RE: NANFA-L-- Annoying malady

Laurie A Barrow (lbarrow-in-wt.net)
Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:57:53 -0500

I noticed a whiteface thang a coupla months or so ago with the dominant male green sailfin molly in a backyard pond I built for some friends. He suddenly developed what looked like a partially white nose and forehead but otherwise all seemed normal in the pond. Next day it was worse and soon after I made a point of spending some extra observation time there and around midmorning I saw an interesting interaction between this same 4" fish and a 5.5" sunfish whom I probably oughtta get outta there once I come up with a spot to put him. The sunnie had appeared-in-the southwest end of this particular sailfin's favorite boudoir area during a particularly erotic time frame (every spring morning and afternoon, it seemed, when the sun hit just right to warm up the water and really show off his iridescences, this guy got particularly busy.) As the sunnie swam round on his usual midmorning way toward the shady rock ledge on the other side of the open area the little sailfin guy saw him and went
nuts, swimming headlong-in-the bigger fish and just ramming him over and over, and getting more and more bits of his own head white in the process. I was able to lean in quite close-in-this point and realised that the white effect was from disturbed scales. After maybe ten or fifteen seconds (perhaps less, actually, I was a bit shocked to see this and my time judgement likely was off) the sunfish, which had stopped moving-in-the sudden approach of the sailfin and taken the onslaught really rather in the manner of a brick wall except to protect his facial area whenever the sailfin went there, decided not to visit the east end of the pond after all and went back over to his other favorite but somewhat less shaded area-in-the west end.

The sailfin flung his rather more whiteheaded self frantically about for maybe three to five seconds more before rushing back over to recorral his women and flaunt the dorsal again. He continued to intersperse somewhat madly the strutting and mating with defense of territory from trespassers both visible and invisible while the magic lighting lasted, then gave the girls a comparative rest as he returned to more normal behavior with dining becoming-in-least an occasional viable alternative to sex. When the the sun hit the mirror angle that afternoon the alpha sailfin's wild libido and territorialism both returned. The sunnie came back out as well but stayed with the shade.

I had to leave soon thereafter and unfortunately was unable to get back over for a week or three but when I did return all seemed swell with the pond population and the sailfin's head and nose had returned to normal color.

--Laurie
White Oak Bayou Watershed, Buffalo-San Jacinto Drainage

At 07:23 2006-06-13 -0400, Chip Rinehart wrote:

>With the white-faced stuff, there is nothing to scrape off. Its almost like the lose all pigment from their eyes forward. Funny that it affected the blackbandeds only in this tank and not the blackbandeds, bluespots, longears, or dollar sunfish that are in this system. Just out of curiosity, I put some blackbandeds from one of the other ponds into the 300 gal tank that the malady occurred in and so far, two weeks later, nothing has developed. Maybe it was something that happened to certain ones after spawning. Geez, I guess that's another variable. I didn't notice this white-face until after I noticed that some of the BB's had nests.
>
>Chip
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org [owner-nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org]On Behalf
>Of Mysteryman
>Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 7:13 AM
>To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
>Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Annoying malady
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Irate Mormon" <archimedes-in-bayspringstel.net>
>To: <nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org>
>Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 9:45 PM
>Subject: RE: NANFA-L-- Annoying malady
>
>
>> Any chance of scraping off some of this crust and looking-in-it under a
>> scope? Your local vet may let you peek through his dissecting scope if
>> you approach him right.
>>
>> -Irate
>>
>
>That's a pretty good idea. I was also thinking about sending some samples to
>Gainesville, where the closest right & proper ichthyopathologist is, to let
>her have a look-in-them.
>I wonder if Chip's "white face disease" is the same thing or something
>different. The white-face thing sounds viral to me. My affected shiners are
>in a tank with some Bluespotted Sunnies, but the suns are are just fine.
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