# Cyprichromis melt



## Ptyochromis (Mar 23, 2012)

So, I have(had) a colony of 11 C. leptosoma in a 55g. Several of them (mostly females) have been thinning. Last week one died and I am currently about to loose another. I have tried metronidaole and praziquantel, thinking that the loss of weight was coming from a parasitic infection. They are normally fed NLS grow and De-caped bs eggs 2x a day.

I was slacking on water changes for a month or 2, but now I'm back on 10g changes every 3rd day.

The stocking is 2 L. ornatipinnis, 4 J. transcriptus 'pemba', 3 juvenile A. comps and 3 Panaque maccus.

Ran out of nitrate test but my dkH is at 10kh.

Any ideas?


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## m1ke715m (Jul 26, 2012)

imo theres no rhyme or reason why cyps waste.. i dont think its caused by anything but stress... some cyps stress, come dont.. nothing helps it.. keeping them alone seems to be the best way to avoid it but even then it still happens sometimes.. getting them as big as possible seems to help too.. i just buy more when they die


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## Ptyochromis (Mar 23, 2012)

I have one that is going now. She is pointed straight down and seems to have trouble floating properly. Her tail is also slightly bent up.


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## m1ke715m (Jul 26, 2012)

soon as they get skinny or their head looks big its a wrap for them.. just a matter of time till they die.. happens all the time to me.... just buy more..


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## kitana8 (Jan 20, 2010)

I've had necropsies done in the past on thining Cyps, and the results always came back as Mycobacterium. Basically, there is no treatment, it is contagious to humans so trying meds blindly on it could easily result on the Mycobacterium gaining resistances to the meds and then becoming harder to heal from it if a human catch it. So bottom line is not to try to treat it, and euthanize the affected fish when their quality of life becomes unacceptable.


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## Cooder (Jul 19, 2011)

This happened to a whole colony of cyps of mine. bought small and shipped, maybe they stressed too much on the way or something but all except 1 died... unfortunatly you cant just go and get some more when they have to be shipped 1500 kms... it bloody sucks because no matter how many water changes you do, up the temp, everything, nothing works

you try to feed them extra to gain weight, but all that does is destroy they water quality which they need to keep the stress down


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## Ptyochromis (Mar 23, 2012)

So heavy gram stain negative antibiotic treatment? Kanamycin should work, right? 
Her tail is crooked along both the midsagittal and transverse plane, mycobacterium makes sense.


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## Ptyochromis (Mar 23, 2012)

I'm going to try upping to 10gchanges every other day and 4x a day feedings with kanamycin flake.


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## Cooder (Jul 19, 2011)

i hope that works for you, with the more feedings you will need more water changes

tell us how it goes


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## m1ke715m (Jul 26, 2012)

once they look weird, theres no getting better.. maybe your methods could stop others from getting it but once a fish looks bad its a death sentence for cyps

*** gotten probably 40 jumbo katetes.. at least.. i have 4males and 2 females to show for it lol i just keep buying more till i finally have a decent colony..


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## kitana8 (Jan 20, 2010)

Ptyochromis said:


> So heavy gram stain negative antibiotic treatment? Kanamycin should work, right?
> Her tail is crooked along both the midsagittal and transverse plane, mycobacterium makes sense.


You really don't want to treat with anything, really.

All the fish that I sent for necropsy that were thin were discovered to be beyond hope for recovery. Mycobacterium invades every tissue and organ, and immune cells congregate around them creating huge granulomas that are mass-like lesions, causing a slow but irreversible organ dysfunction. When the fish is visibly wasting away, nothing can be done for it short from massive organ and muscle transplant...

Mycobacterium is no mere gram- bacteria, it is an acid-fast organism in the same family than Tuberculosis that needs a combination of at least 2, often 3 antibiotics to be killed. And it's the same thing when we get it, so by trying kanamycin or any other antibiotic you will maybe kill the bacterias sensible to this ATB, but the ones not sensible will multiply and then you will have created a strain resistant to kanamycin... Your doctor will be very very happy to hear about that when your kid or yourself consult for human Mycobacteriosis...

Supporting the fish so they stay healthy enough to fight Mycobacterium by themselves is the best way to go: excellent water quality all the time, no aggressive tank mates that will stress them, not too much competition for food, healthy food, it's the best way to go when there is a suspicion of Mycobacteriosis in a system. Of course it could be something else, a necropsy is a cheap way to find out what is affecting your fish. Any veterinary school can do that, and any vet can prepare the fish. They have to be euthanized in MS222 or eugenol and half the fish submitted in formaline, half frozen.


