Here we go again with columnaris

[arielroxi]

Thank you Colu. Last question. Do I do a major water change on the 80gal? Should I add the meds when I get them to the empty tank. Sorry but I'm just devastated at this point.  Was so ready to see my fish in the big tank. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

What I use is a clear tote, I mark the side with the gallon lines. @arielroxi

You just have to make sure you put a seasoned filter in there so you don’t run into new tank syndrome.

[arielroxi]

Thank you Chick-In-Of-TheSea. I have an empty 5 gal and there are only 7 guppies so I think it will be ok for a hospital tank. 

I forgot to mention I have 3 mystery snails and some ammono shrimp in the 80 gal. Catching the snails won't be a problem but I'm worried about the shrimp. I guess I shouldn't treat the 80 gal with them still in there.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 12/1/2022 at 6:26 PM, arielroxi said:

Thank you Chick-In-Of-TheSea. I have an empty 5 gal and there are only 7 guppies so I think it will be ok for a hospital tank. 

I forgot to mention I have 3 mystery snails and some ammono shrimp in the 80 gal. Catching the snails won't be a problem but I'm worried about the shrimp. I guess I shouldn't treat the 80 gal with them still in there.

It’s my understanding that inverts don’t tolerate meds.

[Colu]

On 12/1/2022 at 11:22 PM, arielroxi said:

Thank you Colu. Last question. Do I do a major water change on the 80gal? Should I add the meds when I get them to the empty tank. Sorry but I'm just devastated at this point.  Was so ready to see my fish in the big tank. 

I would start treating them straight away 

[arielroxi]

Meds have been ordered. Had to go with Amazon but they should be here tomorrow. I have a spare sponge filter so I can get them moved and started right away. I really appreciate everyone's help and quick response. 

[Colu]

On 12/2/2022 at 12:07 AM, arielroxi said:

Meds have been ordered. Had to go with Amazon but they should be here tomorrow. I have a spare sponge filter so I can get them moved and started right away. I really appreciate everyone's help and quick response. 

Not I problem in some cases you will want to do a second course of kanaplex and Jungle fungus clear fizz if your not seeing much improvement after the fish course of treatment 

Edited December 2, 2022 by Colu
Stupid autocorrect

[Minanora]

On 12/1/2022 at 3:47 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

It’s my understanding that inverts don’t tolerate meds.

I think it depends on the meds you use. I've treated tanks with my neocaradina shrimp in them with a lot of meds. But not kanaplex, only jungle fungus fizz tabs from what I remember. However my shrimp have been in these tanks for many generations so they're well established. I don't think kanaplex is shrimp safe.

 

I do want to say, when I saw this topic on the home screen I had to doubletake, because this is what I saw since I wasn't in the sub forum.

I laughed.

 

I hope you win this battle  Arielroxi

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Some other helpful tips are to add a second airstone while medicating and to add a little bit of aquarium salt to help the fish with electrolytes and healing (1 T per 3 gal). @arielroxi

Edited December 2, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/1/2022 at 3:47 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

On 12/1/2022 at 3:26 PM, arielroxi said:

Thank you Chick-In-Of-TheSea. I have an empty 5 gal and there are only 7 guppies so I think it will be ok for a hospital tank. 

I forgot to mention I have 3 mystery snails and some ammono shrimp in the 80 gal. Catching the snails won't be a problem but I'm worried about the shrimp. I guess I shouldn't treat the 80 gal with them still in there.

It’s my understanding that inverts don’t tolerate meds.

My amano's have been through everything.  Some handle it better than others.  I did not use kanaplex on them as it was the other tank, but I wouldn't have worried about it.  Seachem's FAQ says not to use it with shrimp.  They also advise that treating it via food is much safer for the tank if you have sensitive species.  Guaranteeing the shrimp won't eat it.... won't happen.  I'll keep digging and see what I can find with regards to that med and amanos.

Yeah, everything I'm finding says don't worry about it.

On 12/1/2022 at 5:52 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Some other helpful tips are to add a second airstone while medicating and to add a little bit of aquarium salt to help the fish with electrolytes and healing (1 T per 3 gal). @arielroxi

100%

Edited December 2, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Minanora]

On 12/1/2022 at 5:52 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Some other helpful tips are to add a second airstone while medicating and to add a little bit of aquarium salt to help the fish with electrolytes and healing (1 T per 3 gal). @arielroxi

200% The motion passes. 😛

On 12/1/2022 at 6:50 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

My amano's have been through everything.  Some handle it better than others.

Mine as well actually, including kanaplex now that I think about it! I forgot about that incident in the 75G last year. I didn't have the Orange neos in there yet though, so not sure about those.

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/1/2022 at 7:36 PM, Minanora said:

I didn't have the Orange neos in there yet though, so not sure about those.

Neos are more sensitive to things, but I generally wouldn't be afraid of it.  Shrimp do get bacterial issues too, so it's not like it's a useless effort.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Roy was discharged from the hospital today. He went through a one hour drip. When I released him, he was all clearish looking, like a ghost. Within 30 sec.. I’m not kidding, he saw his school and his lateral lines appeared like magic.

