Microscope for diagnosing fish disease

[jmf]

Hi Everyone, I'm new to the forums so a big hello to you all.

I hope it's ok that I post this here.

Ok I'm not a science person at all, so please be patient 🙄. I keep many fish tanks and have a couple with a unknown disease. All research and help from the fish keeping community thinks it's a bacterial infection, the problem is it's a guess and I'm over misusing antibiotics for reasons that people here would know. So I'm after a microscope that would be good enough to identity the bacteria in question. 

Because it's only a hobby, I'm not looking at buying a microscope with anything fancy and would like not to spend heaps on it if possible. I know it's probably a better idea to send it to a proper vet but in my country that is actually about the price of a microscope itself.

What should I be looking for in a microscope? Is a resolution of 400x ok? or do I need something more in the range of 1000x? Looking here ( https://www.westlab.com.au/blog/2016/12/29/what-magnification-do-i-need-to-see-bacteria) it says that you can see bacteria at 400x, but can you tell the difference between bacteria?

 

Thanks 😊

 

[Sensei]

I would get microscope Bresser Biolux LCD  50x–2000x. It has LCD screen with camera able to take photos and videos of what you see, so you will be able to send it. It costs here approximately 240 usd.

Edited November 9, 2019 by Sensei

[Sensei]

It looks like this:

[Moontanman]

18 hours ago, jmf said:

Hi Everyone, I'm new to the forums so a big hello to you all.

I hope it's ok that I post this here.

Ok I'm not a science person at all, so please be patient 🙄. I keep many fish tanks and have a couple with a unknown disease. All research and help from the fish keeping community thinks it's a bacterial infection, the problem is it's a guess and I'm over misusing antibiotics for reasons that people here would know. So I'm after a microscope that would be good enough to identity the bacteria in question. 

Because it's only a hobby, I'm not looking at buying a microscope with anything fancy and would like not to spend heaps on it if possible. I know it's probably a better idea to send it to a proper vet but in my country that is actually about the price of a microscope itself.

What should I be looking for in a microscope? Is a resolution of 400x ok? or do I need something more in the range of 1000x? Looking here ( https://www.westlab.com.au/blog/2016/12/29/what-magnification-do-i-need-to-see-bacteria) it says that you can see bacteria at 400x, but can you tell the difference between bacteria?

 

Thanks 😊

 

I am a long time aquarium hobbyist, do you have pictures of the infected fish? A detailed description might help as well. I am not a big fan of aquarium medicines, for the most part they are snake oil... 

[jmf]

23 hours ago, Sensei said:

I would get microscope Bresser Biolux LCD  50x–2000x. It has LCD screen with camera able to take photos and videos of what you see, so you will be able to send it. It costs here approximately 240 usd.

Thanks for the reply. I can't find that particular one in Australia and postage from the States is almost the same cost as the actual unit. Does it need to be 2000x or is 1000x ok?

 

13 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I am a long time aquarium hobbyist, do you have pictures of the infected fish? A detailed description might help as well. I am not a big fan of aquarium medicines, for the most part they are snake oil... 

Hi Moontanman, check out the thread over here about my issue (https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/tb-columnaris-or-something-else.427863/). It has links to pictures etc 

Edited November 10, 2019 by jmf

[Moontanman]

1 hour ago, jmf said:

Thanks for the reply. I can't find that particular one in Australia and postage from the States is almost the same cost as the actual unit. Does it need to be 2000x or is 1000x ok?

 

Hi Moontanman, check out the thread over here about my issue (https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/tb-columnaris-or-something-else.427863/). It has links to pictures etc 

Unless you are a trained microbiologist a microscope will do you little if any good in identifying disease organisms. I once had access to a complete biolab not to mention an actual marine biologist buddy and we found it to be pretty much useless. Your discriptions could apply to a great many fish health problems but fish are notoriously difficult to diagnose. 

My first question is where did your decorations come from? I violate this rule regularly but the most intractable problem with dying fish I ever tried to diagnose turned out to be rocks collected from around the guys house that had been sprayed a couple years before with a powerful anti termite insecticide. 

Secondly there are very few common fish diseases that cannot be cured by raising the water temps and salinity as high as tolerated by the fish for a couple weeks. 

Thirdly and this is the one you are going to hate, either kill them or let them die, let the tank set at high temps and or salinity for a month or so then take it down to more reasonable temps and salinity before adding new fish. It's difficult to do this but sometimes fish will simply bring in something that is close to incurable but many of not most of these intractable diseases need intermediate hosts to survive long term and one they have none the organism will die out. 

I wish I could actually be there and see and smell the tank, many times your own senses can detect things you  might not think of other wise. If the tank smells bad then your problem is probably outside the fish. 

Hydrogen peroxide does a pretty good job of sterilization but it takes a while to disperse, a week or more, and pretty much kills everything... 

Sorry if I seem a bit cruel, I've been doing this for 55 years and if I had all the money I spent on aquarium medications that didn't work I could probably buy me a new car...  

[jmf]

19 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Unless you are a trained microbiologist a microscope will do you little if any good in identifying disease organisms. I once had access to a complete biolab not to mention an actual marine biologist buddy and we found it to be pretty much useless. Your discriptions could apply to a great many fish health problems but fish are notoriously difficult to diagnose. 

Yeah I understand this, but a lot of people always suggest getting on 😕

19 hours ago, Moontanman said:

My first question is where did your decorations come from? I violate this rule regularly but the most intractable problem with dying fish I ever tried to diagnose turned out to be rocks collected from around the guys house that had been sprayed a couple years before with a powerful anti termite insecticide. 

I'm very strict on this. The rocks are just lava rocks from a good source. The soil is ADA aquasoil and the white gravel is proper aquarium gravel (everything is blue now because of the meds). 

 

19 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Sorry if I seem a bit cruel, I've been doing this for 55 years and if I had all the money I spent on aquarium medications that didn't work I could probably buy me a new car...  

I know everyone has been tell me this but I'm a big softie...sort of. I have no problems killing fish for food but I can't seem to do it for my aquariums unless it's a must.