Is This Columnaris?

dasaltemelosguy

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I must admit, I've never seen anything like this but perhaps I was just lucky before! It was a fully cycled, 75G tank that had an adult population of EBAs and some plecos. It had been running without incident for many months. We moved the EBAs as this was for their grow-out and put 50 cardinals and 13 very small silver dollars, (more like dimes) as they are quite young and small at present.

The cardinals started dropping dead at a rate of 2-3/day just a day after being introduced to this tank. It was the oddest thing in that they looked beautiful and were active and eating with vigor. They would eat and literally drop dead minutes afterward. Not a blemish or indicator I can see so I assumed I injured them with improper acclimation.

That stopped and I thought, it was over with. It's been 7 days and the cardinals have not seen a death and I was seeing 2-3/day 'drop out of the sky' if you will. They are active, nice round bellies, great color and even growing a bit.

Then this started. I had 13 (very) juvenile Silver Dollars growing out with them in a 75G. Very small guys, no bigger than the cardinals when I got them 2 weeks ago. They just started dropping dead like the cardinals.

However unlike the cardinals, there are visible issues at hand on the Dollars.

Symptomatically, I see nothing. They swim around and seem relaxed as Silver Dollars go. They swim, together and in schools, they eat voluminously, and they've clearly grown since I got them only 2 weeks ago. Not shy, they excitedly come to the top when they see you. It looks like all is well.

All of a sudden, 2 days ago, they started dropping dead like the cardinals did a week ago. With the Dollars I find a dead one every day but I saw no signs of distress nor illness until 2 days ago.

I've been keeping fishes since the 1970s and this is the first time I've encountered what appears as active, healthy fishes seemingly dropping dead without any symptoms. Like I said, perhaps I've been lucky in that ich was the worst disease I've ever encountered with fishkeeping until now!

Would you mind taking a look and giving me your opinions on what this might be? I have started a Nitrofurazone/Kanamycin treatment 2 days ago when I saw this as it seems like columnaris but I've never seen it before so I'm very much uncertain as to what's wrong.

On the tank, it's long been cycled, ammonia=0, nitrites=0, PH=7.4 and nitrates are 5ppm. It's a 75G planted tank with now, 20 cardinals and 10 Silver Dollars about the size of a dime at present, hence the lack of nitrates.

It was serving as both a grow-out for the Dollars and a QT for the entire bunch. Any advice on what this might be would be most welcome! Thanks all.
 

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Is the fish with a patch on it's underbelly the only one with symptoms?
My understanding is that columnaris would show as cottony tufts/ growths on the mouth, red patches on the body and grey patches around the head/ gills.

Have you treated with anything prior to the antibiotics?

Any other chemicals added to the tanks, deliberately or otherwise?
 
Hi, Good question. I did fail to mention that I added aquarium salt, currently at 1tbps/3g, but that and the two antibiotics mentioned above are the only chemicals I've added to this tank, aside from a dechlorinator). It is a flat, dull patch. On the Silver Dollars, it looks like you've 'sanded off the shine'.

Once that appears, that fish is dead within 2-3 days. Paradoxically the fish all eat and swim actively.

I can now see they do start to appear thinner and 'shriveled' slightly just before they succumb. Today in fact it seems to have spread to 6 (out of 10) of them, now with large patches not unlike the pictures whereas yesterday I only saw one with the patch and a few with much smaller patches (so small I wasn't sure they were an illness). But now all 6 fish have large patches like the picture and one even has the patch wrapping around his belly underneath and rising up the other side. Yikes.
 
The aquarium salt is what I would do too.
I'm not familiar with using antibiotics so I don't know how long it might take them to start working.

Today in fact it seems to have spread to 6 (out of 10)

Oh no, I don't know what this is.
@Lajos_Detari may offer some help when he is on, or @Colin_T .
I hope it gets resolved.
All the best.
 
Wow, thank you all for the wealth of information.

From what I'm reading, and it's speculative on my part, but what I'm seeing may prove to be the '2nd strain of columnaris'. I base that on the symptoms, appearance but largely on the frequency of the deaths.

I believe the 1st strain kills in 24 hours whereas the 2nd strain kills over a period of days? The latter would be my situation if so. I had 13 Silver Dollars and ALL of them eventually developed the patches on their bodies to varying degrees.

