# New Fish Owner-possible disease, need help



## god_flame (Sep 16, 2009)

Hi everyone, 

I'm a very new to having maintaining an aquarium, but I feel like I may have a disease in my tank. I am concerned it may be neon tetra disease even though my neon tetras seem fine. It is my guppies that I am concerned about. When I bought them just a week or two or go they were yellow/gold in color. Since then, one of the guppies developed a large white patch near her dorsal fin. Her fin began to deteriorate and her belly became bloated and white also. I have noticed since I bought my guppies (all of them have white/transparent patches now) that they seem uncharacteristically aggressive. One of them got so bad I had to take him out. They dart all across the tank and pick on the tetras and even some of the larger fish. One of the infected guppies disappeared yesterday and I'm worried he was eaten by the others. Does this sound like NTD to you? I really appreciate any help.

My tank specs:

20 gallon hexagonal tank
3 guppies (1 dead, 1 infected, not sure about the remaining one)
3 cherry barbs
3 neon tetras
1 dwarf gourami
1 pearl gourami


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## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

Symptoms dont sound exactly like neon tetra disease:
Symptoms
-Restlessness
-Fish begins to lose coloration
-As cysts develop, body may become lumpy
-Fish has difficulty swimming
-In advanced cases spine may become curved
-Secondary infections such as fin rot and bloating

Although the secondary infection sounds similar.

For now do this, quarantine the infected one, and change most of your water. If it is NTD then your barbs and tetras can get it too.

Also, I dont think that gouramis are good tank mates with your other fish. Gouramis are typically semi-agressive, and will probably end up eating your tetras when they get bigger. 

You can use this site to diagnose a disease:
http://www.nationalfishpharm.com/fish_diseases/
Go down to the Advanced Fish Health Section and click the link that pertains to your disease.


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## god_flame (Sep 16, 2009)

Thanks for the link. I see a lot of symptoms of things that are going on. There may be more than one parasite.


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## jchutch (Sep 8, 2009)

Hi, I hope I am wrong but the white patches sound like Columnaris. This is a very nasty disease and from what I know its hard to cure. I lost 7 out of 9 guppies with it at one time.

The bloating the one guppy had did it look like his scales were protruding from his or her side? If so that is Dropsy, another disease thats nasty to cure. 

Just one suggestion, quareetine your new fish whenever you buy any for at least a week or more. This is a great way to keep your established aquariums safe from disease.

If you have the means to post a photo that would help alot.

Good Luck.
John


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## god_flame (Sep 16, 2009)

Hi John, 

Thanks for the post. Another guppy just died, only one left. I didn't see any protruding scales. I'm not familiar with columnaris, is this exclusively a guppy disease or can it spread to other fish? I just ordered some De-Los from the National Fish pharmacy that is supposed to help with parasites. Hopefully it will get here quickly.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

It's almost certainly not NTD.
It may possibly be a touch of Tetrahymena, a "guppy disease," but probably not. It sounds like a good old flexibacter/columnaris outbreak to me, and not one necessarily associated with any parasites.
Gouramis have lately been carrying some nasty stuff from the orient, a virus which normally affects anabantoids but which could possibly lead to problems with other fish. Don't worry about that, though, since there's nothing you could do about it anyway.
Look instead for treatments against infection, not parasites.


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## god_flame (Sep 16, 2009)

Great Info Salt! Thanks!


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