Columnaris?

My tank seems to have been struck with something nasty

Tank size: 50 gallons
pH: 7.0
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 5
kH: ni
gH: ni
tank temp: 26C

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior):
I had 2 guppies last week with some sort of fin rot or splitting, I thought they were being nipped but they died within a day of me isolating them. Yesterday I came home and my albino cory had died, I did a 40% water change, gravel vac'd. Today I came home and one of my female bettas has died and the other 3 are looking very bad.

The female bettas have fungal looking patches on them with fuzzy white "growths" coming off the patches. One of the girls looks like her whole back end is covered in the white stuff. My cambo girl I can see a bit of what looks like internal haemorrhaging near her nose. I can't see any white stuff on her, but she's very light and is lethargic and not moving much.

Volume and Frequency of water changes:
Generally 20% weekly, I gravel vac twice a week.

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank:
No additives, only water conditioner. I have the three girls in a hospital tank, but I have one of them inside a container inside the tank as she doesn't look as bad as the other two, I want to keep her seperate in case she's not infected. In the hospital tank I have added Multi-Fix which is malachite green, meth blue and acriflavine and a gram-negative antibiotic and aquarium salt. I added the Multi-Fix before I got hold of the antibiotic.

Tank inhabitants:
4x female bettas
4x cories
1x BN plec
5x guppies

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration):
The guppies a couple of weeks ago.

Exposure to chemicals:
Nil.

Digital photo (include if possible):
I don't want to stress the girls out more, and I can't get a good pic without the flash.

RIP Albino Rhino and Tallie

Sorry you are losing your fish and it does sound like colunaris, which kills fish quickly.
What temperature is your tank as columnaris thrives at high temperatures?
Take the temperature really slowly down to 24c if its any higher.
As long as you are using an antibacterial med and salt then I dont think theres much you can do but wait. What level of salt is in the tank?

Thanks for the help black angel. The tank was at 26, I've dropped it to 24 over the last couple of hours.

At what point do you say enough? Poor Minnie is having troubles swimming, it's like her tail end is paralysed. She's now in a shallow container inside the hospital tank so she can get to the surface to breathe. Pinkie keeps turning onto her side before struggling to right herself. I hate seeing them like this.

Im a coward with my fish and dont euthenise them if i can help it. I usually let nature take its course but if you feel enough is enough then clove oil is the best way to go.

Pinkie just slipped away, Minnie is still holding on

And I don't think I could euthanase them either, but it's awful to watch them like this.

I thought I'd keep posting in this thread since it seems like the whole disaster is connected. Minnie made it through the night but passed away sometime today. After she'd passed the white stuff that was "casing" her lower body kind of popped and started to peel. Definitely wasn't her scales, was white stuff on top of her scales.

I did an emergency evacuation of the tank. I have some fish in the hospital tank, some in the spare 15 gallon, and one inside a container in the 15g as it's the only way I have to keep everyone warm. I'm not overstocked with this as I've lost a few fish, and I think they'll be okay for tonight. I had been meaning at some point to change my gravel to sand for the cories, so I've evacuated everyone, I have the filter running in a bucket of tank water in the bathroom and I planned to drain the water, scoop the gravel out, change it for sand and fill it back up. As I was rounding up the troops, I found THIS scary looking dude. He's just over an inch long and his tail forks at the end. Any idea what he is?

ElectricMayhem said:

I thought I'd keep posting in this thread since it seems like the whole disaster is connected. Minnie made it through the night but passed away sometime today. After she'd passed the white stuff that was "casing" her lower body kind of popped and started to peel. Definitely wasn't her scales, was white stuff on top of her scales.

I did an emergency evacuation of the tank. I have some fish in the hospital tank, some in the spare 15 gallon, and one inside a container in the 15g as it's the only way I have to keep everyone warm. I'm not overstocked with this as I've lost a few fish, and I think they'll be okay for tonight. I had been meaning at some point to change my gravel to sand for the cories, so I've evacuated everyone, I have the filter running in a bucket of tank water in the bathroom and I planned to drain the water, scoop the gravel out, change it for sand and fill it back up. As I was rounding up the troops, I found THIS scary looking dude. He's just over an inch long and his tail forks at the end. Any idea what he is?

Click to expand...

Damselfly nymph?

http/crawford.tardigrade.net/bugs/BugofMonth12.html

Added any new plants recently?

Yep, that looks exactly like him, and I haven't added any plants recently, but he could have been hiding until now. He's scary looking

ElectricMayhem said:

Yep, that looks exactly like him, and I haven't added any plants recently, but he could have been hiding until now. He's scary looking

Click to expand...

Doing a search on tff for damselfly nymph has come up with a few posts about them. Looks as though they're predatory on small fish. If can, get them out of your tank and dispose (if you haven't done it already!). One of the posts also mentions they can bite.

I have no idea what the heck is going on, only ONE fish that died has shown signs of columnaris, and it looked like a textbook case. No one else who has died has shown any symptoms other than lethargy and towards the end they can't swim right way up, they're upside down or on their side. The death toll is up to 8, only one death since the tank evacuation. My BN plec is seriously annoyed at me for moving him though. He's hiding in his new driftwood looking mighty angry.

The finned kids should be back in their tank by tomorrow