aduck757

One thing you might want to consider is an auto feeder. With all these shutdowns this year I set one up and it saved my fish when we shut down for a month. Also, growing pothos out of the tank kept nitrates down enough that missing some water changes wasn't a major problem. Good luck, I love a good office tank!

Dwarf rasbora (boraras masculatus). I love a big school of them except it takes forever to get shots of them all alone.

Thanks, yes, I followed the instructions on the various packages to the T. It's been a long enough time now that my dates in my original post we're estimates since I don't keep a journal on this tank. With this going on for almost 8 months, I almost wonder if there's a false columnaris out there or a strain that isn't lethal (or as lethal)?

Hi All - In March 2020 I found a local breeder who had an all black male plakat betta. About 5-6 days after getting him home, we noticed he had a white almost fungus-like patch forming on his back just in front of the dorsal fin. Having had some experience with this in the past, I was almost positive this was columnaris rather than a typical fungus and settled on the treatment that worked in the past: lowered the temperature of the tank to about 75F and treated with Maracyn 1 & 2. That did not work; in fact, the white patch grew a tiny bit. After letting him hang out (to rest his organs from the meds) for a week, I decided to try Furan-2 and Kanaplex. No change after the first course, so I ran the treatment again and again saw no change. Since it was now over a month since we noticed the patch, I figured he would be fine for another week or two to recover from all the medicine. I raised the temp back up to 79F and just went about my standard weekly maintenance for 3 weeks. At the end of 3 weeks, the white fuzzy patch in front of his dorsal fin had not grown, but I noticed a tiny new spot forming on his side. With no ideas left, I did the Co-op med trio. Since then there's been no change and I've sort of given up trying to treat this. It's been 7.5, almost 8, months and he is otherwise a very happy betta. His tank is well planted, he eats well, makes his bubble nests, and otherwise doesn't seem to be having any issues. I reached out to the breeder over the summer to see if they've had any columnaris or fungus issues and he hasn't so if it came with the fish it was latent. At this point I am just looking for ideas and suggestions. It took a really long time to find a locally bred, all black plakat and it was a gift for my girlfriend so I'd like to see the little guy live a long and happy life. We tested the water immediately upon noticing the white fuzz patch and have been testing weekly since then: ph: 6.8-7.0 gh: 7 kh: 4 ammonia: 0 nitrite: 0 nitrate: 10-20 Tank size: 5 gallons; water change of 2 gallons per week