Roy: “Act cool. Try to blend in.”

He looks good. A little scarring but it’s mostly gone. Lights out for the rest of the day so he can relax.

 

Now I’ve done this before, so I know to leave the QT tank up and running, just in case he regresses. But I’ve given him an extra long time to strengthen up, and he’s had high quality frozen foods and Xtreme Krill and daphnia. So I’m hoping he remains healthy now.

[arielroxi]

Colu, I have a question regarding dosing for this treatment.

"Day 3 is a 25% water change and then dose Jungle Fungus clear fizz tabs + kanaplex."

Days 3 - 5 I'm not sure if I'm dosing 1 fizz tab.  Thanks.

[Colu]

On 12/5/2022 at 5:05 PM, arielroxi said:

Colu, I have a question regarding dosing for this treatment.

"Day 3 is a 25% water change and then dose Jungle Fungus clear fizz tabs + kanaplex."

Days 3 - 5 I'm not sure if I'm dosing 1 fizz tab.  Thanks.

Dose the jungle fungus clear fizz tab's based on water volume if your treating a 10 gallon tank add 1 table of jungle fungus  on day 3 25% water change  add 1 fizz tab and one scoop of kanaplex per 10 gallons on day  4 add 1 fizz tab per 10gallons and on day 5 25% water change add 1 fizz tab and 1 scoop of kanaplex per 10 gallons 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Colu

[arielroxi]

On 12/5/2022 at 9:58 AM, Colu said:

Dose the jungle fungus clear fizz tab's based on water volume if your treating a 10 gallon tank add 1 table of jungle fungus  on day 3 25% water change  add 1 fizz tab and one scoop of kanaplex per 10 gallons on day  4 add 1 fizz tab per 10gallons and on day 5 25% water change add 1 fizz tab and 1 scoop of kanaplex per 10 gallons 

 

Perfect. It's a 5 gal so I'm doing 1/2 tab. As always I appreciate your help and quick response. 😊

[Colu]

On 12/5/2022 at 6:10 PM, arielroxi said:

 

Perfect. It's a 5 gal so I'm doing 1/2 tab. As always I appreciate your help and quick response. 😊

Not a problem 

[Mahi27]

Back to report. This has required so much patience. 
 

I ended up losing every one of my Pseudomugil tenellus, which really sucks. But they just weren't getting better. 
 

I have a young black lancer catfish that has or is recovering from hole in the head. She has these weird pock marks along the left side of her head and cheek, almost looks like acne scarring. I'm assuming she got hit with the columnaris too so I am just keeping an eye on the marks to see if they get better or worse. 
 

I did have a blue hill trout (Barilius sp.) that had literally two scales showing issues coming back up. I moved him into the heavily salted qt tank with the Pseudomugils and he's all better, but I'm keeping him locked up for a while since there's clearly still active columnaris in the qt tank. 

All in all, things have improved a lot, but there's still a ways to go yet. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 12/11/2022 at 9:50 AM, Mahi27 said:

Back to report. This has required so much patience. 
 

I ended up losing every one of my Pseudomugil tenellus, which really sucks. But they just weren't getting better. 
 

I have a young black lancer catfish that has or is recovering from hole in the head. She has these weird pock marks along the left side of her head and cheek, almost looks like acne scarring. I'm assuming she got hit with the columnaris too so I am just keeping an eye on the marks to see if they get better or worse. 
 

I did have a blue hill trout (Barilius sp.) that had literally two scales showing issues coming back up. I moved him into the heavily salted qt tank with the Pseudomugils and he's all better, but I'm keeping him locked up for a while since there's clearly still active columnaris in the qt tank. 

All in all, things have improved a lot, but there's still a ways to go yet. 

I’m sorry to hear of all the struggles you’ve been having. Do all your affected tanks have some aquarium salt?

[Colu]

On 12/11/2022 at 2:50 PM, Mahi27 said:

Back to report. This has required so much patience. 
 

I ended up losing every one of my Pseudomugil tenellus, which really sucks. But they just weren't getting better. 
 

I have a young black lancer catfish that has or is recovering from hole in the head. She has these weird pock marks along the left side of her head and cheek, almost looks like acne scarring. I'm assuming she got hit with the columnaris too so I am just keeping an eye on the marks to see if they get better or worse. 
 

I did have a blue hill trout (Barilius sp.) that had literally two scales showing issues coming back up. I moved him into the heavily salted qt tank with the Pseudomugils and he's all better, but I'm keeping him locked up for a while since there's clearly still active columnaris in the qt tank. 

All in all, things have improved a lot, but there's still a ways to go yet. 

Sorry to hear they didn't make columnaris is a very aggressive bacterial disease even with treatment you will sometimes lose fish 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 12/4/2022 at 2:40 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Roy was discharged from the hospital today. He went through a one hour drip. When I released him, he was all clearish looking, like a ghost. Within 30 sec.. I’m not kidding, he saw his school and his lateral lines appeared like magic.

Roy: “Act cool. Try to blend in.”

He looks good. A little scarring but it’s mostly gone. Lights out for the rest of the day so he can relax.