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## Darkskies (Mar 17, 2012)

Ptyochromis said:


> So heavy gram stain negative antibiotic treatment? Kanamycin should work, right?
> Her tail is crooked along both the midsagittal and transverse plane, mycobacterium makes sense.


They use isoniazid and rifampin to treat TB(Mycobacterium Tuberculosis). Mycobacterium species are highly resistant to antibiotics due to their waxy lipid coating made of mycosides/mycolic acid(in place of a cell wall that would be gram neg/gram pos.).. I don't really know if this helps much... I hope your fish get better though.

Most Mycobacterium species are opportunistic though as far as I know and generally healthy organisms(humans at least) can fight them off or at least present with no symptoms.. Maybe the drop in water quality caused stress and triggered the infection?


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## Ptyochromis (Mar 23, 2012)

kitana8, what would you feed them?


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## kitana8 (Jan 20, 2010)

I would go with high quality food of your choice, maybe with a little frozen something or homemade euro shrimp mix, something high in vitamins, antioxydants and proteins. Cyps love to eat very small particules so something like live microworms would be interesting for them as well.

Keeping in mind that once opened, fish food (or any food) will have its omega3 fatty acids oxydate and go rancid (and cancerigenous) in about 4-8 weeks, I would throw away anything that has been sitting on the shelf, opened, for that long or longer and buy new food, only the amount that can be used in 1-2 months...


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## Ptyochromis (Mar 23, 2012)

To update on the cyp situation, I'm down to 4  .
I'm starting to think they they started going because of a single male. He is significantly fatter than the rest, and has always been for that matter. He has always been dominant verging on agressive, but with the reduction in numbers his aggression is really shinning through. My conclusions are either 4' long tank is too small or 12 individuals is not enough for a healthy shoal.

I have been feeding NLS grow (recently switched to cobalt mysis flake), frozen cyclops, and mysis.


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## m1ke715m (Jul 26, 2012)

so I gave my group of slimming/wasting/melting cyprichromis leptosome kerenge to my friend who is much smarter than I and she did some necropsies.. she said there was no microbacterium present just bacteria that would not normally harm the fish ie beneficial bacteria. and it seems as thou that's why there nothing you can do to stop it.. the fish get stressed, their immune systems become compromised and normally unharmful bacteria colonize the fish and kill them usually very slowly


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

Just like bloat it could have more than one caurse and more than one effective treatment. Hitting the right one for the specific disease the difficult part. Yep 9/10 cull the lot and start again later with fresh unaffected stuff, saves a lot of hassle.
Prob is if you find all your supliers have the same prob and keep quiet about it. :wink:


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

Honestly its my guess why some folk find you can keep em well in small tang cichlid communitues and other folk find they just fade away and die unless kept in big species tanks. That is what they are carrying or pic up in the systems they go through to get to us or even what our own cichlids have and pass to them but show little or no problems from.


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## Ptyochromis (Mar 23, 2012)

Well, I lowered to tank temp to 77/78 and increased feeding even more (2-3x daily cobalt mysis flake 1x daily frozen mysis/cyclopeze). My thin fish have been putting back on weight And I got a spawn out of my group of 4 lol.

I was digging around and found a study on trout kept at elevated fluoride levels. The effect on the fish was very similar to what I saw with my cyps melting.

Edit: I'm keeping all my dry food refrigerated, to preserve freshness.


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## m1ke715m (Jul 26, 2012)

I gave a group of 11 kerenge to a friend and she cut 1 or 2 open and all but 2 were wasting she says they are doing better now and not skinny but she lives 3 hours away from me so im not sure if she just isn't familiar with what they look like when they are going to die.. *** had them last a year all skinny and then die.


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

Ptyochromis said:


> Well, I lowered to tank temp to 77/78 and increased feeding even more (2-3x daily cobalt mysis flake 1x daily frozen mysis/cyclopeze). My thin fish have been putting back on weight And I got a spawn out of my group of 4 lol.
> 
> I was digging around and found a study on trout kept at elevated fluoride levels. The effect on the fish was very similar to what I saw with my cyps melting.
> 
> Edit: I'm keeping all my dry food refrigerated, to preserve freshness.


Interesting you say that. Quite a few guys here are going on to RO plus remineralising and erm reporting far better breeding success in many Tang cichlids. Maybe 0 nitrates or maybe something else in some UK tap water does not agree with some delicate tang species. Me I am giving up on Cyps. Just good money after bad as far as I see, as I am not going over to RO for one genus I do not even find that interesting. Just colour tank fillers for me  
Can do that with hardier guys.

All the best James


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