# I think my tank has a TB infection??



## Danielle (Jan 26, 2008)

I've lost three fish. The first was a dwarf cory back in september. It'd been a fat healthy active cory and then I went on vacation for a week and when I got back it was barely swimming in circles and it's stomach had completely sunken in.

The second was a CPD. When I got the fish it seemed healthy and active except for a mild spine deformity where it had a little kink in it's spine. I didn't think anything of it... seen plenty of deformed fish. It swam good and ate good. That was about a year ago. Last month I noticed it wasn't really eating and then it quickly went downhill and wasted away (very thin and shrunken)

And just yesterday I noticed my 2nd dwarf cory was a bit listless and when I tried to net him it just rolled on it's side a bit and made a weak attempt to swim. It had the same sunken stomach the first cory did. I transfered it to a hospital tank and started antibiotics but it was dead this morning.

The remaining CPDs are all very active and healthy. Eat and swim good and have good color. Both Cory cats and all the CPDs were purchased at about the same time about a year ago.

Does this sound like TB? or is something else going on?

I know fish TB can be spread to people and causes nasty infections and now I'm scared to even touch the tank.


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## max23 (Mar 13, 2008)

What is TB?


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## Danielle (Jan 26, 2008)

max23 said:


> What is TB?


Tuberculosis


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

TB symptoms in fish are usually spine deformities so I would guess that the CPD does have TB. The cory might have something else, the symptoms could match up to any number of diseases.

I wouldn't worry about the TB-human transference though. This is pretty rare and some pretty unusual things have to happen in order to get TB from fish. You would have to have an open wound in direct contact with infected tissues of the fish for a transfer to happen, which is pretty unlikely unless you are dissecting the fish and happen to cut yourself and swab it off with fish tissue.

By the way, TB is a common bacteria found in soil, so if we haven't gotten sick from it in the garden I doubt you will get the fish version.

When I first found out about fish TB I was also a bit nervous about putting my hands in the tank, but then again there are a lot if things in life that are so much more dangerous than a rare fish TB to human TB transfer.


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## Danielle (Jan 26, 2008)

what other diseases could the cories have had? I searched and TB was the only thing I came up with that had the sunken belly.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

It could have internal parasites like worms or other parasites which sometimes bloat the belly, but if the fish hasn't eaten in a long time the stomach will shrink. It is very hard to figure out most fish diseases without growing some of the infection and looking at it under a microscope. In all likelihood the cory will probably die, there just isn't a lot you can do for a fish in that condition unless you know exactly what is wrong with it (in my experience).


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## brownietrout (Feb 5, 2009)

TB can be caught from fish in a tank. My brother was spined by a cat fish that appeared healthy in an apparently healthy tank while he was cleaning it. It took over a year taking a couple different antibiotics at a time, 5 times a day to finally get rid of the infection. He will forever test positive for TB. It may be rare but it does happen so please be very careful!


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

The tank is very unlikely to have TB. This is not at all common. Using online resources to ID a disease will result in, well, freaking out. There's a lot of possible diseases out there and web sites don't tell you the probability of them. 

Frankly, the listlessness and sunken belly could both step from a simple malnutrition. What are you feeding them and how often? Water change regime? The red flag for me was that you went on vacation and the fish were in poor condition once returning. 
Also, spinal deformities are very common in high dollar fish that are now being bred. Instead of culling the poorly formed fish (in the wild they would simply be eaten) the breeder will sell them to whoever is willing- and LFS and online buyers buy sight unseen.

GL but I highly doubt you have TB.


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## Danielle (Jan 26, 2008)

the CPDs get ocean nutrition community formula flake two or three times a week and once or twice a week I'd toss in sinking mini wafers for the cats. Water change once a week.

Although I've been sick myself since Jan and it's possible my sense of time as far as feeding etc isn't what it used to be.

I prolly starved the poor things to death


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