Diseases of Aquarium Fish

With increasing urbanization it is becoming impractical for many people to keep a dog or a cat as a family pet. Each year many people are switching to keeping birds and fish for pets as evidenced by increasing sales of these animals and their accompanying cages, tanks, food and equipment. Annual US sales of fish aquariums, accessory items and fish food have risen to the billion-dollar mark, thus reflecting an ever-expanding number of tropical fish hobbyists.

Aquarists are becoming more sophisticated in their field and are beginning to demand quality and variety in their fish and related aquarium products. Keeping exotic marine fish is in captivity is becoming more and more popular and the success rate of maintaining these fish is increasing as well. Much of this success can be attributed to a heightened awareness on the part of salt water aquarists. Several excellent reference books are available on setting up and maintaining the marine aquarium and these books undoubtedly are partially responsible for this heightened awareness.

Advances have been made in the art of providing salt water species with suitable habitats for growth. Setting up and maintaining a marine aquarium can be considered an art but the fish are not mere decorative possessions for your home or office. Whenever you assume ownership of an animal you must also assume responsibility for its health and well-being. Sophisticated aquarium set ups along with water quality monitoring and treatment kits have provided many aquarists with an armamentarium not available to many other pet species.

Even with the sophisticated equipment and reference material many aquarists seem doomed to dismal failure in the art of raising exotic marine species in captivity. This is not always the fault of the hobbyists even conscientious aquarists have disease problems in their carefully maintained fish tanks.

Aquatic animal medicine still in its infancy resembles the backward state of the poultry industry some 30 years ago. Fisheries scientists had previously devoted most of their efforts to the isolation and classification of fish pathogens and only relatively recently have they turned to the prevention diagnosis and care of fish diseases. Veterinarians have been slow to recognize the marine fish field as a specialty area so community expertise on fish health problems is generally lacking. Hopefully the next decade will bring about changes in this regard but until fish disease diagnostics and treatments become available on the local level aquarists will be left to fend for themselves. Certainly experts are in existence throughout the United States generally however they are too busy with teaching, research or caring for their own marine fishes. Even if one could find a qualified fish disease expert to examine the affected fishes it could be very well too late by the time a diagnosis was made. Generally once the clinical signs of disease have developed in tropical fishes, treatment must be initiated promptly or death may rapidly ensue. Therefore it is left to the aquarists themselves to educate themselves and the diagnosis and successful treatment of their own fishes.