Schmorty

So, I've had a bad morning, and I'm stuck in a negative self-talk loop. I figured maybe writing some stuff down in the forum of fellow fish lovers might help. I don't think I'm looking for advice, I'm just looking to be heard. Warning, this is probably going to be sad. So, fishkeeping for me over the last couple of months has had a lot of ups and downs, but it's been slowly trending down overall. This morning was the first time I've ever considered dropping out completely, and that's a scary low to hit. To try to make a long story short, I've been in the hobby for almost three years. Last year, at the beginning of the pandemic, I had to move into my in-laws' basement. Uprooting two years worth of work in tanks is difficult, but we moved most all of my fish over to the new place without much issue. But, I didn't modify my upkeep schedule to account for the loss in Seasoned Tank Time. My water quality dipped, and a columnaris outbreak wiped out half of my fish in the summer while meds seemed to not work. Eventually it stabilized, but the surviving fish still showed symptoms. Recently, wanting to eradicate the disease, I tried more aggressive treatment, and ended up losing more fish and over $200 and two years' time worth in plants, the outcome I was trying to avoid in the summer. So, I'm really sad about how that aquarium went. Meanwhile, I have a fish for profit tank that has perplexing water quality problems. Every week or so, the fish will breathe rapidly and hang out towards the top. Testing kits are showing nothing that would be an obvious culprit, so trying to solve the problem has been frustrating. On top of that, my spouse doesn't like that tank in our living area in the basement because it's "ugly." It's the kind of setup made for a breeder's fish room, not for a pleasant display. Simultaneously, I have a betta in his own setup not doing so well. He's only just over two years old, but he looks like he's circling the drain. He developed swim bladder issues at the same time during the summer I was dealing with the columnaris outbreak. His find are tattered, and he developed popeye two weeks ago. After treating with salt, the eye swelling went way down, but now his eye is sunken and his cheek seems swollen and eroding around it. He's been very difficult to feed since he can hardly swim anymore. I feel like it's my fault for not giving him as much attention over the summer. I kept swearing I could nurse him back to health, but it seems like it might be too late. I don't know if I should keep trying or just euthanize him and end his suffering. Every time I resolve I'll put him down, he shows a surprising amount of vigor when I go to feed him, and I change my mind. So, a lot of rough stuff going on in my home aquariums over a long period of time, and then this week happened: So at work, I was talking fish with my boss and joked about an office aquarium. He thought an office aquarium was a great idea and told me to go nuts with it! I was so excited, because in case you couldn't tell, I had stalled out on getting to do any new stuff at home. After raiding the storage shed and my supply bins, I had basically everything I needed except substrate and fish; for once setting up an aquarium wasn't going to be $100+ since I already had most everything. However, when I told my wife what I was up to: "Really?? Another aquarium???" The disapproval, the exasperation in her voice...it took the wind out of my sails. Just something about the way she said it was different. She's been pretty supportive since the beginning. Listening patiently while I geek out, trying not to gag looking at hundreds of snails overrun a tank, putting up with buckets of brown filter water splashing down the toilet, dealing with me wanting to put an aquarium everywhere in the house, and letting me spend a not insignificant amount of money on this hobby. But I wonder if I'm pushing her to her line. I wonder how much more frustrated she'll be when we have kids. And so, for the first time today, I contemplated leaving the hobby, or at least making the most drastic cutback I've ever made. Clearly, things have not been going my way with the aquariums, and taking them out of the house would make my wife happier. Less clutter, less diversions of my attention, less money spent on food, more freedom to travel whenever that becomes safe again. I wish I could make a snap decision and tear down all my home aquariums in one day so I could rip it off like a bandaid. But tearing down aquariums the right way isn't that simple, it'd take days, nevermind rehoming all the fish. And it'd be hard to axe all that money and time I've put into the hobby, because I have had a few successes. And I get so much joy out of doing this, I don't want to just give it up. Right now, I'm in a negative self-talk loop, feeling childish, selfish, and ashamed for the strain on my life I added with this hobby. I'm angry at myself for failing to take better care of my fish, and even angrier at myself for whatever strain I've put on my wife. While writing this post, I've decided to not make any decisions while I'm in this headspace, and that it's best I talk this through with my wife. I think we can get back to where we're both enjoying the aquariums in our household. Writing this post has helped. To conclude for now, I'm not looking for solutions to the individual tank problems listed in this post, I've pursued them elsewhere in this forum and on other sources. Hopefully one day this can help walk somebody off the cliff of doing something drastic with their aquariums. Bad days and bad breaks happen, but we persevere. Thank you.

So, I would stay on the side of caution and not use the decor and gravel from that tank, because my research indicates that the bacteria can live for weeks without a fishy host. Most people would advise sterilizing everything. I'm in the aftermath of an outbreak, and I don't want to kill all my plants. So, I'm letting my display tank sit fishless for a couple of months and hopefully any virulent strains die off. I'm also being very careful to not cross-contaminate to my other tanks by using separate buckets, siphons, and other equipment.

Thanks Irene. Source 2 is an excellent deep dive and I've gained a lot of insight from that, such as why the erythromycin didn't work and how to handle plants and surfaces. Source 3 is actually something I came across in my research, and helped me assess what happened and influenced how I worded my post. I probably won't be able to completely eliminate it, but hopefully I can get my tank where I'm not losing fish anymore.

Hello all, I'm currently on the back half of a Columnaris outbreak in my display tank. The tank is a 75 gallon planted with lots of crypts, swords, anubias, bucephelandra, and java fern. The tank is only a few months old. I recently moved cities, and had consolidated three smaller tanks worth of fish and plants into the one tank. I had all the fish for between 6 months and 2 years with no major disease issues previously. However, in hindsight, I'd lose the occasional fish with Columnaris-like sypmtoms before the move, but the cases were isolated and only happened once in a while. In the new setup, I wasn't as good at testing water as I should have been, and although the filter could process ammonia properly, I let the nitrates build up faster than my water change schedule and plants could handle. Therefore, my fish were exposed to 80+ppm nitrates for a prolonged period of time, and I believe this and the stress of the move and new municipal water combined caused a lapse in their immune systems and left an opening for the disease to take hold. I started treating with Erythromycin in the water column once I noticed my platies had white lips and my pearl danios had grey splotches. I soon had mass die-off of my corydoras after I started treating. Within two weeks, my 17-strong school was down to 2, as well as a couple of lost platies, ember tetras, and danios. I stopped the Erythromycin after 10 days of treatment. I haven't been sure what to do next. The die-off has slowed down to about 1 fish per week. I'm thinking about taking all the fish out and putting them in quarantine tanks treating them with salt or whatever med works better. A 75 is expensive to treat, and most of my favorite fish have passed. I don't want to go nuclear on the 75 since I have a significant investment of time and money in the plants. I'm wondering if letting the tank sit for a month or two without fish would be enough for the virulent strain of Columnaris to die out and be safe for new fish. I'm looking for people's input on handling Columnaris, as well as how to handle a diseased tank with loads of plants. And I hope people take away that testing nitrates is important, especially in a newer tank, even if you're an experienced hobbyist. My own research has indicated that Columnaris lives in almost all aquatic environments, and it's a matter of how virulent the strain can become and how well a fish can fight it off. It can kill rapidly or slowly. My corydoras are probably a good example of the the rapid death, where the bacteria latches onto the gill tissue and inhibits a fish's ability to breathe. The slower death comes about in many ways, and I don't have as good of an understanding of that.