# Think my swords have a problem?



## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

So I am very regular about waterchanges on all my tanks.50% a week minimum.For the last 3-4 weeks I have found 1 or 2 dead swordtails in my breeder tank(40b).They are older and have been in this tank without new additions for over 2-3 years.I first thought it could be age and was only mildly concerned.I now fear what no one wants to hear or have in fishkeeping.
The fish show no signs after death;no sores,missing scales or fin issues.No inflamed gills or visable symptoms,especially on other fish in same tank.They all eat well.
I can almost spot who is next now though as they settle,seperate,and generally look,well like they're next to die!
I have my own thoughts on this and it is not good,but wonder if another person might have a different idea or view of what could be going on.
I'd rather leave my diagnosis blank for now as to not "suggest" something others would not think of.
I have never had any issues in this tank,and am still a little boggled by what could have "developed" with what I think/thought was adequate maintenance and care.


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## pepe (Nov 11, 2013)

Are you thinking the "C" word


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

I wish! I will say I've done no treatments to this tank at all,as I don't clearly see what to treat for?


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Life span 3 to 5 years depending on where you look so hopefully that is all it is.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I have had periods where I have lost Swords and each time it is males. For me, it was the stress that one, possibly two were putting on one or two of the weaker males. I only have them in a 125g tank with Platys and a few Corys. Males Swords don't like other males Swords for the most part and when one was being really dominant he would not even let the others eat. They are just like human males, get a lot of females around and they lose their minds. It peaks at that time when more than one female is getting a lot of attention and ready to mate. whether it is a scent they give off or what, not sure. If you have kept them long enough you know what I mean and how 1 to 2 of them always seem to be getting "special" attention for some reason although they look the same as any other female in the tank. 

Just my experience. If it were disease it would be affecting all of your fish.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

It has been both males and females.
I appreciate everyones input and all have brought info I feel is important and made me realise some other info that may help.
I have actually seen 2 or 3 of the swords die and it seemed painful.I did see the same in my roselines that died last year and it was not a contagious infection,I do believe they died of age.But there was 1 male out of all these fish(totall of 6-7) that was bent like an S when I found him dead.When I look at these fish I can easily view them from above and they are not(he was not ) bent 3 days before he died,but I could see he was going to be next.
I'm not trying to lead everyone on a wild goose chase,I really do have strong feelings on this,but will wait a little longer to ask what everyone thinks of it.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

OK now I'll bring my crazy out.I think these fish(the tank) has been infected by fish TB!
The curved spine like an S is the only true symptom besides irregular deaths continuing over weeks.
No dead fish this am,but I think I see who is next.It is a female who has settled to the bottom of the tank and easily let me catch her this am.I looked her over and there are no sores,spots or anything,but when I released her she settled back to the bottom and sat there.
What boggles me is with good care(waterchanges and mixed foods) is it possible to just "develope" this issue.All my reading says poor conditions,overcrowding(which would lead to poor conditions) can be an issue.
I'll try to get a pic of the" next one today" if I can.
Any other diseases that would show no real symptoms?
I don't want to euthanise this whole tank(and maybe 3 others with swords and fry/juvis),but I also feel that if this is a possible threat I have too much to risk in letting this go on and on.
My thought is to euthanise all fish in this tank and sterilise with pool shock for a week or so and pray.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Just be careful. Supposedly you can be infected with it also.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

Could it be (as pepe mentioned) columnaris?Would it have no visable symptoms or very few possibly unnoticed?I understand this also can kill quicky which supports the I know who's next notion.This tank is on the lower end of temp 72.
I think I should get some PP and give it a whirl.
My safety,the fish and everything else alive in my house is of great concern to me until I can figure this out.
Could columnaris kill so slowly?I would think in the almost 1 moth since start I should have lost all without any treatments!


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## pepe (Nov 11, 2013)

It's my understanding that you've started with strong,healthy well cared for fish . It would take a bit of time to for the columnaris to kill them.You also keep the temp on the low side which ,I believe, would slow the disease's reproduction. Is taking a recently deceased fish to a local college's bio dept an option,wild life agency,trout hatcheries will have resources for fish pathology. Euthanizing entire tanks would be such a horrible task.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

These fish have been with me and reproducing(faithfully) for over 2 years.
I just caught the next female to die(I think) and actually spotted two others that may help as they have slight signs?
So here's 3 pics.

This pic has full orange female with some whiteness behind dorsal and on head that is much cleare to see with the flash of the camera.The male in all these pics has 1 small white dot on it's tail(but he still seems active and normal).

