Is this Columnaris?

I have a 45 gallon tank with an angelfish, 6 emperor tetras, 3 swordtails, Otos, and a clown pleco. The tank has been established for over 2 years. Temp is ~78-80 degrees F.

One of my female emperor tetras got a little whitish patch on her a while back, but it quickly spread to the rest of her body. She’s over 2 years old, if it helps. I am currently treating the tank for ich, using tetra’s Ick guard. I have one more dose. I only used a 1/2 dose for the sake of the more-sensitive fish. I think there might still be a couple of ich spots. Should I abandon the last dose, run carbon for a day, and treat this other infection (if it is columnaris) Or go ahead with the last dose and then proceed? I don’t want to cause any more damage to this poor tetra. It might be too late for her, but I want to catch it before it gets to anyone else.

If this is columnaris, I was going to treat with furan 2.


Thanks for any advice

Hi and welcome to the forum

It is not whitespot (Ichthyophthirius) and it is not Columnaris.

The fish looks like it has been attacked by something and lost scales.
It's fins appear to have a milky white edge, which is usually caused by poor water quality.

You should clean the front glass before photographing fish because it's a bit hard to tell if some of the white marks on the fish are actually on the fish, or on the glass.

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How often do you do water changes and how much water do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?
Do you dechlorinate new water before it's added to the tank?

What sort of filter do you have on the tank?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

How often are you feeding the fish and what do you feed them?

Have you added anything new to the tank in the 2 weeks before this started?

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Unless there are fish in the tank with definite whitespot, I would stop adding chemicals and test the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.

If you can't test the water straight away, take a glass full of tank water and put it on a bench and take that to the local pet shop for testing. Write the results down in numbers when they do the test. If they say "The water is fine", ask them what the results are in numbers.

Before you go and get the sample tested, wipe the inside of the tank down with a clean sponge and do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

You should also do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for the next 2 weeks or until this problem is resolved.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. Wash filter media/ materials in a bucket of tank water.

If you post pictures of the other fish in the tank, I can check them for signs of disease.

It doesn’t look like Columnaris to me. I lost an entire tank to Columnaris.

Thanks for the replies! I believe the white dots you see surrounding the fish are bubbles from the filter. The spots on the fish are really on the fish. I will try to take a better photo in the morning! Clumps of her scales are raised, and there is at least one small wound. I haven’t seen anyone attack her, other than the occasional nip from the males. And they’ve been doing that for 2 years. One of my female swordtails is pretty aggressive, but only to her fellow swordtails. I haven’t seen any hostile behavior toward the other fish.
The filter is an Aqueon quiet flow 30 I believe. I haven’t cleaned it recently because we had to drain it to move it, and I didn’t want to lose any BB. I had the fish in a 20 gallon for a day or two and moved them back. That might’ve done it, now that I think about it they might have been in there longer than anticipated. I recently replaced the filter cartridge, from one w/ activated carbon to a filter pad. Tried to preserve BB and didn’t clean the filter itself in hopes of colonizing the new cartridge. I will clean the filter tomorrow!
The tank definitely had ich. All of the tetras were covered salt-like specks, and the number of spots has significantly decreased. I still saw some of spots on a few fish so that’s why I continued treatment. Nothing new had been added to the tank when she began showing signs of this.
Ammonia is 0.
Ph is right around 7.
I haven’t tested nitrates or nitrites yet.
I do water changes ~3 weeks, 25-50%. While treating for ich I’ve been doing 25-30% changes every day. I always dechlorinate the new water (currently using tetra aqua safe, but when it runs out I’m getting Prime) and I make sure it is the same temperature as the tank. I vacuume the gravel when I do a change. I also have several live plants, if that means anything. I usually feed once a day, alternating between omega one flakes, some aqueon flakes, brine shrimp, and the occasional pea.


I’m just very glad to hear that it is not columnaris. I’ll get on those big water changes ASAP! Just did a little one earlier tonight

Thanks so much for your responses

Filters should be cleaned at least once a month and every 2 weeks is better. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water.

If you have a filter that takes cartridges/ pads and you replace those pads every now and then, you should get some sponges for the filter. Keep the sponges in the filter with the pads for about 6 weeks and then remove the pads and leave the sponges. The sponges can be squeezed out in a bucket of tank water to clean them. When you replace the filter pads, you get rid of the beneficial filter bacteria and will have ammonia and nitrite problems.

You can also get round/ cylindrical sponges for some brands of internal filter. These sponges have a hole through the centre and they can be put on the intake strainer of most external power filters.

If you use chemicals in the tank, you should remove carbon cartridges from the filter before treating otherwise it will adsorb the medication. Carbon is not normally needed in filters unless you have chemicals or heavy metals in the water and need to get them out of the water.

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You need to do bigger water changes more often. I recommend a 75% water change and gravel clean every week. If you have water restrictions then do it every 2 weeks.

You do water changes for 2 main reasons.
1) to reduce nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate.
2) to dilute disease organisms in the water.

Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms including bacteria, fungus, viruses, protozoans, worms, flukes and various other things that make your skin crawl. Doing a big water change and gravel cleaning the substrate on a regular basis will dilute these organisms and reduce their numbers in the water, thus making it a safer and healthier environment for the fish.

If you do a 25% water change each week you leave behind 75% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 50% water change each week you leave behind 50% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 75% water change each week you leave behind 25% of the bad stuff in the water.

Fish live in their own waste. Their tank and filter is full of fish poop. The water they breath is filtered through fish poop. Cleaning filters, gravel and doing big regular water changes, removes a lot of this poop and makes the environment cleaner and healthier for the fish.

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Test the nitrite and nitrate when you can and post the results here.

If she has raised scales she could have dropsy. Many don’t survive that. Please get us a pic so we can look closer. If it is dropsy, you can try Kanaplex and Furan-2 together per instructions. You can also give Epsom salt baths to reduce swelling. Don’t do anything but the water changes until we see the pic. Good luck!