# Other Aquarium Forums > Fish Care, Nutrition and Water Management >  Disease of Harlequin rasbora

## Nicky

I have been keeping wild harlequin for quite a while now. In all batches that I have, they are always hit by some form of disease that wipe them out eventually.
Can anyone tell me what disease is this and the fix for it?

The symptoms as follows:
body color become less radiant, seemed to have some form of blur-ness in color. Instead of the radiant reddish color, the fish become overall reddish-orange-color.
in some instances single big white spot (not white spot disease for sure) start to appear on the black triangle on the body. It is not a growth, meaning, the white spot does not have a definite boundary.
fish isloates itself from the others
the disease will spread to the rest of the harlequin only, at least that's what happening in my tank.

I'm not sure if this has to do with the tubifex worm I feed them with.. but I seemed to notice a strong correlation.

I'll be glad to provide a disease fish to any one who can help identify the disease, hehe..

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## Justikanz

Sounds like the neon tetra disease...

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## Nicky

> Sounds like the neon tetra disease...


Think about it, it does looks like NT disease.. anyway am I the one only observing this disease in harlequin? Also how to fix the disease?

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## Justikanz

*Touch wood*...  :Opps:  I have a school of 30-40 harlequins, mostly wild... Luckily, had not seen anything funny with them... Maybe you can treat them like Neon Tetra Disease... But would need to search through the other threads for information...

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## michael lai

> Think about it, it does looks like NT disease.. anyway am I the one only observing this disease in harlequin? Also how to fix the disease?


Tetra Medica, red and orange packaging not the blue one. Don't think it's NT probably.....columnaris( speculative )Nt spreads very much faster and mortality rate is high.

PS: Medication will stain your silicon.

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## Nicky

Thanks Mike.. I looked up the symptom of both NT and columnaris in the following link and think my problem should be NT disease.. which is a sad thing.. it is mentioned that NT strike fast in neon and so perhaps for harlequin it took longer to kill the fish.

Plus it mentioned transmission by tubifex worm.. which is what I feed my fish every time before a round of disease strike.. damn..

Looks like I may have to do some serious culling tomorrow.. so sad..


http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/di...columnaris.htm

http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/di...eondisease.htm

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## GaspingGurami

Nicky,

Think we have the similar thing.

I've posted this sometime back too http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ad.php?t=19348

I don't think it is NTD as my stricken fish can live for months. Perhaps you can separate yours instead of culling. But I've been unsuccessful catching mine that have the disease. Each time I do catch them, they'd be so exhausted that they succumb in the QT the next few days.

Now that you mentioned, I realise mine caught the illness after feeding live tubifex too. Not to say that tubifex is the cause, perhaps feed too much? I pour the worms into the tank and they burrow into the gravel. The fish will catch whatever they can, before they disappear into the soil.

I'm stopping this practice as I notice the water clouds because the worms dig up the basefert. My tank of shrimps are wiped out in a day or 2 because of this.  :Sad:

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## Nicky

Thanks for the input and sharing. The sick fish (only affect harlequin) in my tank does not last long, max 3 weeks before they disappear. Your description is right in that they maintain healthy diet until quite a late stage.

I have been culling those affected rasbora and each time I thought I culled the last affected piece another few will show up in the next few days with the illness.

Reading the 2 attachment I posted earlier, I still believe it is NT disease; the description fits what I saw.. and I will be giving tubifex a miss for good.

I also have boraras in my tanks. They too at times displayed the symptom you described.

Looks like we have a common problem.

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## GaspingGurami

My espei and hengli are also affected together with the harlequins.

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## XnSdVd

> *Touch wood*...  I have a school of 30-40 harlequins, mostly wild... Luckily, had not seen anything funny with them... Maybe you can treat them like Neon Tetra Disease... But would need to search through the other threads for information...



The ones you got from me? If it makes you feel better the parents died of old age  :Wink:

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## Justikanz

The ones you sold to me were mixed with same amount bought from Gan's (supposed to be wild)...  :Razz:  Luckily, both strains are alright... Mr Gan did mention something like harlequins from lake source tend to fare better than river source...

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## XnSdVd

Hmm... mine are descended from Gratiolas, which are supposed to be wild caught i think...

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