# guppy virus strikes again



## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

it has been months since I have had any sight of the horrible guppy virus (reovirus). It seems to strike only females. You see the tissues starting to split under the skin. I think it is some internal organ swelling.This time it is just behind the gill on the right side.possibly the liver. The area looks very pink and generally that area start to swell and push outwards.
The fish is starting to go black inside-- it is a gold guppy. She also has a notch out of her body- the part between the tail and body proper. It heals over and then opens up again.
I am wondering if she has a slow internal bleed- maybe that is the cause of the blackness in her- it runs along the top of the swim bladder.
So far she is still eating but is starting to breathe hard.
I just hate this virus - I lost 1/2 my females( her sisters) in another tank to it about 8 months ago and thought that I had escaped it reoccuring.
There is nothing I can do to treat it either.


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## 207lauras (Jan 28, 2009)

Is this present only in guppies or can it affect other fish? I have an orange glofish and just tonight noticed a dark stripe under it's belly. I can see it running along her lower sides too. I didnt know if it was just waste that was preparing to be expelled or what, I had never noticed it before. My fish didnt appear to have difficulty breathing... are there any other early symptoms that I should watch out for?


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

I can't say for sure that it doesn't affect other fish BUT in my experience it only attacks female guppies. I was told this by a fellow fairly close to me that breeds amazing show guppies.( deltaguppies.com)
Are you sure the line you see on your glo fish is not a normal zebra danio stripe?
I had to euthanize the girl this morning- found her head down in the gravel and in obvious discomfort.


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## 207lauras (Jan 28, 2009)

Aww. sorry to hear that. No it is certainly a dark stripe along the underside of her belly (it is my orange glofish so it is pretty visible). I thought I saw a fry in there this morning but when I looked again it was gone. Maybe that has something to do with it?? Who knows, will keep an eye on them and see how it plays out. Good luck with your guppies, hopefully this wont strike you again.


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## jones57742 (Sep 8, 2007)

mousey said:


> it has been months since I have had any sight of the horrible guppy virus (reovirus).


ms: This must seem like a real nightmare!

I had never even heard of reovirus until your post and as such I have done some research but very little joy appurtenant to our micro ecosystems.

Apparently the "big boys" in the fish food production industry have had some joy in dealing with it.

Please note four strains of reovirus are now known to infect Guppy's and many other strains of the virus infect many other species of fish as well as mollusks and invertebrates (and humans!).




mousey said:


> It seems to strike only females. You see the tissues starting to split under the skin. I think it is some internal organ swelling.This time it is just behind the gill on the right side.possibly the liver. The area looks very pink and generally that area start to swell and push outwards.
> The fish is starting to go black inside-- it is a gold guppy. She also has a notch out of her body- the part between the tail and body proper. It heals over and then opens up again.


Yes: Preponderantly females.

Yes: Internal organs - the kidneys and the pyloric caeca.




mousey said:


> So far she is still eating but is starting to breathe hard.
> *I just hate this virus* - I lost 1/2 my females( her sisters) in another tank to it about 8 months ago and thought that I had escaped it reoccuring.
> There is nothing I can do to treat it either.


*As I previously indicated this must seem like a nightmare.*

If I were faced with this scenario I would:

Add a ton of PimaFix now, as although this curative may not save your Guppy's who are in bad shape, it may not allow the virus to "get a good hold" on your remaining fish's; and

Every three months or so perform *my ich treatment*.

Although I do know that the ich treatment will substantially reduce bacteriological pathogens I do not know it's effect on viral pathogens: but what do you have to lose as this treatment will not hurt anything.

TR

BTW: Several additional items:

I have always believed that the various diseases reported on the Forum were probably 90% due to poor tank maintenance but I am certain that, as well as you maintain your tanks, this is not causatory here.

In my years of fish keeping I have never gone beyond curatives to fix a fishie's problem* but maybe I have just not have had tanks established long enough?

*I woke up one morning several years ago to enjoy a virtual meltdown of my bottom dwellers   !

I now believe that this meltdown was due to my substrate burping methane (or some other gas) which caused the meltdown directly or indirectly via the creation of toxic compounds.

