Stabilizing weak hillstreams

[mikev]

As those who keep hillstreams undoubtly discovered, some shipments result in very weak fish which does not last very long. It appears that in at least some cases the fish is permanently weakened by improper shipment or a prior disease condition and will, within perhaps 3 months, die from reasons that are hard to determine; I suspect that some of such deaths are results of bacterial infections caused by common bacteria that would not normally be fatal to a healthy animal. The root cause of the problem is likely to be gill damage and/or weakened immune system.

Obviously, repeated antibiotics treatment would have only a temporary effect in such cases, and in fact it is not likely that any drug would be of use.

Is there anything else that can be done in such cases?

The idea would be to try to rebuild the immune system and/or gill damage -- I'm not at all sure that this is even possible with small fish, but perhaps a certain regime and foods would be of some help?

----

PS> I don't know how hillstream-specific is this issue, but I've never seen this with any other kind of fish: it is either healthy, or so damaged that it dies quickly. Weak hillstreams, however, may linger around for weeks.

[Martin Thoene]

Ever done First-Aid?

I used to be an Emergency Medical Technician.

First thing they teach you is ABC.

Airway - can the patient breath?

Breathing - are they actually breathing?

Circulation - If they're breathing, we have to assume they're alive and the heart is working, but how well?

Now we can't stick a BP-cuff on a Gastromyzon, or do capilliary re-fill tests on it either, so we're left with the first two.

They come first because without the first two, you don't get the third.....well not for long anyway. Simple biological fact that is virtually the same for the majority of life-forms on this planet.

Many fish arrive from their long journey to our shores deprived of oxygen. With hillstreams, the deprivation is more critical because of their low-affinity haemoglobin, and any delay in shipping can tip the balance.
If they're not DOA, then they can be severely compromized and maybe suffering from ammonia poisoning too.

The best way to rehab them is to get them into a very high oxygen environment ASAP. Going back to my EMT training and experience, the best way to help a compromized patient, be it through trauma or many medical conditions is to put them on high-flow oxygen through a non-re-breather mask. This gives them the highest practical intake of oxygen with every breath and therefore the lungs can take up as much as is possible and pass it on to the bloodstream.

All sorts of compromizes can affect human breathing. I picked up a big, strapping, barrel-chested Fireman once who was pumping iron in the gym and dropped the weights cross-bar on his chest. He was in a LOT of pain and this prevented him adequately expanding his chest to breath. Despite his objections, I placed him on a NRB mask with high-flow O2 because I said it would help him.

He was able to get sufficient oxygen by taking short breaths, thereby causing himself less pain. A half-hour later in the ER, he thanked me profusely for being so insistant about it.

It is vitally important with these fish to get them as quickly as is practical into a high current, aerated tank. This gives them the oxygen they need in the highest concentration we can provide, allows the gills to take it up to the blood-stream. The heart has to do less work in order to pump sufficient O2 levels to the tissues, so the whole of the fish's bilogical functions are less stressed.

Put these fish into a low oxygen environment and the opposite will happen. Insufficient oxygen saturation means inefficiant take up to the blood at the gills. The heart has to beat faster because the tissues are demanding life-giving blood charged with O2.

I'm sure this is why half the fish we see in dealer's tanks hardly move. Especially when they first come in, they find the most water movement they can in the tank and just sit in it. It's because they simply don't have the energy in their system to operate the muscles for movement.

No wonder so many perish because when there's shops around like the one you kept buying fish from Mike, what you're getting is severely debilitated fish. The initial trauma and effect of their journey is further compounded by continued oxygen insufficiency(over whatever period) until the balance is just survivable or the organism fails.

The fact is that any fish living in these compromised conditions has not enough physical stamina and reserves. This lays them wide open to any other infections that might be around.

An animal or human only operates at peak efficiency on the required oxygen for the amount of movement at a given time. Lay in bed and you're heart beats slow, your blood-pressure drops, and your breathing reduces. Your body does not demand high levels of oxygen.

Try running a Marathon. Everything speeds up. It has to because the demand for oxygen by every tissue in the body just sky-rocketed. If I ask you to run a marathon and duct tape your mouth shut, you'll crap out in no time. All because you're nostrils can only cope with supplying your body with oxygen at walking pace.

Hillstream Loach's blood is different to a Carp. The two environments they live in are vastly different. Goldfish, unfortunately have been forced to live in ridiculously small spaces by human-kind, but as long as their water is kept sweet they survive for suprisingly long times. You can't put a Hillstream in such conditions.
It's like duct tape on your mouth, but 24/7. Something has to give and it's the fish's biological functions.

