ulcers on rainbow fish - genetic or poor husbandry?

[PiL]

hi everyone. i'm a long time registered lurker, who was a long time lurker even before that!
this is in fact my first ever post on this forum thought i'd start with a duzzy...

i have a question for all you rainbow heads out there.

i've kept rainbows for a fairly long time now and am yet to find someone who can tell me why it is that sometimes rainbows get ulcers.
seems to me that sometimes for no reason i can see, a rainbow will start to grow on or multiple ulcers. it has never been contagious in my experience amongst other fish, and just happens spontaneously. no change of routine, just appears out of the blue. the ulcer can grow quite large too.

a mate of mine who's been keeping rainbows even longer than i have just shrugs his shoulders and says that it just happens sometimes. i've been told by several people that there is no treatment for it. also, the fish can continue to live for a long time without seeming to be fazed by it.

...and until now i've been content to let it go when it happens.

is there in fact something that causes this? and can it be treated?
i find it unlikely to be poor husbandry, as i have had this crop up in the past in a solitary fish amongst a school. and i'd like to think that i know what i'm doing when it comes to keeping them. is it possible that it may be a genetic?

has anyone else had this occur before and have they a "cure" for it?


thanks guys.

[alex]

to put it simple, they are prone to bacterial infections. A simple graze during a courtship battle can be all it takes. Big water changes and often is the only weapon to keep it at bay. Dont end up a med junkie. Keep it clean!

[AussiePeter]

It is most likely caused by TB. Read this. http://members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Myco.htm Basically your fish are dead, the longer you have open wounds in your fish tank the more spores you are putting out there. Stress seems to be the main cause of breakouts. Keep your tank clean, keep up on water changes, reduce any stress and you should be fine.

Cheers
Peter

[Colin_T]

I'm not sure if genetics does play a part in fish developing ulcers but I have had strains of fish (mainly New Guinea rainbows) that have developed ulcers in tanks with other rainbows and only one or two fish or species got the ulcers. The other rainbows in the tanks did not develop ulcers. The same thing has occurred with gill tumours. I have had certain rainbows from the same bloodlines, develop gill tumours while other fish in the tank were fine. This could be caused by lack of genetic variation, dirty tanks, or by TB as mentioned by Peter.

I have found that when I was feeding a lot of frozen bloodworm to my fish they had a lot of problems with ulcers. When I dropped the bloodworms and started feeding a lot of plant matter, the ulcer problem stopped and did not return. Again this could be linked to TB or some other disease. The plant matter increasing the amount of vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants that help improve the fish's overall health and allow them to fight off other infections. For fish with TB a lot of vegetable matter in their diet will prolong their life but the end result is still inevitable.

[Adrian]

Download this file - it gives you much more detail than you will find on my website or in the new rainbowfish book!

I probably should update it again, but it is still mostly current.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/no2zm4nmdkd/Myco.pdf

Adrian

[PiL]

thank you for the replies.

personally, i've always suspected that it was caused by diet. and as another member has mentioned, more prone in PNG fish.
so perhaps both factors contribute to the problem.
i concede that poor water and stress probably contribute as well - though i highly doubt this is the cause in my case


i read recently that rainbow populations in the wild had a very high meat portion in their diet. this is contrary to my long held belief that they required a diet high in vegetable matter. there also seems to be a link with frozen bloodworms in other hobbyist's experiences.

perhaps feeding more veges may prevent this from popping up again.
i still find it strange that out of a school of rainbows in a single tank, one individual may grow an ulcer and live on for another 6 months without spreading it to his school mates.

[PiL]

here's a photo of the offending ulcer. the fish in question is a m.trifasciata (cato river) perhaps 6 months old now:

[Colin_T]

The diet of rainbowfish can vary quite considerably. Some rainbows will have access to more plant matter (algae) and will eat this as the main part of their diet. Others might have access to more insects or aquatic crustaceans. These foods will also appear at various times of year and there might be an abundance of ants and midges for a few months, during which time the rainbows will gorge themselves on those foods. At other times of the year the insects won’t be available and the fish will feed on shrimp larvae, fish eggs and whatever else happens by.
As a general rule they are not fussy eaters and seem to do best on a varied diet but one that contains a reasonable amount of plant matter.