This pic may all 3 the best.It is the orange and white female with no clear symptoms that is "next" IMO.


This just shows the orange female better.I have not noticed anything like this with the other previous deaths, but that doesn't mean the other fish didn't do this.
They all seem to die overnight,so it is possible they look like this before I find them dead.
Not to sound morbib,but I would be thrilled if this was columnaris,at least there is treatment.
The hump back also is one symptom that is not present long before death,but this is not the S curvature I saw in the one male.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

So I'm just going to hope this is columnaris and have proceeded to start a PP soak for the fish.I removed all plants and did a thourough vaccum (70%) and mixed up 10g of PP in a 500ml bottle.I then dosed 60ml of the solution.Tank is pretty purple,so I hope I figured this right or light?I did use an accurate digital scale to weigh the 10 grams of PP.My hardware store had 1 @5lb bottle of powder and this will probly last FOREVER.So if anyone needs PP just PM me and I'll weigh and ship how ever much anyone wants!
OK my math was pretty light.I think @ 2ml per L I should have dosed almost 8ml per gallon x40=320.
This would seem really heavy IMO since the 60ml really turned the water purple.But in 2 hours the water and PP is yellow.This is supposed to indicate water quality possibly(meaning not good).I will add I did not remove or rinse the 5 sponge filters so this may have still had some organic debris lowering the duration PP will stay active.So I changed 50% again and added another 80ml.I'll wait and see how long this stays active for now?


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

I'm not so sure the PP could really cure these fish.Not really sure it is acure is more what I mean.after I removed all the plants from the tank I had a much better veiw of all the fish and sadly felt euthanising 4(the 2 females in pictures) of the fish was best.The male in the pic really doesn't look bad and the spot is on both sides of his tail more like in his tail.
Today a different male looked very bad,hunched back ,settled on bottom of tank and easy to catch so I euthanised him also.
I don't want people to mis understand ,but although these fish are my pets, they are not my only fish and are not in a display tank.They are fish I breed and sell to the best LFS in my area.I have serious concern with selling less than high quality anything,and question even if "cured" if they would be truly healthy.The last thing I want to do is sell fish that could infect someone else tank or even just die early on them.
Antibiotics are out of the question to me for these fish so if they don't show signs of improvement I may just euthanise this whole tank and sterilise it with calcium hypochloride(pool shock).I'm still not convinced it is not TB,but that is not really important as most of the columnaris issues lately have come close to completely wiping out others tanks.
I do feel bad about this,and if they were my only fish in my only tank I would not quit on them,but as I said in this post and much earlier; I have way too much to risk spreading this infection,and never want to pass bad quality to anyone.
When I brought out melanoma in these swords a year or more ago, I made a statement about my breeding strategy;"it's not about quanity,it's about quality "and I can't even imagine if I was responsible for someone elses problem.I checked with my LFS yesterday and they say they have had no issue with any of the 200 I brought them last month.I'm still not sure what will happen,but I'm preparing for the worst.I really hope this is only in the 1 tank.Ihave spent 2 years getting my color mixes and would hate to lose them all.
sorry if this disappoints people,but you wouldn't want to buy these fish would you?Hopefully my other 40 breeder is clean and my breeding efforts can continue?


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

So a quick update;not much too say for this tank.No recent deaths or fish that look ill.I do realise that if it is columnaris or TB I'm not out of the woods,and none of the previous issues were quick.They were like I said maybe a fish every 5 days or so,but having no indications right now seems good!
On to swordtail tank #2;I dosed this tank with PP as a precaution in the same manner as first tank.Did a large water change(70%+),removed all plants and the sponge filters.Let the tank "soak" for 4 hours.Upon removing 70% and adding new(prepared) water ,something went terribly wrong.I don't know what ,but all fish were fine during treatment,but seemed to be violently effected with removal of PP.I did "neutrlise" the remaining PP with H2O2(not alot) and refilled tank.The fish were actually trying to jump out of tank!I ended up losing 8 fish that really didn't seem ill.I changed water again in 2 hours and it seemed to help somewhat,but have lost 1 or 2 fish for the last 2 days.I really have no clue what happened?I know I dechlorinated,but when I tested the water it indicated chlorine was present?Does PP register as chlorine on a chlorine test?The fish seemed to be effected in that they all just layed around for a day or so.Most are swimming normal now,but there was 1 dead this am.
I do realise that the PP is diffacult to use properly,but did it exactly the same as other tank,so really don't know what happened,but I do know it was not good.
I'm kind of hesitant to treat tank #1 again?They only thing done different was the removal of the sponge filters,just the sponge all airlines(3) were in tank during whole treatment.The PP never changed color like before,but I assume that is because of removing the sponges and the tank therefore had less "organic" matter to to use up the PP?


