What fish are poisonous?

What disease was this? Fish ebola?

• A few weeks ago I had one of my tanks wiped out by a very strange disease, and I still haven't figured out what it was. I've termed it "Fish Ebola", but I'll let you decide what it was on your own. Here's what happened. I went to Petco and bought five female bettas. Their stock was very sickly and many on the shelves were dead. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me at the time that this was a reason to quarantine the fish (lesson learned now). I brought them home and established them in a ten gallon female betta sorority tank. It had one or two bettas in it, and was within the "one inch of fish per gallon rule". I thought everything would be fine. The next day, I look in the tank to check on them and one of the new fish, a crowntail, was dead. It had been looking a little big in the abdomen when I bought it, and now its abdomen was entire gone and you could see all the way down its spine on the inside and up into the insides of the operculum. It looked like Alien, the movie where something explodes from the inside heading outward. I watched several of the fish bloat over the next few days. I hate to say it, but I think now that they were liquefying (that's why I call it fish ebola). It took a week, but it wiped out all of the fish in that tank except for one. It was so weird. I tried turning off the light and the filter (they were hiding in the dark spots of the tank and where there was the least current) and added a small amount of aquarium salt. I couldn't get to any antibiotics in time (I live out of the way and just ran out of Maracyn and other stuff. Bad time to run out of fish medicine). The five new fish died in the exploding way, and the three fish who were in the tank lost two members. One just died, bloated, and one got dropsy and died. The last surviving member of the tank is doing just fine, which annoys me because Peaches was my least favorite one. What happened? Was that "Fish Ebola?" Or is there some name for that pathogen? How should I have treated it? I lost all of the fish within a week, very fast.

• Answer:

  I'm sorry I had to add this in up here... I'm apologizing in advance to the asker... Feel free to ignore any of the later edits, as they will likely be returning the comments of a certain argumentative user. :^] Feel free to sift through them if you want, as you might find something extremely pertinent to your case. ______________________________________… I don't know how anybody could come to the conclusion that it was Neon Tetra Disease, or really, even velvet (the latter is a slight bit more justifiable)... none of the symptoms have ANY similiarities. A virus is a good guess... it certainly accounts for the fast spreading... however, I am not aware of a single named virus that causes abdominal swelling... it could very well be a new viral dropsy, which would certainly be big news. However, I'm guessing it's something far more mundain; poor husbandry. Not on your part, but on Petco's. As you noticed, their females aren't the healthiest fish, and were likely kept in poorly maintained cups. Bad water quality is well known to cause dropsy, and as terrible as this sounds, the transfer to a heated tank could have shocked their weakened immune systems just enough to let whatever pathogen (I'm guessing bacterial) run wild, decomposing them from the inside out. There's not a whole lot you can do for Peaches, but you might try a very strong, broad spectrum antibiotic like Triple Sulfa or Trisulfa, or even Kanaplex. By the way, here's Saltwaternub's stolen answer in its original context: http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/information/Diseases.htm#Ich EDIT: Glad I could clarify your plagiarism for you. :^] By the way, Neon Tetra Disease doesn't make the fish explode either. EDIT 2: If you could stay calm enough to type in legible Enlgish, it would be much easier for me to respond. I'd love to see any cases you've heard of fish exploding with Neon Tetra Disease. Maybe cysts, but never the whole fish. EDIT 3: I had to guess. Actually, I'd strongly suggest you reread my answer, seeing as you clearly didn't understand that I said it was quite unlikely his Bettas succumbed to an undiscovered viral dropsy. Thanks for playing. EDIT 4: Dropsy is caused by a number of things, and really, bacterial infection is among the least common. This university study ( http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FA091 ) attributes nematodes, a parasite, as a cause, as does this one ( http://wfs.sdstate.edu/wfsdept/courses/WL423_523/DISEASE2.PPT#256,1,I. Copepod parasites ). Looks like I wasn't at all that far off base, since this site ( http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/hddropsy.htm ) says "viruses have been associated with the disease." If you're gonna call somebody out, please make sure you're right first. :^] EDIT 5: Apparently your close reading skills are a bit lacking. If we'd like to make a direct quote, I believe I said, "I am not aware of a single named virus that causes abdominal swelling." I Googled "dropsy virus" and found that. Now I've heard of it. That's called learning... I try to do it as often as possible. Exploding cysts (a couple milimeters in diameter) are not going to cause a fish's entire abdomen to explode. EDIT 6: I was under the impression that we were still quite on topic... exploding fish. Also, the only thing I could have said that could possibly be taken as an insult was an observation of mine: "Apparently your close reading skills are a bit lacking." You, however, have called me stupid on at least on occaision, and I could find several other slightly-less-than-Kosher comments about me in this answer of yours. Maybe this one for example? "and if you say you havent, ur probably lying..." :^] Also, I do have evidence... dropsy effects the abdominal cavity. The great pressure built up in the body could cause it to balloon to the point where the skin literally begins to tear, starting from the anus, moving towards the throat. Of course, the fish would have died long before this, likely due to organ failure. Now, I consider that slightly (heavy, sarcastic emphasis on "slightly") more backed than sporozoan muscle cysts maxing out at a couple milimeters causing a fish's entire abdomen to go missing. On top of that, Bettas have not be documented to be effected by NTD. EDIT 7: If you'd like to take a look at any of the other answers you placed against me, I'm sure you could at least double the list of times you've tried to insult me. And, if the fish is entirely missing its abdomen (likely eaten by the other fish once the dropsy split it right open), of course there won't be any pineconing. A virus (which I recently learned about) could act far more quickly than a bacterial or sporozoan infection would. NTD does not cause abdominal swelling. It's that simple. It has never been associated with abdominal swelling, nor has it ever been associated with Bettas. I'm sorry, but you're connecting dots that aren't there. I have no problem insulting whatever logic you used to make this diagnosis-- it was bad logic. However, it should be noted that I didn't suggest you calm down until you suggested I was freaking out. I wouldn't have to "tattle" (I feel like I'm in elementary school again) on you if you didn't vioate Copyright laws with disturbing frequency. EDIT 8: Look at my profile. Then you'll see why I "tattled". It is illegal (copyright infringement), it is a waste of time for the asker, who would not have asked a question here if they wanted a copy and paste Google response, and it is a waste of my time, to put effort into a real answer when somebody can just hit Control C, Control P and somehow be considered quality. Have I ever listened to myself? Yes, actually, and I am quite aware of what I'm saying... you don't need to tell me what I said... I'm the one who said it. Maybe check one of Fish Man's questions... I think the line you left me was "way to be stupid Soop." Anyway, something along those lines. Again, I'm seeing some issues with chronology. I said it was quite unilikely to be viral dropsy, which I had not at that point heard of. By learning (see? it's a repeated word.), however, I discovered viral dropsy ( http://www.fishchannel.com/fish-health/disease-prevention/dreaded-dropsy.aspx + http://www.flippersandfins.net/Dropsy.htm + http://www.aquamaniacs.net/forum/cms_view_article.php?aid=128 ) and accordingly changed my diagnosis (again, learning). If it was viral dropsy and killed the fish as quickly as it did, chances are the scales wouldn't pinecone outwards. Internal liquefaction is essentially dropsy (a build up of fluid), and should also, theoretically, cause pineconing. And again, Neon Tetra Disease has never been found in Bettas. It is also noteworthy that nobody else has provided any support for their diagnosis, other than a plagiarized answer regarding entirely missing symptoms. For the asker: what were you feeding them?