The blue colouration almost makes the fish look like a M. affinis (northern blue variety). He’s quite a nice fish (besides the sore on his back)

[PiL]

Colin_T, did the ulcers on the fish ever heal and disappear? did you ever try medicate them?

this tank is heavily planted, 3 years old and never been medicated, so i dont wanna start any time soon.
but if it'll aid in eradicating the ulcer i'll give it a go on the advice i receive here.

[Colin_T]

If the ulcers were small and I made major changes in their diet and did huge water changes, then most of them cleared up. However, some didn’t and the bigger the ulcer, the less likelihood of it healing up. After the ulcers had healed there was a scar, and this showed up as misaligned scales that had been in alignment before the ulcers.

I did try numerous external bacterial medications but they didn’t seem to make any difference. We had some success using a medicated food when treating goldfish for GUD (Goldfish Ulcer Disease). Goldfish and rainbows both get ulcers. I can’t remember if I tried the medicated food on my rainbows but it might be worth a go if you can find it.

Personally I would not bother trying external medications because they don’t seem to do much and it could mess up the plant situation. Try lots of big water changes and increase the Vitamin C and Beta-carotene in the fish’s diet. Both of those are available from health food shops and can be added to some frozen (but defrosted) food and then fed to the fish each day. They are also found in fruits and vegetables, particularly orange coloured foods like apricots, pumpkin and orange squash. Astozanthin? might also help and is considered a new and pretty powerful anti-oxidant. It is found in red and blue fruits like red and black grapes and blue berries, with blue berries having the highest concentration.

[PiL]

Thanks Colin_T.

Some mixed results to report back. I switched their diet to HBH 8 veggies so that it was perhaps 90% of their diet. the remaining 10% was regular HBH flake. no more frozen/live feeds.

3 weeks later:

Happily, the effected Cato River tri has healed up and now there is just a small mark left on his scale. Hopefully this clears up further.

Unhappily, 1 or 2 weeks ago i noticed my incisus had grown a rather large ulcer on his side. It is actually pushing 2 or 3 scales out and i can see the pink ulcer beneath. What i think has happened was that the damage was already done and it's taken this long for the symptoms to become visible.

The comments about diet i think were spot on. The incisus as well as the cato river tri in question were the 2 greediest fish in the tank when it came to frozen blood worms and between them easily consumed the most of this food.
i knew i should have found a home for my discus before decommissioning their home. They spent nearly 2 months in this tank and since they only eat bloodworms, the rainbows were having a riot of a feast. before this i had never had a problem and now it looks like my problem is going away along with those damn dinner plates.

also i've finally bought a new replacement globe for my UV clarifier and so will probably switch this on today. Hopefully this will aid in any waterborne bacterial transmission that may become a secondary infection to the ulcers.

Thanks for your help everyone. will report back again

[Colin_T]

good to hear one is better, but bad news about the other. Hopefully it will come good with the new diet and the UV unit

[PiL]

well things seem to be improving for the incisus.
the ulcer must have burst because i see a pussy white substance around it. hopefully this isnt a bad sign...
but it certainly has reduced the size of the swell. there were literally several scales lifting up off his body where the ulcer was. but you could only see it from behind when he swam away due to the overlapping of the scales.

he is so disinterested in flake food, though has an appetite for shrimp. i actually threw in 30 cherry shrimp yesterday and he went bonkers and must have eaten 4 or 5 before they scattered into the plants.

time will tell.

[PiL]

i now know that excessive bloodworms are detrimental to the overall health of rainbows.
but what about brine shrimp? would excessive amounts of this cause problems too? or any other crustaceans?

i know that in some wild populations this makes up quite a significant portion of their diet.
some more light on this would be much appreciated.

[Colin_T]

brineshrimp and daphnia are fine for rainbows, as are most other small aquatic crustaceans.