I wish to spread awareness about a disease that has struck several times in the recent months. It moves very, very, very fast, often killing within 12-24 hours. Nothing is known about this disease except that it is a bacterial disease that causes rapid and acute tissue necropsy and that it seems to strike blue bettas in particular. Several people are working on identifying this disease, including veterinary student DarkMoon17, but WE NEED YOUR HELP.
If you have a betta who develops the following symptoms or dies, please DO NOT DISPOSE OF THE BODY. It is very important that we have a body to send in for a necropsy. Several people have volunteered to take the bodies to local universities or veterinary clinics near them. All we need you to do is save the body and contact DarkMoon17 or me immediately.
The symptoms of this disease are:
* graphite gray or near black tissue necropsy that spreads from the bottom of the fins upward to the body within hours
* sudden loss of mobility as the swim bladder is affected
* death or conditions so severe that they require euthanasia within 12-24 hours, occasionally as long as 36 hours
The betta will look something like this:
There have been speculations about what it is, including suggestions that it is an acute strain of columnaris, but NOTHING IS KNOWN FOR CERTAIN. PLEASE DO NOT post speculations about what this disease may be unless you have been able to identify the disease through lab work. Such speculations only cause aggressive debate.
Any and all cooperation is much appreciated as we work to identify this disease so we can figure out a way to combat it. Thank you very much.
This effects more blue bettas correct? It is possible that a gene that causes blue has morphed through constant breeding into a) causing the problem b) weakening the defense system and allowing the bacteria to get a hold.
can myco show itself like bumps near the eye? mines a blue/black vt with red wash. the bump has been there for 2-3 months, could've been longer if i noticed ti earlier.
It is possible.
An human parrallel condition springs to mind of sickle cell disease. It is prevalent in people of african origin characterized by their red blood cells turning into half moon shapes and getting jammed in the capillaries, sometimes causing blockages. HOWEVER those with sickle cell are far less likely to come down with the severe cases of malaria and likely saving their lives. Trading in one weakness for another.
thank you for the reply, unfortunately the seriousness of Myco is concerning as i dont know the actual cause/sickness for his flopping atm.
ive just isolated him from his 5g divided (no epsom salt added atm), his other cellmates 1 nerite and a DeT on the other side seem fine. its only within the last 12hrs since hes "sulking" on the bottom only moving to flop to leave his good eye looking upwards.
Instead of making a separate thread about it I'll just make a quick post here.
My betta recently died. He suddenly had no energy to move and just laid down and towards the end was basically just an unmoving but breathing corpse. This took about two days. The odd thing is- I was taking good care of him. He had 3 gallons to himself, 2 meals a day, weekly 50% water changes (I don't like to do more than that, bettas don't have a heavy bio-load and too many changes actually shocks them in my experience.) and I always added dechlorinator to the water change. So I really don't know what got him. His under head area got greyish the second day.
Anyone have experience with that?
I want to get another one in a month after I re-aquascape (live plants, small tank, but I work it) but if there was something I missed let me know. I also will be adding cherry shrimp before I get a betta. I know he will eat the young ones, but if I get a few large one's started in there and he doesn't peck their eyes out I'll be quite happy.
Sometimes they get sick with even the best care. I also agree with you on less water changes but clean water is more important. But in a three gallon, 2 weekly changes are recommended so I'd either up water changes or be 100% sure the tank (if it has a filter) and the live plants are keeping the ammonia and nitrites at 0 between water changes.
There's a lot of factors and I'd need exact details to tell you the things I believe MAY have been wrong, but a few of them are temperature (is his temp 78-80 AND stable?), food type (Omega One and NLS are good brands), and possibly age and genetics. I had a girl pass away from a temp fluctuation caused by a 1 hour power outage and came to the conclusion that her genetics must not have been as strong because none of my other 4 fish fell ill.
Temperature fluctuations are unfortunately a fact of life where I am. The room constantly changes. I sprung for a real nice heater, and it does the job. The temperature never drops below 76-77, though it sometimes got up to 82-83. I thought the highs wouldn't hurt him as much as the lows.
Sudden temperature fluctuations can easily cause them to get sick. If they are more gradual fluctuations, they aren't as bad.
