Discolored OB Peacock - Columnaris/Saddle Back?

[nels]

About a month ago I picked up some juvenile African Cichlids from a fish store I had never bought from before. Needless to say there was absolutely no chance these guys weren't getting a full quarantine + general treatment.

They've been in quarantine over a month now and these dudes want out. This OB (pictured below) became super aggressive a few days ago and was stressing everybody out. I noticed all of them discolor a bit, though in my experience (only a few years) most of the time the discoloration goes away after you remove the stress. So in an attempt to not stress everyone into actually developing a disease from the stress, I moved the problematic OB out to my main tank (75g) with the other folks.

Does this look like Saddle Back/Columnaris? I've never dealt with it and don't know the signs from experience. The fish seems fine and eating normally. 

The problem is the natural colors of ob's I can't tell if he is just still a bit discolored from overcrowding stress or if this is the slow burning kind of Columnaris and I just literally shot myself in the foot.

I started treating the tank with Artemiss and aquarium salt as a precautionary measure till I figure out for sure. I would normally not shotgun meds, but I keep the Artemiss on hand since it's an immune system booster...not like I'm giving them Erythromycin or something. I'm told that Artemiss is highly effective on bacterial stuff if you catch it early - however, I have no idea if I'm early or not.

If this is the saddle plague, what should I do? Get him out now? He's been in show tank for about 3 days. I don't have a hospital tank outside of my main quarantine. I could go get one (and I have cycled sponges + plenty of prime/stability just in case). I also don't want to rush into chaos and go ripping my tank apart moving fish around and then kill my whole livestock because I panicked.
 

Water Parameters: 

I tested the parameters in the the 20g quarantine tank he came from (where the discoloration started) and noticed that only the sponge filter was running. That HOB had stopped and I didn't realize it. It couldn't have been off for more than 24 hours. So this does not represent the parameters when he was in there (although it does for the others, tossed prime in immediately).

PH ~8, KH ~180, GH ~140, Ammonia 0.0 ppm, Nitrite ~0.40-0.50 ppm, Nitrate ~0.30 ppm.

Additional Images

 

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by nels
added photos

[Fish Folk]

Can you upload more photos please? Especially closeups of his face, gills, and fins. I'm not sure if Peacock's "beard" like Mbunas. Maybe @Zenzo can speak to that. Bearding occurs with certain Cichlids reaching sexual maturity, causing males to deepen some colors when going into spawning mode. If it's an illness, the key is figuring out if it is internal or external; and then whether parasite / bacteria / or fungus. The remarkable thing about the recommended "med trio" is that it treats a pretty wide variety of internal and external ailments all at once. If you can quarantine your sick fish and treat with API General Cure + API E. M. Erythromycin + Ich-X, you'll have a very broad-spectrum cure going on. The three meds can be used together as directed on each box, bottle, or package. 

[lojack323]

It doesn’t really look like columnaris (that’s good) to me. From experience, columnaris progresses fast and kills most fish within a few days. The best way I can describe it is the lessons/patches make it look like the skin is dissolving from the inside out. It’s also a gram negative bacteria so you wouldn’t have much success treating with erythromycin (gram positive). 
 

Hopefully someone can help diagnose with the pics. 

[nels]

@Fish Folk I will try to get pictures of exactly what you're asking for. Interesting about the bearding idea...I do suspect that a couple of his tank mates might be females...and I feel like he did start growing the fastest. I've updated the post with the water parameters of the quarantine tank.

[nels]

@Fish Folk See update with more images. Hopefully those are good enough.

[nels]

@lojack323 Pics updated

[Fish Folk]

Is he “flashing”  — scraping his body on hardscape? If not… and unless there are other noticeable symptoms… I’m inclined to think he’s a healthy albeit maybe not exactly pure-strain OB Peacock that’s just showing some his dominance.

[nels]

On 11/20/2021 at 9:34 PM, Fish Folk said:

Is he “flashing”  — scraping his body on hardscape? If not… and unless there are other noticeable symptoms… I’m inclined to think he’s a healthy albeit maybe not exactly pure-strain OB Peacock that’s just showing some his dominance.

@Fish Folk No flashing. He actually seems to be perfectly fine despite the coloring, which looks to be getting better, not worse. The only thing I do suspect in my show tank is some internal parasites...I've seen mild bloating/sunk belly over the past couple weeks but have been waiting to have all the folks out of quarantine to treat everyone at once. I'm about to head out of town for about a week (7 days) so I'm going to toss some PraziPro in and let it sit till I get back. 1 treatment is 5-7 days so it will be ideal.