HELP!!!! Possible Fish TB Infection!

Hey yall,
Been dealing with some mysterious illness or injuries in my 55-gallon tank, and was wondering if you could help me diagnose whether or not it's fish TB.
the aquarium is stocked with:
4 Kribs,
a few Platies (lost count, sorry),
2 Angels,
1 Dwarf Gourami
5 Odessa Barbs
5 Buenos Aires tetras
1 bn Pleco
(overstocked I know but had a leak in the previous tank so had to move some of the fish here).

So the first I saw of this mysterious injury/illness was one of my pineapple platies acting strange and having an almost slightly curved back, he was hiding, acting funny, and had nipped or frayed fins. so I moved him to my qt tank and he was dead the next morning, couple of days later I notice the same thing in 2 other platies, hiding, swimming funny, curved back, and frayed/nipped fins. moved to qt tank and that morning looked so bad I euthanized them.
now a week later another platy has fallen to the same thing (see attached pic). what is strange is that it has only happened to my platies and not any other species of fish.
I have seen Odessa's chase the platies before but didn't think they would attack and have never seen aggression from them or Kribs (except to their own species).
what is also odd is that it also doesn't seem to affect the 2 species in the tank most vulnerable to fish TB (gourami and angel).
really disheartening to lose all these platies and really hope it isn't fish TB.
also if it is fish TB, wondering how I should move forward.

Tank Parameters

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 20ppm
Temp: 75 degrees
Filters: 1 filter rated for a 55-gallon tank, one filter rated for 30, and a sponge filter.

Any help is desperately needed, Thank you so much!

 

How long have you had these platys and where did you get them?

 

around 6 or so months

 

Ok, I agree that it’s probably fish TB in that case. Did you add any new plants or fish recently?

 

yes prob about 2 months ago

Ok, I agree that it’s probably fish TB in that case. Did you add any new plants or fish recently?

then what should I do? nuke tank with clove oil? or is there anything I can do to save fish?

 

I’d recommend removing and quarantining all fish that start showing symptoms. Good luck.

 

thx, but arent all the fish technically infected? and quarantining for what purpose? wouldn't the infected fish die anyway no matter if you quarantine with meds?

 

There is no cure for fish TB so medication won’t do much. Some fish are more susceptible to it than others. So some may die of it while some may be completely asymptotic and recover quickly. Only quarantine fish showing symptoms in case some fish don’t have yet.

 

So what you are saying is that some fish might not even get it or even recover? I was under the assumption if one guy had it, everybody would get it.

 

Yeah, that’s usually how it works. You can try to support the sick ones but most sadly won’t make it.

 

Ugh. but why is it only affecting platies? Could it be a vitamin deficiency?

 

Since only the Platies are succumbing to the mystery disease the issue probably isn't fish TB.
Spine bending in fish can result from other varieties of bacteria or intestinal parasites, even inbreeding.
IMO, best to euthanize any fish showing symptoms. You might try feeding the garlic infused New Life Spectrum Thera +A. Doing so might clean out the gut of infected fish. I feed Thera +A to my fish.
In recent years It seems diseases like this has become a common problem in livebearers.

 

Thanks for your reply! Should I use some med if it is just some regular bacterial/parasite disease and if so what should I use?

Another odd thing is that 90% of the deaths have been female, don't know if that means anything.

 

Microbe Lift Artemiss is a botanical med with antibiotic properties. It's advertised as being safe for all aquatic animals. I don't recommend the old standard antibiotics anymore. Most don't cure, cause more harm than good & have been banned in many countries.
Prazipro might be another option. It kills various types of intestinal bugs & is considered safe for aquarium use.

 

Do you got a spare $10? Reason I ask is, if you do, buy a calcium test kit and test the tank.
with them being livebearers, and it being females affected. I'm suspect that your tank is really low on calcium and the females are getting depleted trying to grow fry and causing bending of their spines just from swimming around sacrificing their calcium for the developing fry inside them.

Fish TB is kind of rare to just "get". Farms usually nuke their entire stock, sanitize and start over and it never makes it outside of the tanks it's found in so for it to turn up in a hobbyists tank is possible, but unlikely to happen. they even do it with farmed salmon and food fish as well as aquarium fish.

I think it's going to be a low calcium level in the tank and causing scoliosis from the females getting depleted. if it were high calcium levels, and spondylitis, it would need to be severe to affect the bone structure causing calcium to build up on the bones and joints, but that would be affecting basically all your fish, and the males....

Just a guess and my opinion. females take a lot of resources from themselves to create babies, it takes far less to create eggs let's say.

A GH test isn't enough, it might all be magnesium in the test results and still be low on calcium.

 

I live right next to a petsmart so I went and swung by them and grabbed a test kit. turns out waaaaaaaaay off. 0 kh, 30 gh. read some more up on it and it turns out my giant tiger lotus has been turning water soft. thanks so much for the help everyone, hoping for a speedy recovery for the platies in their new (and much harder) home