Re: Injured Rainbowfish

Adrian R. Tappin (atappin at ecn.net.au)
Tue, 19 Nov 1996 08:45:56 +1000

At 08:53 18/11/96, John Dowden wrote:
>On one side of my Male M. Trifasciata Goyder River from his gills to the
tip of
>his nose is black. The rest of his body on that side as well as the other
side
>looks fine and he appears to be acting normal. I was told that this dark area
>was most likely the result of slamming into the aquarium and he may or may not
>die. I was also told that this happens as a result to the fish going crazy
>when the aquaruim light instantly shuts off at night. I have kept fish for a
>long time and rainbows for about three years and have never seen this. Is
this
>common in all rainbows or just Trifasciatas? If this is a common problem are
>there ways to prevent this?

I have seen this a number of times, but only in Goyder R. Rainbowfish. As
"Philter4" replied it is believed to be a deficiency of iodine which causes
a swelling of the Thyroid. If you actually look under the gill cover, you
will see a swelling which can become quite large in specimens that have had
the problem for a long time. Infected fish seem to survive for a long time
with this problem but eventually it gets them in the end?

The unusual thing is that not all fish are affected. One would think that if
the diet is deficient in iodine, then all the fish would be affected, but
that's not the case?

I have tried the Potassium iodide and iodine solution as recommended by
Dieter Untergasser in his fish disease book but never got any reasonable
results?

Adrian.
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Adrian R. Tappin
Home of the Rainbowfish
http://www.ecn.net.au/~atappin/home.htm
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