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

Still trying to figure out what happened or at least thinking about it(hate losing fish),I just tested the PP with chlorine test kit.I added 1 drop to 1 gallon( way lower then dose fish given)of tested 0 chlorine water(my prep water) and it turned so yellow!So I didn't kill them with chlorine,but wonder more about PP.I thought the PP may have caused my first reading based on it being a "strong oxidiser",and "survivalist"use it to purify water for drinking.So I guess I solved part of mystery(well not really ,but I didn't kill with bad water).I really wonder about the PP but actually treated a discus with it the other day without issue so I'm still stumped?


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

I have said before I often learn while trying to helping others and today was no exception.In trying to ID an issue I posted a link to columnaris that I have before.Then I read it again(I don't commit everything to my old brain) and found possibly a breath of hope .I'll quote link;
"Finally,since columnaris is an oppurtunistic aerobic infection even a well mantained aquarium can suffer from columnaris with a slight oppurtunity of infection.
A common portal for columnaris infection is simply an older and weaker fish.Old age allows many oppurtunistic infections to get a good foothold in at least the fish in question".
So maybe I do proper maintanace after all.And maybe these fish are dieing from being old,but not from ald age but an infection being older is too hard for them to fight off.
The tanks (both) actually still seem well and I see no signs of infection or ill fish.
The article did also mention "culling" older "in question" fish in an attempt to resolve issues.So as hard as it has been to euthanise some fish I can't help think I made the right choices even if they were hard.
Here's the link;
Fish Columnaris | Fungus & Saprolegnia | Treatment & Prevention
Here's to hoping I'm on the right path(and the link strongly recommended the PP treatment!)


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## pepe (Nov 11, 2013)

That makes perfect sense.The thought of euthanizing my old (4+yrs) mollies as a preventative measure is disturbing.Did you lose any adolescent fish during this?


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## rtmaston (Jul 14, 2012)

mine swords was about a 2 years old and I want to a spell over 2 weeks I lost 3 swords.i checked the water and it was ok. i was lost but after a couple weeks I had no more die. i had this tank set up over 2 years now and never had to treat for anything.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

pepe said:


> That makes perfect sense.The thought of euthanizing my old (4+yrs) mollies as a preventative measure is disturbing.Did you lose any adolescent fish during this?


Without being 100% certain I would say that any of the fish that weren't real old were males.I would geuss once the disease became active that any of the fish that were "stressed" would become more suceptive to the illness.The males are really tough on each other ,even being spread out with numbers and decent volume .So a couple young males and then all older females.
Both tanks look really good now ,but I know better than to think we're safe yet.
I may try just doing the PP more often at lower dose as a theraputic measure.To go back to "true water quality" the dissolved organics clearly don't register as nitrates or ammonia ,nitrite,but were present in tank1 even after a 75% waterchange as the PP "expired" in only a couple of hours(or it was the sponges?).Just thinking a once every two month soak may be a good idea?


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

So upon further reading I think I know what went wrong with treatment on tank 2.I'm pretty sure I seriously overdosed the PP as I think I added actual 2ml per litre(aprox 8ml per gallon) of my stock solution.While reading up on dosing for someone else I discovers that 2 drops of this solution would have equalled 2ml/l.My stock solution was made light at 10 grams per 500ml water,which correctly should have been 37.5 grams for 500ml.So my solution is 1/3 the proper strength,but I dosed at possibly 10x +the proper amount!
What still seems odd is the violent reaction to changing water after treatment while the fish seemed fine throughout the treatment.
Both tanks seem to be well,still have lost no more fish or seen any symptoms of illness,soI'm glad I gave this stuff a try and will be dosing both tanks again(properly this time I hope?).This product(the PP) worked much faster than an antibiotic could have and besides my mis dosing seemed to have no impact on fish.Since these fish are for breeding I was not going to use antibiotics.Many pond keepers(kio& goldfish) use this for maintaining water quality,and I actually read of kio keepers using this to "help achieve tremendous growth" in their kio.This was in reference to a million dollar prize for the largest kio contest in china years ago!


