[Zbrafish] Re: zebrafish disease

[swarvegorilla]

"jenny" <rongyanj At 126.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.20.1162572498.14439.zbrafish At net.bio.net...
>    Hi, everyone! I have a problem with breeding the zebrafish.I bought
> two hunderd adullt zebrafish from the nearby market in our city about
> two weeks ago. within first 5-6 days,the fish seems healthy and spry,
> but now 10-20 fish has got serious disease, the symptom describe as
> follows:white spots spreads in the fin and back; open their bloody
> mouth and can not shut up,so they can not eat food freely and starve to
> die; decayed tails and gills; swim slowly and so on. I have pick up the
> ill fish and dissolve some drug to prevent the desease,but effect is
> not so good.
>    So I can not decide what kind of disease it is and have no right
> method to cure the fish, It has make great lost for our laboratory. Is
> there anyone who has relative knowledge and some good ideas?
>    Thanks for your replying!
>

G'day mate,
I want to go thru a few things.
Not grilling you but this is what I do :)
3 things are most important
1) when you water change, use dechlorinator
2) no water changes larger than 50%
3) filter sponges etc are only cleaned with water from the aquarium.

The symptoms you describe would leave me to guess that your fish are being 
burnt by toxic ammonia, and then crippled with a common aquatic parasite 
called 'white spot' in aquaria literature.
So you need to cultivate the helpful bacteria that live inside the filters. 
Get 2 test kits from a petshop, 1 for ammonia and 1 for nitrite.
While either are able to pick up traces of ammonia or nitrite, your 
biological filters (brown slime covered filter sponges) the very central 
life support system is not running well enough. Google 'nitrate cycle'
Now if that pissed ya off I am sorry. Not tellin ya to suck eggs here. 
Basically squeeze filters out in a bucket of water drawn from the aquarium 
and leave them a little dirty. The trick is to balance water flow through 
the filter media (brings oxygen for the bacteria colonys) with actual brown 
filter scunge which is responsible for making fish poo 100 times less toxic 
to fish.

Ok to treat white spot go to a petshop and get a white spot medication (and 
heater if funds allow)
The whitespot med should contain the chemical malachite green (and 
formaldehyde and others ome times). Malachite green (lots other common 
names) is very effective.
If ya got a heater this is a 3 to 6 day cure at 28 to 30 deg C
If your gonna do it at room temp the too easy but it may take longer.
By raising temp it speeds up life cycle enabling you to kill all the 
vunerable 'swimmer' stage bastards in the 3 days before the med 
concentration starts to wane.
You can add swimming pool salt or rock salt or aquarium salt at 1 tablespoon 
per 20 litres, at this concentration it will help wounds heal on the fish.
If your water still has ammonia and nitrite in it tho
this toxic environment will keep your fish ill
If you heat the water ensure the water surface is agitated to ensure good 
oxygenation.

hope that helps, it's tricky not knowing your setup and experience.
good luck tho
w0000000t
Swarvegorilla