 

Now I’ve done this before, so I know to leave the QT tank up and running, just in case he regresses. But I’ve given him an extra long time to strengthen up, and he’s had high quality frozen foods and Xtreme Krill and daphnia. So I’m hoping he remains healthy now.

I finally dismanted the QT tote.  Extra sponges are always going in established tanks, so I can do an instant setup of it again anyway.  Might just get an actual 10g for the future because it's easier to see through glass to check on patients.  Roy and friends are doing well.  There is harmony in the tank. No regression, no bullying, no other fish affected.  This is a success story.  It took time and money (meds) but it was worth it to save this little life.  

I was on a livestream the other day (not ACO) and someone asked, what do you do if a fish gets columnaris?  The speaker said, flush 'em.  (First off, we don't flush fish anymore.  That was old school, and we have since learned the chlorine in the toilet causes a painful death, but also we don't want fish diseases in our waterways.  Fish that have passed can provide fertilization to our flower gardens outside.  ANYWAY...)

I quickly chimed in to say that columnaris is treatable.  🙂 

[Mahi27]

My struggle continues. Lol. For the record, all of this started from getting lazy with water changes on an overstocked guppy tank. 

Ok...two tanks (out of sixteen) continue to show problems. One has danios & the black lancer catfish. The other has the Barilius sp. hill trouts, a swordtail pair, butterfly cichlids, and trout goodeids. Everyone but the cichlids has white patches/scale damage -- even the first baby goodeid to arrive. Sooooo annoying. I am doing a round of @Colu's regimen and am probably gonna do a second one immediately after. 

In regard to all the invertebrate talk, I had no losses when using the meds in my tanks. Even the insanely high salt dosage I did last time -- it nuked almost all my plants, but my amanos, red cherries, and green Babaultis were fine, amazingly.

One problem I'm having is I'm just paranoid all the time now. I can't enjoy looking at my tanks or even window-shopping at the LFS. I find myself inspecting all the fish and straining my eyes to look for abnormalities. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 1/9/2023 at 12:40 AM, Mahi27 said:

two tanks (out of sixteen) continue to show problems

This is great! You’re making a lot of progress.

On 1/9/2023 at 12:40 AM, Mahi27 said:

Everyone but the cichlids has white patches/scale damage -- even the first baby goodeid

I’m sorry. Ugh! How frustrating. At least there is a plan.

On 1/9/2023 at 12:40 AM, Mahi27 said:

In regard to all the invertebrate talk, I had no losses when using the meds in my tanks

This is very good to know. Sorry about the plants though. Plants are expensive too. On the plus side you will get to rescape which I always find to be fun. You could change it up and make the tanks all have a different feel, if you wanted to. 
 

 

On 1/9/2023 at 12:40 AM, Mahi27 said:

One problem I'm having is I'm just paranoid all the time now. I can't enjoy looking at my tanks or even window-shopping at the LFS. I find myself inspecting all the fish and straining my eyes to look for abnormalities

I get this. I do it too now. I used to have so much fun shopping for fish, but with my knowledge now, it’s been depressing. I look at the filters in the tanks. A lot of them have dead fish stuck to them. It makes me angry the fish are left there and employees are off doing other things. Of course, happens mostly in big box and less in LFS. And some LFS are better than others. So I don’t buy fish at big box. I did buy a snail because he was getting majorly bullied and he was attacked every time he tried to come out of his shell, poor fella. He lived out a very good, pampered life in my peaceful tank with other snail friends.

Just keep on truckin @Mahi27. You can do this.

Any new fish you purchase, you can put in a quarantine tote and watch/treat them. That’s what I do now. But you’ll want to keep quarantine available for now in case any of your current patients need it.

With that many tanks, how are you sanitizing siphons, nets, etc? I’ve been wondering what works. Rachael O’Leary puts a net, handle up in a bucket if it’s been used. Once she sanitizes it, it goes into a different bucket, with the handle down.

[Mahi27]

So sanitization has definitely been part of the problem. Guaranteed that going tank to tank without sanitizing is how I spread disease all over the place. 

For my nets and smaller siphons, I recall a video where @Cory said he blasts his items with hot tap water and then allows them to completely dry. Something like "Between the heat, the chlorine, and drying out, very little is likely to survive."

That said, I do have a huge Python siphon that I can't really sanitize. It's like 100ft of hose. I don't know what to do about that other than avoid using it except for filling and never draining. 

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea your story about the snail is so funny. I do the same thing. My girlfriend has Shredder in a 20 long I gave her. That's a fire red crayfish I convinced the shop to give me for free bc he had just molted and was getting brutalized by the barbs in the shop tank! Now he's huge and loving life. 

[Colu]

On 1/9/2023 at 5:55 PM, Mahi27 said:

That said, I do have a huge Python siphon that I can't really sanitize. It's like 100ft of hose. I don't know what to do about that other than avoid using it except for filling and never draining. 

You can add a pump to the tubing and place it in a tub with hydrogen peroxide solution leave it running over night to sterilize your python hose that what I do with my tubing 

Edited January 9, 2023 by Colu