I didn't used to think too much about fluctuations until that one hour power outage. My girl died three days after and the power was only out for an hour and I do believe the temp only dropped 2-3 degrees then warmed back up in about 2 hours. It was enough to make her sick - a few hours after she was acting a little "off" and by the next day, her scales were beginning to pinecone. The stronger their genetics and the better care they have, the less likely it is for them to get sick like that. However, all my fish had the same care and she was the only one of five who got sick so I assumed her genetics were not as strong.
If your temp fluctuates slowly, it won't be as big a deal.
I think if it gradual temperature change like for example in the summer it should not stress them out. I have 8 bettas and of course in the summer time the temp fluctuate +-2-3 * from the morning to night and i never had problem with my bettas. Of course you don't want sudden big temperature change-it would be the problem. And if your 3 gall don't have filter you need to do more water changes then 50% a week. If it with out filter you better go with 2-50% and 1-100% water changes. If you acclimate betta properly he should not be stressed. And also don't be heard on yourself , unfortunately bettas get sick as much as we get sick no matter how right /good you care about them. You can have 2 betta in the same tank and one will live 4 years , another one in the same tank can get sick in a year. But definitely water changes is main factor that keep them healthy. Good luck with new betta. When you go to the store make sure you check betta for any symptoms of the sickness before you buy him.
General rule is that you don't want a temp change larger than 1 degree in an hour or 5 degrees in 24 hours.
However, I will say that constant temp changes can be detrimental still and may slowly decrease their immune systems but if you take very good care of them and they don't have bad genetics, they're less likely to get sick.
I would avoid temp variations as much as possible even if it doesn't seem to affect them and that may just be because I lost my favorite girl because of a temp swing. If it gets cooler at night I would maybe wrap the tank in a towel of some sort to try to make the temperature drop a little slower.
Keep in mind that the tank lights might also have something to do with temp drops at night.
Aside from leaving the light on all night, is there anything else I can do to help with the fluctuation during winter? Perhaps if I kept the daytime temp closer to 77 than 80, it would help. Also, I have no idea what will happen during the summer months.
Don't leave the lights on 24/7. It will stress them out because they sleep at night and have no eyelids. I would try to maybe aerate the tank a little more? I have a hood that half of it opens up in the front and I would open it and cover that part with craft mesh. Does that make sense?
One thing you could do is either wrap the tank when it gets colder, keep your house a consistent temp, or at night, close the lid and keep it aerated during the day when the lights turn on. I haven't tried that but I would see if it works for you.
The tank has a filter. It's always on. There is a flap on top. I always keep it closed. Heat would escape if I opened it. I once had a betta when I was a kid live for at least 5 years, and I kept it in a 1 gallon. Maybe my previous one just had poor genetics.
I'm just saying you could crack the lid to balance out the heat that the light puts off and close it when you turn the lights off at night to make up for it. Does that make sense?
I also agree that sometimes they just get sick even in perfect care and I don't think its your fault.
Little Leaf - Are you asking if there are videos of a fish with Myco? There aren't any 'significant' symptoms that would show up in a video.
The disease affects the internal organs first, so there are no visible symptoms. The fish might be a little lethargic. It may be slightly bloated.....
As the 'end' approaches, it may develop skin lesions. It may develop additional bloating, or "dropsy" type symptoms. At the very end, its fins may turn gray or black. But not all fish will have the same symptoms. And even if the symptoms are displayed, they may not be very noticeable. (For example, the article I read said that some fish develop skin lesions, but others do not.)
(P.S. I don't think that either King Dedede or Rose have this. I think they are just suffering from being in an overcrowded tank. I know that your parents won't let you move the fish, so this is not your fault. But I think their symptoms are caused by the stress of being in that tank. I don't think they have Myco.)
What's a lesion? also, I was asking for the video because I wanted to see how the swim bladder was affected (as if it's sliding or stuck on the surface)
I think Pericles died of this...I wish I knew of this before I disposed of him! I dismissed it as old age, and I could have brought I to my mother (retired vet tech and works in a petsmart)
Having my mother to let me in on a few things, and I still have equipment in my attic, I think I just may try to analyze this illness myself... maybe it is a highly adapted form of finrot? Maybe it is an odd combination of dropsy, finrot and liver fail? I may be caused from lack of room or over heated water... for every illness there has to be a cause that makes then disease start.
