Friends,

I was discussing in another thread about redoing an existing Oscar tank, which I was supposed to do this weekend.. but I had one major disease outbreak to manage and hence could not do that exercise..

This is the background...

Every Sunday morning, we have a big wholesale pet market here in Galiff Street, Kolkata, India. This market is one of its kind and largest in India. People from all over the place comes to the market in Sunday morning and buy pets. You get all varieties of dogs, birds, rabbits, fishes and plants.. with all accessories too...
Every Sunday morning, I usually take a 2 hour stroll in the market.. not always buying

Last Sunday I bought three veil tail oscars (all about 2 inches) from the market, 1 albino and 2 velvet copper.

I came back and put them in quarantine. I have a small tank, which I use for quarantine and also serves as a hospital tank. I maintain and clean that tank regularly, when not in use i keep that tank in a bright sunlight. This tank was originally bought, with the intention of using it as a planted tank with tetras and rainbows... but thats a different story...

After quarantining, I saw all three oscars are in bad shape, sulking at bottom, gasping for breath and passing white thin cotton stingy stool which has some sacks (round structure) at one end...

, I cleaned the water once again and started using Rock Salt and Metronidazole... within 6 hours, I saw the full tank is populated with small cotton wool like structure... which was very difficult to be seen at a glance, but if you use a flash light, you would have seen these elements... floating all over the water...

I had no idea and hence started asking people, read through some of the articles here, and other websites and forum. Symptoms were indicating an anchor worm disease...

Continued the same treatment...

24 hours later, I saw these cotton wool like structure are coming out or attached to the mouth of the fish, anus, gills, fins, body everywhere... fishes were always gasping...

I started making phone calls to vets here and vets had no convincing answer. In India, I have seen we have excellent vets for Dogs, Cats, birds.. but these guys are not that useful when it comes to fishes...

Symptoms were now indicating cotton wool disease, or anchor worm disease or may be both...

Net out the fishes in a fresh water bucket, cleaned the tank with Methylene Blue, and an antibacterial solution.
Poured fresh water 100%, mixed Rock Salt, Methylene Blue and started Terramycin antibiotic with the dosage of 250 mg per 10 gallons of water.
Stopped all filters in the tank and only using an air stone for sufficient aeration

Continued for 2 days, 2 of them started looking fine, but the albino was in real real bad shape, gasping for breath near the air stone.

One of my friend suggested, the only option left is Potassium Permanganate bath...but any mistake in right dose, would make the entire water poisonous and the fish would die immediately,.

Another option left is euthanasia.. to the albino to save the other two.
But under any circumstances I cannot do this...I have to make a last attempt to save him.. euthanasia means, putting down weapon in the battle and Oscars are fighters they would also try till their last breath...

I needed an instrument which can measure KMNO4 in Milli grams.. I went out to a goldsmith shop, who makes gold ornaments and begged to lend one of his measuring instruments to me for 2 days.. after much persuasion he agreed, I came back, isolated the albino in a bowl and used that instrument to prepare the KMON4 solution.. and dipped the fish in that for 15 minutes...this was 24 hours back..throughout the night, I could not sleep properly...

Today morning, I saw a dramatic change in his behavior.. he is swimming in the bowl and have also eaten two small granules of tetra bits..

In the other tank, I am continuing the same treatment of 100% WC, salt, methylene blue and terramycin 250 mg every 24 hours. The white cotton like structure have reduced drastically in density present in water, but I can see small wools 2 or 3 in water floating, this thing keeps on coming back every 12 hours or so.. but the numbers have reduced drastically...They are no more attached to the fish body..

Now the question is, how long, I would continue this treatment?
When do I bring the albino back from the bowl to the hospital tank?
When can I presume that all three would be ready to be transferred to the main tank?
When they would start eating?

They are not passing any stool because they have not eaten anything since last 4 days...

Sorry, for not posting this incident earlier in this forum, but most of experts here like, OFL himself, Ricky, dingy, necromancer are all either from UK or US.. which means a 12 - 24 hours lag in answering and I needed to work on fast... because every moment their health was depreciating...

I wish, If I could had an expert from india like the previous 4, whom I could have reached any time by making phone calls or such...

Anyways.. one thing i learnt is buy a fish from a whole seller or exporter only when you have an expert pair of eyes to identify whether the fish is ok...

Regards
OscarMadness..

what is takes to create a perfect Aquatic world?? A Keen sense of nature and Years of Failure..

I don't think it is anchor worm. Anchor worm are normally attached to the fish, not coming out with their anus. Your description sounded more like an internal parasitic infection. Unfortunately you would have to have the feces tested to find out exactly what parasite, if indeed a parasite. I should just carry on doing what you're doing, if the one fish is improving, carry on doing what you're doing and then introduce it back when it has totally recovered.

As for the cotton wool type things floating in your tank, are you that these are not uneaten food that have gone moldy? I've seen this quite a few times with foods such as krill, if any gets left in the tank, they develop a white fluffy mold that obviously makes them quiet bouyant in the tank. People often see strange things in the tank, such as planeria. In most cases, if they are not actually attacking your fish, there isn't really anything to worry about.

You always run the risk of buying fish that already have something wrong with them, especially if you have no idea where they have come from an open door to a large markets. Its quite difficult for us to help you just threw at a forum like this. Keep doing what you're doing, it sounds as if your fish are getting a little better.

one thing you must be aware of,Methylene blue can have a detrimental effect on your biological filter. if your fish are breathing heavily, that could very well be down to water conditions so you always carry out an ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH test.

Thanks OFL for the reply...

Yes I do understand the problem of buying fishes from the open market and thats the reason I had quarantined them in the first place.
These markets are very favourable to buy fishes, because these wholesellers import these guys in lot, say in hundreds and moment the stock arrives they want to sell it off, coz more they keep with them, more is the amount of risk they carry.
If at all you buy any live stock from an big LFS from their aquariums, often you end up paying double or triple the market amount...

but then again, whatever you said is absolutely correct...

The hospital tank is bare bottom with no filters there, only an air stone for aeration, so methylene blue may be safe here as there is no biological filter.

The reason I suspected this is anchor worm because as I had also mentioned
"24 hours later, I saw these cotton wool like structure are coming out or attached to the mouth of the fish, anus, gills, fins, body everywhere... fishes were always gasping..."

There is also no uneaten food, as they have not eaten anything ever since they arrived, the last time I tried feeding them, was 4 days before, but after that i performed a 100% water change and still I had seen these structures floating all around.
One more thing, I forgot to mention, I had a thermometer installed in the tank as I had kept the temperature constant at 30 degrees celcius, all over the thermometer this cotton threads were hanging as if some kind of white spider web...

every day I am performing WC 100%, also tested NH3 = 0, NO2 = 0.

Hi OFL,

The guys are doing fine now. I have even moved the one who was in the bowl to the hospital tank. Today is their last day for the antibiotic dose.
They are eating and swimming freely, but I would not say that agile as they used to be before.

I was planning to move them to the main tanks, on sunday. Now how do I do it, shall I move all of them together.. or I start with the biggest one, or the one who looks to be most active among the lot..?

Please suggest..!!

There is 2 ways to move them, start with what you think may the lowest in the pecking order and move up to the highest, or move them all in in quick succession. If you are confidant of catching them quickly i would just catch em and put them in the main tank, as they are small i dont think you will have a problem with aggression