Big WC's yielded no joy but what finally yielded joy was the placement of a ton of activated carbon in the filtration process and please note that I really have no explanation for this.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

Thanks , As you say there is no joy in seeing this virus reappear. The good thing is that it does not seem to transmit to my other fish.I am very fussy about doing regular water changes and vaccuuming- my friends say I am too picky!However I do believe it keeps down fungus and other nasties as we have previously discussed.
You might be interested to know that my blackskirt tetras are now over 5 years old. I found one dead a few months ago- he had been ok the day before.However the interesting part is this. One of the tetras gets a white growth all over its body which sloughs off in a few days. The same fish has had what I can only describe as white pimples and white pustules over it.They especially got into the lateral line at one time.
It had a nasty pustule around its eye for some time too which drove it crazy- literally. Tore through the tank crashing into this and that until I finally caught it and broke the pustule for it.
I treated the tank with antibiotics, removed the fish to a Q tank and treated it for 6 weeks with this and that. The fish tolerated this with fairly decent humor but gradually got depressed being alone. I got it a partner and it livened up again. We went for several weeks with no white stuff on it
so thinking it was cured I put it back into the community tank. Within 24 hours it developed this white coating again. I decided to just leave it after discussing with the marine biologist at the fish store. he offered the idea that it could just be stress in that fish and its immune system was run down. Anyway last summer I inherited a 20 gallon tank and inhabitants. One was a pink variation of the black skirt and thinking it would prefer company I moved the coated fish into the 20 gallon. It periodically gets white coating on its fins now but not on its body. just now the coating is on the top fin. The only time it is bothered with its fins is when the coating is on the front fins and it seems to off balance it and the fin attachments on the body become bloody with the weight of moving them.
the angel fish is interested in the white stuff and eats it as it sloughs from the tetra. I dunno what it is to be truthful but it has been going on for about 3 years now. What ever it is has not affected the other fish nor killed the tetra. perhaps it is a fish form of psoriasis??
have never seen any other pics of this altho there is a site called pandoras box that does have some interesting pics of weird fish problems. Sorry I don't have the web page as it was such a long time ago that I checked it out.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Mousey, viruses in tropical fish are an absolute nightmare, as you've already seen, but cheer up; it gets worse.

even though your other fishes seem to be unaffected, know that they are indeed at least carrying this crap and that they will, if given the chance, infect your entire collection. NEVER allow anything that has any contact with the affected tanks to have any contact with any other tanks. Buy new nets and cups and buckets and whatnot for servicing the other tanks, and never let them get contaminated by the affected tank(s). This is harder than it sounds in practice, but you must pay very strict attention to this.


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## jones57742 (Sep 8, 2007)

mousey said:


> I treated the tank with antibiotics, removed the fish to a Q tank and treated it for 6 weeks with this and that. The fish tolerated this with fairly decent humor but gradually got depressed being alone. I got it a partner and it livened up again. We went for several weeks with no white stuff on it
> so thinking it was cured I put it back into the community tank. Within 24 hours it developed this white coating again.


ms: as I am certain that you aware antibiotics will only treat bacteriological infections which are secondary effects of the viral infections.




mousey said:


> perhaps it is a fish form of psoriasis??


ms: you are way, way beyond me here as I previously indicated I was not aware riovirus until your post.[/QUOTE]

ms: You really have my condolences here since as much as you enjoy your plants and fishies this one must really seem like a nightmare as I have previously stated especially with your tank maintenance protocols.





TheOldSalt said:


> but cheer up; it gets worse.


I know that this condition is not funny at all but your words are :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: as I have used them many times with clients.

TOS: Please refer to the BTW in my previous post.

I just flat do not understand why I have never had to go beyond curatives and yet ms is reporting this disaster?

Your input would be appreciated.


TR


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

hi jonesy, please note that the long letter I sent does NOT apply to the guppy virus- it is a whole new topic About my tetra. so the guppy never got treated with antibiotics-just the tetra that has the white coating and tank.
Sorry for any mix up!:sad:


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

You live in Texas, Ron, but mousey lives in Canada. The great lakes region has over a dozen nasty piscene viruses all over the place, and they are spreading at an alarming rate. Texas has only a very small few, and most of them are fairly harmless in comparison, even without the consideration of temperature.
The odds of your having to contend with one of these beasts are very low, while up there more than a few politicians have considered the idea of shutting down various facets of fish-related things in an effort to stem the tide of these epidemics. 
This is why you have so far been lucky.


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## jones57742 (Sep 8, 2007)

TOS:

Thanks a bunch for the response but have a comment and a few questions.




TheOldSalt said:


> The odds of your having to contend with one of these beasts are very low, while up there more than a few politicians have considered the idea of shutting down various facets of fish-related things in an effort to stem the tide of these epidemics.


This shut down would be a "real hit" to the Canadian economy as fish production up there I believe to be "a big deal".

This is getting back into cobwebs here but I believe that many virus' can survive dormant for decades if not centuries?

As such shutting down the fish production industry in Canada appears to me to be counterproductive?

Why do Canadian politicians not employ biologists (such as TOS), biochemists, and physicists in order to develop "something" which destroys the protein coating of the virus and, possibly, then disrupt the RNA and DNA chains within the coating (ie. effectively destroying the virus)?




