Prevention of Fish Diseases (Moscow, 2021)

Thanks for inviting me to be part of the 12th International Conference on Aquarium. As a way to explore the world and as a fish doctor, I try to contribute. Thanks to the invitation by Andre and Aqualogo and Oceanarion. So I hope to inform you more about prevention of fish diseases. And I hope my contribution will be helpful. A data translator will do the best job he or she can do. We want to teach you to prevent fish diseases. It's important to learn about the causes of the problems and prevent stupid decisions or useless treatments. So look for the causes when you think about or you see a fish disease. The summary of the fish disease prevention here is first of all, what are the causes of fish diseases? I want to teach you water quality and its importance to test. It's the second part. I certainly will discuss fish food and immune system as a way of prevention, biosecurity and the fish health. These are all important issues with which I conclude then with the Golden Rules for prevention of fish diseases. The origin of fish diseases is the combination of the fish, usually with stress factors, causing the microbe to invade the fish and to make the fish sick. That's the origin is the combination of factors. And the causes. I first want to discuss certainly with you is that usually it's stress and pathogens. And there are clear factors, factors we can measure. We can test with a test poisoning, ammonia, nitrite, a PH which is too low with incorrect temperature, lack of oxygen. But unfortunately, there are also unclear stress factors which we cannot measure. We should ask our questions about it. When we look at the fish, we should do an observation, think about how was the transport of the fish, the catching of the fish, the packing, the feeding. Is it wrong food or is it poor feeding practice, overcrowding, aggression, Things we just cannot measure with a test kit. The pathogen factor, introduction of pathogens. Well, this is a risk. When you have a diseased fish introduced to your aquarium, or polluted water or fish food. The cause, introduction of a pathogen. Well, when fish arrive, new fish arrive in your fish tank, are added onto it. Well, those can have a chance that when they come from different breeders, different origin from the wild, or from different tanks, different suppliers, that they could carry a disease which you don't see, but they can be introduced to your existing aquarium. How can you also introduce pathogens is by feeding food that has a contamination with pathogens. If you leave the dead fish in the tank or dying fish in the tank, they can be eaten by the others. And so the fish can take up a pathogen. So you should remove them Contaminated water, water from the wild, water from the river, or water that comes with the new fish that arrives in your fish tank. So it's all a lack of biosecurity. This is a risk of introducing a pathogen. You should think about that. And the cause of fish disease can have a result. It's usually that stress on a pathogen that results in an exhaustion, the deterioration of the immune system, and that weakens the fish and is giving a large chance or risk to get an infection to the fish and eventually a disease that you see. So that's about the risk of causes and some of the causes which are typical in our hobby. A very common problem are the filters that are too dirty. Look here, all the dirt laying on the sponge. Filter, this should be removed. Or the filter which is too small, which is too small to carry a certain capacity of fish in the aquarium. Those are common problems. So you have to think about good filtration and good maintenance of the filtration is cleaning the water. Pollution is certainly a cause of many problems in the aquarium. And here we see dirty water which has a bacterial pollution. Too much food, too poor filtration can cause a bacterial pollution and can cause an infection of the fish. Poor water quality, well, that causes certainly stress, like explained. So we have to do regular water testing to check if the ph is not too low or too acid. Here on this video, I will show you. You will see here the fish suffering from 2 acid water. This fish tank had a pH of 5. And those are brackish water fish. We should have at least a ph of 8. So you see the fish suffering, not the disease. It's a stress factor. Is the hardness okay? Is it too soft or too hard for the fish? Is the temperature okay? Not too cold, too warm? Is there ammonia? Is there nitrite poisoning by copper or other chemicals or metals? All we can check with testing, testing, testing. And the bad water causes gill damage. Here you see a healthy gill. And here you see the gills already damaged. You see the gill lamellae already inflammated. You see the progress of the gill damage here. Getting some lesions and then having eventually bacterial infection on the gills. And. And that's why the fish eventually will die in a bad water situation with ammonia or bad ph. And you have secondary bacterial infections. And the fish will die from a kind of pneumonia. You can call it lung disease or gill disease. High temperature, high temperature is a cause of stress because it can cause less dissolved oxygen. And you see with raising temperature here is the higher the temperature, the concentration of the oxygen is much less and a much higher concentration in lower temperature waters. So something you to think about in the summer when it's too hot here. I was invited at a hotel in Jakarta to inspect koi because the owner was thinking, my koi have a disease. Look, the koi are hanging there. They're suffering. They're gonna die. What's wrong? Please check. There is a disease going on. They're breathing rapidly. So we checked the problem. It was just the repair of the pump. The pump was not working well. It failed, it was polluted and there was poor functioning. So there was a lack of oxygen. So the stress was eliminated just by finding the cause. Poor filtration and a poor supply of oxygen. So high temperature has another risk that it causes poor filtration. It not only causes stress to the fish, but also stress to the filtering bacteria. That means when it's warmer, the bacteria in the filter have less chance to have oxygen to perform their job in oxidizing the ammonia and the nitrite. So they need plenty of oxygen for the denitrification process. So think about it. High temperature has a more risk of poor biological filtration. The other problem with high temperature, particularly in the summers, that there is a more rapid growth of bacteria. Here we see how fast the bacteria grow within a couple of hours. In water of 30 degrees, you see the millions of bacteria growing very fast. And in cooler water, much slower. It needs nearly one or two days to have a bacterial growth. So the risk of disease is much faster or much risky. In high temperature waters, temperature fluctuations, another stress factor, particularly