EVERYTHING starts at sufficient oxygen. You can throw all the meds and good food at a fish, but if it can't breath sufficiently it will gradually deteriorate.

Once you get the fish breathing correctly and get shipping Ammonia flushed out of the system, you can then consider other stuff.


Martin.

[mikev]

Martin, thanks,

Once you get the fish breathing correctly and get shipping Ammonia flushed out of the system, you can then consider other stuff.

This was the question...

Air is a given. In fact, I'm going overboard with Air as a SOP:
1. Sponge filter
2. HOB with lowered water level.
3. Decent power Head.
(this is a 10g Q-tank).

There is no question that in many (most?) cases dumping them into high-oxygen environment is THE trick: what you may see that the losses stop after a week (often, after 72 hours) and most of the rest will make it.

However, there seem to be also cases where this does not work. The fish remains weak, behavior is abnormal (lo-energy) and the dayout extends into many weeks, slowly taking its toll.

(Incidentally, I've seen this happening only with hillstreams which are also not full grown.)

What is needed now is not the Emergency Treatment but some form of slow Rehabilitation. Of course, maintaining high O2 and generally good conditions is a must.... but I wonder if there is anything else that can be done to raise the survival chances just a bit?

I'm throwing random ideas:
1. Low-concentration levamisole in the tank -- boost immune system?
2. Feeding them primarily with veggies (spinach, etc) -- vitamins?
3. Very frequent water changes? -- this often works as treatment for diseases like fin shredding and flexibacter, so maybe it is also an immune stimulant?
???????

What I'd like to see is a 2-4 week rehab regime.

[Emma Turner]

I believe that a good acclimatisation procedure is critical in giving these fish the best possible start when they arrive with us. To this effect, we will open the bags, add a small amount of water from the system they are going to go on, with a splash of ammo-lock added to this water. Then we immediately oxygenate the bags up with pure O2 and re-seal. The bags are then placed back in the poly box they arrived in. This process is repeated again after 20 mins or so (this time without the ammo-lock), and again after a further 20 mins. After the last mix of water is added and the bag is re-oxygenated, the bag is then floated on the system, in the dark, to equalise the temperatures. Then when we are happy that the temperature is fine, we net them into the tank (which has higher than average flow). You wouldn't believe what a difference adding pure O2 to fish bags can make. We've had bags arrive with fish that look as if they have only minutes of life left in them, and they have all pulled round with the addition of O2. We do this for every single type of freshwater fish that arrives at the store, no matter how fiddly it might seem. With regards to the hillstreams, we don't seem to get any of these 'mystery' problems a few months down the line as mentioned above.

Emma

[mikev]

Thanks, Emma,

This sounds like a great procedure(!) -- thank you for sharing it -- and the importance of immediate O2 is now is something I'm well aware of.

Unf., when one gets fish from a store it is probably too late to apply it, I cannot any longer change the way the fish was shipped, received or kept. I still would like to try to give it the best chance.

(It is not months but weeks)

[chris1932]

If I understand the principle of airation correctly, bubbling atsmosphereic air through water has low efficency of exchange? In nature airation occours through surface contact. Falling or cascading water exchanges oxygen more efficently... I think.

Unless pressure is involved.

or

Mechanical entrainment.


I have often thought about using a pressurized oxygen cylinder and saturation chamber.

All of this is a moot point without knowing what the real requirement is. Has anyone ever taken a disolved oxygen reading in the areas where these fish are caught? Seeing this information would provide at least a guideline for proper design. I am fortunate to have monitoring equipment at my disposal, and yes I have taken DO readings in both my old river tank and new one. The interesting thing is, until I hung three marineland 350s off the back wall and raised the Fluval outlets to disturb the waters surface no amount of air stones would get me a DO reading of over 2.8ppm at 72f as an average across the tank. A massive amount of live plants raised the DO another 1.2ppm.

As a point of comparison I may take a DO reading of the lower Juniata river tomorrow. It supports a healthy population of trout and other cold water fish.

The most efficent airation I have used is to bore a hole in the riser tubing under a powerhead and let the impeller mechanicaly entrain air. This produces such a fine mist of bubbles it looks like a white curtain. It is hard on powerheads and internal parts as it is cavitation and it slowly produces harmonics that wear the internals prematurely.

I am looking for a better pump. One that can pump air and water and induce mechanical entrainment. Sihi division of Sterling pump produces a pump that can do this. They are used to supersaturate water in mechanical solids seperation devices used in waste water treatment.

Wow what a rambler. Does anyone but me care? A.R.L.K.