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

Quick update .All fish seem fine and have had no issues in either tank.I really think the PP treatment is the bomb!Antibiotics would have taken forever in comparison,and still may not have been effective,due to wide range columnaris can take.
I'd like to thank Pepe for suggesting it(columnaris),and although many have had a major ordeal with columnaris and almost total wipe outs,this seems to have worked aout very well IMO.Still monitoring them closely,but feeling more hopeful.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

Ok update on these guys and girls.
I did originally euthanise any fish that looked ill.
I never used any "meds" but only treated tanks with the PP.
Although very pleased with the outcome overall,I will say I was still very skeptical.I just couldn't stop thinking that no meds and only the PP was 1/2 of a decent treatment.
WELL,the fish are all good.I do really think that for 99% of what happened it was older female swords that got infected,along with them was a couple of the "weakest" males(they are BRUTAL to each other).I have thinned down the breeding stock again(moved them to another tank) and combined both of my sword breeder tanks(needed the 40B for my GBR!) into 1 40B.Many of the males and older females have been moved to my 75 and are next to go to LFS as long as they remain healthy(they have all been fine).
I have dosed the 40B with the swords with PP 2 times since then without issue.When I pulled all the swords from the other 40B for my GBR I soaked it in a 10X strength PP treatment for 2 days and then scrubbed and rinsed.All the GBR seem to be doing well(about 2-3 weeks now).
Mostly this is going to turn into a PP thread.I know many say ;old school,very dangerous and non selective with what it will oxidise,I"M GOING TO I'M ALL IN!
I think the lack of some of the old school techniques,and "overconcern" about chemicals has gone too far!
I'm still learning how to use this tool to the best of my abiblity and benefit of my fish,but I really think there is a big gain to be had in it's use for some.I think it actually removes /neutalises disolved organics that even waterchanges don't completely deal with.If you knew how it worked(changing color) then you might agree when you saw it change color on a tank that test good and gets 50%+ waterchanges weekly(it says there is still disolved organics in the water).I know clear water means nothing,but when you change as much water as I do and CLEARLY NOTICE how much "crisper" the water looks then you may feel the same.
Potassium Permanganate
This is the first of informational links I plan to provide for any interested(very good read!).


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## sharkettelaw (Aug 30, 2011)

dude, thats TB! Curved spines like that indiciate TB which cant do anything about it except just keep the water clean and hope it goes away..if its not TB which im loathe to believe its not, then its the internal strain of coloumnaris...still think its TB though. And yes, you can pick it up from the fish but it'll only leave sores on your arms and etc


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

Although there is a chance it could be TB I am really still leaning towards it being columnaris.Both disease couldbe hiding in my tank still,but with no issues since intiall treatment,I am really thinking it is columnaris.
I was about 90% convinced it was TB in the beginning,but question even my limited success with the PP.PP is recommended for a large number of diseases,but TB is NOT one of them,so this stregnthens my belief it was columnaris.
Certainly with even columnaris I'm not out of the woods as it has been known to survive more than a year.The TB can not be treated at all so this is just my attempt to cure before euthanising all.
There also are several other diseases thatcan cause curved spines;dropsy,internal issues and lack of proper vitamins.
Again the fact that all lost were older(3-4 years) leads me in the columnaris direction.
I appreciate your thoughts .


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

More then 1/2 a year later I still have had no problems with my swords.That's the good news!
Today marks the first day in over 4-5 years I own no livebearers.I decided to eliminate the community that remained and make better use of the tank.
I'll attribute the "illness"(i believe columnaris) to overcrowding,breeding and age.
For the last 6 + months I have had 0 (no) issues with my swords.I have kept aprox 30 in a 75 g.All issues before were in 40 and 30 breeders with that many fish if not more.
It took me all of 4 years to develope my own "showa" strain that IMO looked better then any other I have seen(my avatar).
I enjoyed them and really learned and gained alot with my swords.I traded well over 1,000 if not 2,000 over the years.I will miss them but have moved my full breeding effort to my rams so the space(75g) will be appreciated.
For those who wonder what I did with 30 swordtails in 1 day that could be humane,remeber I have a 120g fowlr with 2 lionfish and a minigrouper.Culling could NOT be more natural then to offer a fish(or 2) to another fish!They ate them ALL!
Long and short of this thread is I still use PP to clean/sterilize and think it works as good if not better then many meds.
Sorry if this seems inappropriate, but I thought this thread could be closed on a positive note.I did stop the uncontrolled deaths,although I never felt comfortable enough to trade them again.


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## treliantf (Oct 10, 2014)

Congratulations, Tom, You've done it!! It's a long struggle but you've won the war. I've similar experience with HLLE in my early SW fish keeping days and I've defeated HLLE 8 years later and now I do not have relapse for more than 14 years. 
With patience and correct medications we all will win the war!!


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