So we have infant established that the illness is contagious and moves quickly through the body. Does it effect the organs, or the very cells of this fish? Is it only found in Bettas and if not, is it found in autotrophs and amphibians?
bettafishgirl - As AyalaCookieJar said, it has been definitively identified as a Mycobacterial infection. Two breeders on this forum, Basement Bettas and Coppermoon, sent their fish to a lab for analysis. They posted the lab's results earlier in this thread. You can search through the thread and read their posts. They provide a lot of information regarding the disease.
If you would like more information about Mycobacteriosis, there is an excellent article available online: Mycobacterial Infections in Fish.
I suggest you read Coppermoon's and Betta Basement's posts (earlier in this thread) regarding Mycobacteria. The posts provide a lot of information.
Basement Betta also started another thread about Mycobacteria. You can view it by clicking here.
Full information, including the fact that there is no "cure," is described in this excellent article, which available online: Mycobacterial Infections in Fish.
Okay, I have a suggestion and a question mixed into one. I've read every page of this. And I am wondering, can this live in saltwater? I know the saltwater fish keepers will dip fish in freshwater to kill bacteria and such. If I read correctly, I read that almost all fish carry this, but it stays dormant? Well what if we dipped all new fish in saltwater, and cleaned all the equipment in saltwater? Not sure if this would work or not, but if it would I would do it. I have one betta right now who is black, red and blue. (Crowntail) I would like to get another betta or two, but I would like to learn more about this before I buy anything else.
Also, should we stop buying bettas at petsmart/petco and buy from Thai breeders? I would like to avoid this as much as possible. I probably won't buy anymore blue bettas.
So far it is not curable. I know a breeder that also has a background in microbiology is actually looking to find a cure...or at least something to stop the spread early on.
Salt will not kill it. It has a thick waxy cell wall like human TB (which is probably why it is called Fish TB...but per the lab I used...it is NOT TB).
There's also different strains. Not all fish with Mycos even develop this rapid fin deterioration. There's so many different symptoms of this disease that its really almost impossible to identify unless the bodies are sent in for testing.
I'll also point out that there must be something else that can cause these symptoms because I have seen two members here with fish whose fins deteriorated rapidly like this and they actually fully recovered and their fins grew back completely.
Mycos has no cure so I highly doubt that that was caused by it. I know the one fish developed it right after a water change so it might've been an issue with the water?
But then again, Mycos is also a wasting disease that develops over a long period of time and can be carried by a fish for years before killing them.
I am not posting this to argue, so let me tell you what my fish did up to they day they died. I had this crap in my fish room since October 2010. They ate, they bred, they got fin rot and then columnaris (treated for finrot/columnaris when the gray patches developed), they pineconed, they either died, or I put down. They were still eating even when pineconed, although I didn't feed them nearly as much. I know dropsy is a symptom, so I was attempting every treatment (giving time to see if they were working) that I could find online for this aggressive fin rot I was having.
I sent 5 very healthy fish to the lab. What was wrong with them: one was missing a tail, one was missing a dorsal, one was just starting with the fin rot, one was a very ragged dt, one had no face. These fish were about 9 months old. I had to starve them to clean their guts out for the shipping. Faceless one was dead, so he didn't get examined. The rest arrived happy and "healthy". Each of the 4 living was riddled with the granulomias (not sure how to spell it, and sp ck doesn't know).
I say treat a fish for fin rot if THAT is what is presents. Treat it for Columnaris if that is what it presents. BUT after a 7-10 days, if there is no improvement OR the fish develops it again shortly after removing from medication....or the fish is worse during and after treatment....then assume it is mycos and destroy the fish......or let it live out it's life...up to the owner. I choose to destroy. I put my dog down after I found out he had cancer. I have one with "fin rot"...one of his brothers came to me with broken rays....he has 4 more days to improve or he is a gonner. I WONT go through this again. HE is the last one I mess with before I leave my fish room, and I immediately go wash my hands in almost scalding water and antibacterial soap.
I don't want everyone to think that their fish have mycos, but BE AWARE of your fish. Don't cross contaminate. Keep things clean.
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