Health and Disease 
Welcome to the fish Health and Disease page.
Hopefully you will very rarely encounter disease in your aquarium.
Diseases will effect fish that are injured or weak and it could be caused by different things like poor water, other aggressive fish or from transportation from where you got your new fish from. So the best thing you can do is try your best to prevent injuries and diseases in the first place. You can do this by trying to keep the water quality good and make sure that you have no aggressive fish.
Even the best maintained aquarium can fall prey to illnesses and if left they can turn in to a disease outbreak. If noticed early enough many fish diseases can be cured so it is also best to keep an eye on your fish and make a note of any changes to the way they look and act.
There are many different diseases below are a list of some of them:
Whitespot: There will be small white spots on the body of the fish and the fish could also rub against hard objects. There may also be gill damage and the fish could appear to be gasping.
To cure this disease you could buy commercially available treatments. These will have different formulas so it is best to ask for advice when buying these products to make sure it will be suitable for your fish. Another way to cure this is to add salt to the water gradually although different fish species will have different salt tolerance levels so this is best checked before it is carried out. Salt can also affect plants aswell.
The whole tank will need to be treated and not just the effected fish due to the life span of the parasite.
Fungus: There will be grayish cotton wool growths on the fish. The disease normally takes effect after there has been damage to the skin or gill area. Fungal spores are always present in the aquarium which is why it takes effect.
Anti-fungal remedies can be used to treat this and prevent it from spreading. These treatments will also treat bacterial infections.
Finrot: The fins on the fish become ragged and could be blood streaked. Fin erosion could continue until it reaches the fin base which is when the fin could die. Therefore this illness needs to be treated early.
You can use bacterial remedies to cure this like anti-fungus and finrot treatments.
Gill Disease: You could notice discoloured and swollen gills. The fish could stop feeding, gasp for air or could be motionless on the bottom of the tank. This could be caused by poor water or infections due to bacteria and parasites.
To cure this an improvement in the quality of the water will help. Try not to overfeed or overcrowd the tank and it may also be necessary to add an anti-bacterial treatment to the water.
Velvet: There could be rapid gill movement and a grayish white dust on the fish's body. This could be caused by an exposure to nitrite and ammonia or by protozoan parasites.
Again there are effective treatments that you can buy to treat this and treatment should begin as soon as you spot signs of this disease.
Treatments can be bought online by stores like seapets (see Links page).
