Diseases
Recognising and preventing fish and invertebrate diseases
Are your aquarium fish ill? Are your aquarium fish showing disease symptoms? Would you like to diagnose aquarium fish diseases?
Why do aquarium fish get sick?
What factors influence fish health? What influence does fish food have on their susceptibility to disease? How can you protect the mucous membrane of the fish?
General information
About 90 % of all fish diseases can be put down to a weakening of the fish’s immune system. This means the application of remedies can fight the pathogen but doesn’t generally eliminate the cause. It is therefore very important to determine the cause. In most cases you can find the causes in the following areas:
New fish
Even when newly purchased fish do not show any obvious signs of illness, they still can be carriers of parasites or pathogen bacteria. It often happens that these “new” germs for the previous inhabitants are unknown so that they haven’t developed enough resistance to them. This situation is reminiscent of the Spanish conquest of South America, when they wiped out huge parts of the population with the cold viruses they brought with them! Please don’t always blame the pet shop retailer!
Expired food
The food has been open for more than three months. The vitamin content is then far too low. It is no long enough to build up any resistance.
As soon as the first signs of disease become noticeable IMMEDIATE action is required. In most cases people wait too long. Example: As soon as a “little spot” becomes visible, treatment must result. Waiting too long leads to that one little spot (white spot disease) coming off the skin, falling to the bottom and, after a capsule formation, releasing 1000 new spot pathogens, which increase the likelihood of infection to all the other aquarium inhabitants.