TheOldSalt said:


> The great lakes region has over a dozen nasty piscene viruses all over the place, and they are spreading at an alarming rate. Texas has only a very small few, and most of them are fairly harmless in comparison, even without the consideration of temperature


TOS: this apparent postulation is a question stated subsequent to significant cogitation.

As fish are cold blood animals one would believe that warmer temperatures would produce significantly more virus' than colder temperatures but as the metabolic rate of fish in cold waters is significantly less that than of fish in warm waters could the immune response be in terms of weeks in warm water but in terms of decades in cold water?

TR


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

Yes I live in the great lakes area and while our lakes freeze over in the winter( on the surface) the summer waters get to the mid 70's.
just north of me in lake simcoe there is a big winter ice fishing business.
We used to get a lot of perch from Lake Erie but I am not sure that much fishing is done there any more. Years a go we were warned not to eat the fish because of the pollution.
We do have the dreaded zebra mussel in our klake system too.
I am always fascinated about the salmon industry off British Columbia. - mainly owned by some other foreign european country now. If you can get hold of some National Geographic articles that came out in the last 3 months there are once again scary articles about disease and fish lice.
It is truly scary what we have done to our wildlife and I suppose that is because we have imported species from other places that ahould have been left in their own country.
By the way- Gambusia affinis is a banned fish in Ontario. I would think that the cold water would kill them but I suppose if they hung around the power plants they could survive. Also banned is the snakehead from china and a few of the loaches like N Corica.


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## jones57742 (Sep 8, 2007)

mousey said:


> Years a go we were warned not to eat the fish because of the pollution.


ms: believe it or not down here in West Texas ******* county us folks who are called ultraconservative but who are actually just libertarians actively support the regulations of the EPA as promulgated by the TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) as appropriate via dredging, construction of gabion dams and detention facilities; etc.

We just do not want to leave the burden of our mess on future generations (although please note that I do not have any children of which I am aware).




mousey said:


> It is truly scary what we have done to our wildlife and I suppose that is because we have imported species from other places that ahould have been left in their own country.


*Nutria* somehow got into our waters down here are got to be a real pain by destroying native fish habitat and out-competing local fauna.

Despite tons of sanctioned shotgun, rifle and bow hunts their numbers continued to increase BUT about fifteen years ago Nature took control.

Their primary breeding waters froze over in one of our rare 0F to 5F spells down here and they froze in the ice cap.

TR


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

HAHAHA! Take THAT, beaver wannabes!

What I meant was the stoppage of many other fish-related things in an effort to preserve the main fisheries industry. The capture of minnows, the transport of live bait, the keeping of aquaria.. these are all getting a big black eye and coming under unwelcome scrutiny and regulation up there in the hope of keeping these diseases from spreading to the all-important sportfishes. They're trying to avoid the "big hit," actually, with a series of little ones.

As for implementing the use of viruscides to to help clean up this mess, well, it's just too herculean a task to consider. 

As for your postulate regarding temperature, yes, I think you've pretty much nailed it. That would certainly explain much regarding the distribution of these poxes.


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## jones57742 (Sep 8, 2007)

TheOldSalt said:


> They're trying to avoid the "big hit," actually, with a series of little ones.


TOS: this makes perfect sense but with respect to



TheOldSalt said:


> As for implementing the use of viruscides to to help clean up this mess, well, it's just too herculean a task to consider.


Several Items:

Out there in the physics world (or any world for that matter) a large problem cannot be solved.

A ton of small problems can typically be fairly easily solved and then the solution to large problem becomes intuitively obvious.

How many billions of $ would a shut down of the commercial fishing industry cost the Canadian people?

Well the solution is that the Canadian Prime Minister 
Just goes out and finds the nerdiest nerd in viruology but who has "grown up";
Gives him 10% of the cost referenced above; and
Solicits the remaining 90% of the cost from the International Community and gives the nerd these funds also.

The Nerd then commences funding* (to the folks who know what they are doing and not just the "glad handers" and hence the nerd doing this) "world wide" basic research which culminates in a commercial product which destroys the protein coating of a virus and subsequently the DNA/RNA chain.

The above sounds simplistic but IMHO would work except for the "very large fly in the ointment" which is the politicians.

* Obviously a positive disproportionate amount would to go the ressurection of and generation of the work product at the Ellington Lab at the University of Texas.



TheOldSalt said:


> As for your postulate regarding temperature, yes, I think you've pretty much nailed it. That would certainly explain much regarding the distribution of these poxes.


Thanks a bunch for the confirmation.

See us old dogs can indeed learn new tricks BUT

your comment, based upon my knowledge of your education, predicates that for several days I will be need to be "greasing my ears to get my head through very wide doorways"!

TR


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