with cool drafts, when the air conditioning is on, or when you open a window when it's too warm in the house. Failing heater, a heater which is not working well so the temperature drops in the aquaria, or when you do, water changes with too cold water, at least with a difference of 10 to 20%. This causes a risk of diseases. It has a negative influence on the feeding behavior of the fish. And it has a because the fish are eating less in cooler water and in stressed situation due to cool water system. And it's also causing that the immune system fails. And this gives a risk in many cases of white spot disease or ache. In freshwater you see the etophterias. Or in marine, we see the cryptocurrency effect is coming up mostly due to temperature fluctuations. Here we see clown loaches. You see they lack a hiding place. These fish are a kind of fish who needs to have the opportunity to have a hiding place. So they can relax and rest. And here we see the introduction of just a few pipes which gives them the chance to go inside and to have a relaxing hiding place. So the fish will be less stressed. Of course, they will move still fast, but they are showing less stress behavior. Aggression is also cause of stress, of disease, which you don't often see. Look at plecos. Plecos. Large plecos can damage the fish. They can suck on the fish when they lack food. They will eat on the live fish and suck on the mucus looking for food. This happens with these blood parrotfish. But look here, causing wounds on this giant gourami. And also happens with discus fish if you're not careful. Aggression is a problem here. Another cause of aggression between the cichlids. They are very aggressive between each other because they lack good food. They are skinny and they're looking for food. So they're becoming more aggressive than usual when they lack good feeding. So all those things are causes. And I want to remind you that you should be a detective and looking for the real cause when there is a problem in your aquarium. So think about it. Investigate and look for the causes. Rug feeding, like a food bowl or tablets you put in the water. Look at the fish. Well, it looks nice. Looks they're all eating or happy. But it's survival of the fittest, survival of the largest. It's causing aggression and stress. I recommend to use smaller feeding particles well distributed in the aquarium. This is not the best feeding behavior. I cannot recommend. We like to see it, but it's not good for the health of the fish. If you see this, this is a competition for food between a child and a dog. Okay, it's happy to see, but let's go back and let's look here at the angelfish and the goldfish and the life bearers. What happens? Who is the most strong here in the aquarium? Well, it's going to be the chick lid. The angelfish just grabs the food and takes it away and swims off. And no other fish has any chance to eat a large pellet of food. It's cruelty. Another risk is feeding bad food. Food that contains pathogens that's causing disease. Mycobacterium is a typical problem. Here you see a dwarf cichlids with a typical symptom. Here is the fatty deposit on the bed pectoral fin caused by a mycobacterial infection coming from fish food or internal worm infections or starvation is causing this skinny cynodontist. Food can be a risk also with pathogen or A lack of feeding. But fish food can be a help. It can help to stimulate the immune system as a prevention. So there are pathogens, but the fish have an immune system. So he can defend himself against the pathogens in the water or in the food. And the food can help, but the stress still should be avoided. Why should we strengthen the immune system? Well, the immune system of the fish has different types of immune system. It's the gut, it's the kidney, it's the thymus, the gill mucus. It's all defenses the immune system. But when it's working well, it's able to protect the fish from pathogens such as virals, infectious bacteria, fungi and parasites. And if the immune system is weakened, even a minimal amount of pathogens can cause lethal consequences in the fish. So when the immune system works efficient, you can prevent infections and even prevent medications. So prevention number one is no stress. Number two is good food food with Probiotica prebiotica. Also with good water and avoiding stress, all this can help that the fish has a good immune system and can fight off the pathogens. And the use for probiotics, for example, is a way of preventing the use of antibiotics. Studies have been done of probiotics here that the survival rate in larval stages of fish and aquaculture has a much higher survival rate and much lower in a negative control. Whether the fish in a stress situation survive much better in probiotics. Of course, they also survived in a bacterial infection with antibiotics, but the antibiotics were overruled by the probiotics. So probiotics prevents the use of antibiotics. Now, to conclude biosecurity, it's part of the prevention of the spread and reduction of fish diseases. And there should be a plan for prevention. The fish and the fish tanks should be separated. The nets and the tools should also be separated. The hands and your tools that you use in your aquarium should be disinfected. You have fish tanks not separated. You have central filters. You have to use UV as a disinfection. You can learn from this in the book Biosecurity in Ornamental Aquatic Industry available from OFI like here. Using a few fish nets for all these fish tanks is a risk of spreading diseases from this tank to the other tanks. One net to be used for all those separate aquarium. That's not done. Please do not do it. You have a chance that this net distribute diseases from these fish to the other fish in the other aquaria. You should use correct net disinfection. If you use disinfection, that's important. I recommend one net for each aquarium. Do not use a medication like FMC or formaldehyde. Use correct disinfectant for your fish nets like Vcon S or benzalkonium chloride that disinfects the nets. The golden rules for prevention is water management. A good system design, disinfection, good biofiltration, good care of the filter water changes, etc. All can be checked by doing a good testing of your water at least once a month. You should have a prevention plan. Avoid contamination, avoid spreading, avoid importing disease, avoid poor handling, poor feeding and other stress factors and use the fish's immune system. They have a natural defense system that can be stimulated and use of probiotics and prebiotics and immunostimulants in the fish food is a good help. I give you a lot of possibilities to study that so I have my videos on my YouTube channel and also have my book in original language for you available supplied by Aqua Logo. So use these tools then I can thank you for attending this lecture and I hope you enjoyed very much the International Conference this May 2021. Thank you.