Fish with Lymphocystis in SE Michigan or NW Ohio?

[JHemdal]

Hi All,

For anyone in SE Michigan or NW Ohio - I'm working on writing a section of a book dealing with viral diseases of fish. I'm looking for fish that have cauliflower disease - Lymphocystis, that I can photograph. If you have any fish in your tank with this disease, or if you see some at an area pet store, I'd appreciate hearing about them!

Thanks,

Jay Hemdal

 

[Recty]

I know of one up here in Alaska that has it... does that help?

 

[JHemdal]

Recty,

Sorry - Alaska is too far for a day's drive I think.

The funny thing is that for common this disease is, and how often I used to see it, I haven't had a case in any fish I've had for many years...maybe a decade?

Jay

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Jay, I had a very MINOR issue with it recently, and it seems to coincide with me using ozone, starngely. Ive chalked it up to absurd coincidence, but when i had ozone operating, it seemed to flare. In absence, it subsided. Then, it vanished. Sorry, no data beyond that, but I thought it was interesting.

 

[JHemdal]

Interesting, I stopped using ozone about 15 years ago - and haven't had any Lymphocystis on marine fish for at least that long.... also cause and effect? But then, before that, back in the 1970's I would see Lymphocystis all the time, but wasn't using ozone.

One commonality seems to be stress/skin damage. Maybe the ozone acted as an irritant?

The problem with remission of Lymphocystis is that because it is self-limiting, it leaves it wide open for all sorts of interpretation: "My fish had Lymphocystis and I changed brands of salt, and it went away in three weeks - therefore the salt brand caused it"(grin).

I just checked my records and the ONLY instance I have for Lymphocystis here was some glassfish back in 2002 - and it went away on its own. They had been shipped to me as "natural", but arrived as painted glassfish. In my notes, I attributed the Lymphocystis to the handling they received due to the dye job - but of course, unpainted glassfish are prone to this as well.....

Jay

 

[jmaneyapanda]

I had wondered if it was somehow impairing the slime coat (or a second hand effect of impairing the slime coat), which allowed the virus to flourish. Like I mentioned, it was just a bit too coincidental for me. Ozone on- lympho presnt, Ozone off- subsides. Like 2 or 3 consequent coincidences. But, then it just vanished with ozone running. Like you mentioned, self limting, or otherwise?

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

FWIW I worked at a petstore for three years and our natural glassfish came in with lympho all the time. Off topic but just figured I'd mention it b/c you had mentioned it...

 

[Kieth71]

I am not in ohio but i have gotten two fish with lympho in the past year.One had a bad case and it was a blue face angel.Luckily it was on the fins and not in the mouth area.The other was a regal angel which had a mild case on one fin and went away pretty quickly.