YouTube case-study (case no. 80) by Gerald Bassleer examining wasting/weight-loss in Carinotetraodon taravanchoricus (a small puffer). He documents clinical signs (very skinny, fin/tail changes), microscopy showing abundant bacteria on skin scales, empty intestine and splenic melanomacrophage centres, and discusses likely contributors (starvation, transport/collection stress, competition) with recommendations: improved feeding (live/frozen/granulate with attractant), possible antibacterial therapy, assisted feeding and aquarium/supplier-level prevention.
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Dear Akarists, welcome again to my videos on fish disease cases. And today, with a background of the Amazon in the area of Manaus Barcelos, where I traveled some years ago. Today I will not talk about an Amazon fish, but I will introduce you to another fish which is the last couple of years becoming very interesting to keep in the aquarium hobby. It's the Carinotetraodon taravanchoricus, which is a small puffer, small puffer fish that eats a snail. So some people like to have this small puffer fish in the aquarium to avoid having a pest of snails. Well, it's already our case number 80. That's how far we go already in our work. And here you see the fish I pulled out of the aquarium. You see how skinny they are. You see that their body doesn't look right, their tails, their fins. And it looks like wasted away. Here we see another part of the video. You see particularly this one here, it's very skinny. The fish is looking very weak and dying. Unfortunately, that was the problem when the fish arrived. And the first thing, of course we always do and I recommend take a skin scraping. And you notice the high quantity of bacteria here on the scale. You see the bacterial colonies sitting here on the side. You see the mini black, tiny black spots inside the water content. You can follow my teaching lessons on taking microscopy and skin scraping, which I explain on Patreon, where I give a training on fish diseases for you. How to become a fish doctor. So you can see all the colonies, the gills, the gills look perfect. Nothing particularly I could say that was happening in the gills. So they look pretty well, pretty well looking gills. So the fish seem to survive for a certain time. But the thing is, the fish were very skinny. So we start examining the intestine and we could find no food in the intestine. It had nothing to secrete. And we found here the spleen, which has some melanomicrophage centers. Might be a bacterial infection, maybe secondary. But the fish were skinny and no food. So what can I tell you is that the fish was maybe having a starvation. We found here in between, see high amounts of bacteria. So that might be a cause of that the fish is wasting away. Yes, but what could be the primary cause could have been, well, the collecting of the fish, the stress of transport, all things we should try to examine. It's looking for the origin of the problem, distress before, during transport, not having an adequate food or a fight for food. Because sometimes the bigger fish in a group like these carino tetradum the bigger ones are eating all the food and the small ones have no chance. That could be all possible things you all have to think about is all those stress factors which can play a role and pectoria can be secondary. In this case we would try to recommend to feed with a good quality live or frozen food that is free of microbes. Or you can try to help feeding the fish to learn and eating granulates. And we have a product for that. That's Dr. Bas Leer power fish. Oh, I'm missing an S here. This power fish which is a new product you spray on the first food, the frozen or the live food and the learn the taste of our Dr. Basley Baish food granulates and one of the ones which are very favorite for the fish which has never seen a granulate is the Cavar. The Kavar is a high, super high quality, super smelling or tasting I would say for the fish where you can start feeding a minute. You can try to apply an antibacterial treatment because some of the fish are wasted away by due to the bacterial infected. So it's correct feeding. Maybe applying an antibacterial treatment and it's for the supplier to increase the quality of the fish. So prevention is better than control is also check your aquarium. Maybe install extra plants or other natural objects in the aquarium that avoids the stress of fighting and aggression between those cartridge Carina tetraodum. So also suggestions many things to evaluate before you start thinking about treating. It's about preventing. So I hope you can stay tuned for my next coming videos. I have more to come and still continue to have cases coming up to me and getting on my microscopy table and in my microscope. Thank you for watching and becoming again a better expert in caring about your fish. Thank you.
