to use for during four or five days. And it helps particularly combination with the copper sulfate. At the same time I recommend the feeding with Dr. Basley Baish food garlic that can help. And no other food during 20 days that can help. I also forgot to mention here which is interesting to use our matrine Dr. Baish food matrine which in recent findings by Akarist also used on this kind of Oodinium velvet disease had a positive result. Of course the metrine is being used again controlling white spot disease or ache. But also has a good effect on the control of Oodinium because it's a skin parasite. And the metrine helps to protect the skin and avoid parasites to a site. But also the garlic. So the garlic is a multi use product for several problems which explained in my on my website. So these are some suggestions that can help you to control a disease like Oodinium. So stay tuned. I have more to come on fish diseases. We already had 76, so stay tuned, learn more. Keep up the good work keeping your fish healthy. Thank you.