2 days after seeing the first patch, I started the classic treatment for 5 days (plus salt):

1-nitrofurazone/kanamycin,
2-kanamycin
3-nitrofurazone/kanamycin
4-kanamycin
5-nitrofurazone/kanamycin

And currently I'm on day 4.

But I think it's working!

Today, for the 1st time since this began, I cannot see any patches on any of them. Only 1 still won't eat and the rest are active, eating and even visibly growing. The 1 may have too much damage or perhaps he'll come around as well.

But I do believe you were all correct. It looked like columnaris, it behaved like it, it certainly killed like it, (I lost 50% of the entire tank population in less than a week!) but I think we may be turning a corner.

Unless someone thinks it would be a mistake or potentially toxic, I plan on repeating the above treatment for 5 additional days as this was so severe. Just to make certain it's over with.

Thank you all so much for your help.
 
Wow, thank you all for the wealth of information.

From what I'm reading, and it's speculative on my part, but what I'm seeing may prove to be the '2nd strain of columnaris'. I base that on the symptoms, appearance but largely on the frequency of the deaths.

I believe the 1st strain kills in 24 hours whereas the 2nd strain kills over a period of days? The latter would be my situation if so. I had 13 Silver Dollars and ALL of them eventually developed the patches on their bodies to varying degrees.

2 days after seeing the first patch, I started the classic treatment for 5 days (plus salt):

1-nitrofurazone/kanamycin,
2-kanamycin
3-nitrofurazone/kanamycin
4-kanamycin
5-nitrofurazone/kanamycin

And currently I'm on day 4.

But I think it's working!

Today, for the 1st time since this began, I cannot see any patches on any of them. Only 1 still won't eat and the rest are active, eating and even visibly growing. The 1 may have too much damage or perhaps he'll come around as well.

But I do believe you were all correct. It looked like columnaris, it behaved like it, it certainly killed like it, (I lost 50% of the entire tank population in less than a week!) but I think we may be turning a corner.

Unless someone thinks it would be a mistake or potentially toxic, I plan on repeating the above treatment for 5 additional days as this was so severe. Just to make certain it's over with.

Thank you all so much for your help.


Glad to hear that the condition has improved.
Nitrofurazone and Kanamycin can kill quite a wide range of gram negative bacteria(bacteria that thrives on high oxygen/well circulated tank) plus some gram positive bacteria.




I think the difficulty is to find out which bacteria that is causing the infections.
There are two groups of bacteria - gram negative and gram positive.
If the bacteria is from gram positive, it's mostly from tank with low oxygen.


I noticed that you treat Kanamycin everyday.
But in another website that I saw, the person seem to recommend to use Nitrofurazone everyday and Kanamycin on day 1, 3, 5.
Anyway, take note that Kanamycin can kill some beneficial bacteria in your tank.
You can doze some live bacteria after you complete the treatment.



Some live bacteria recommendations:



 
Glad to hear that the condition has improved.
Nitrofurazone and Kanamycin can kill quite a wide range of gram negative bacteria(bacteria that thrives on high oxygen/well circulated tank) plus some gram positive bacteria.




I think the difficulty is to find out which bacteria that is causing the infections.
There are two groups of bacteria - gram negative and gram positive.
If the bacteria is from gram positive, it's mostly from tank with low oxygen.


I noticed that you treat Kanamycin everyday.
But in another website that I saw, the person seem to recommend to use Nitrofurazone everyday and Kanamycin on day 1, 3, 5.
Anyway, take note that Kanamycin can kill some beneficial bacteria in your tank.
You can doze some live bacteria after you complete the treatment.



Some live bacteria recommendations:



Thank you so much for these excellent links and suggestions.

I did post a typo in that I meant 'nitrofurazone' on the days you specified. I think I copied/pasted it as I type like a snail and I copied 'kanamycin' by mistake. But it was the 5-day treatment regime that you suggested.

On that regime, today is the 5th day. This infection was severe enough to quite literally wipe out 50% of the tank in less than a week. It seems to have ceased and oddly, the last two days I'm seeing visible growth on the survivors (all of these fishes are juveniles in grow-out).

I noticed it has been suggested to continue the treatment for 10 days. Is this redundant or too stressful on them or is it advisable to make certain it's gone?

Oh yes, you're spot on with the biofilter. Yikes did it set back the cycle. It's a daily endeavor to protect them from any toxicity spikes but they're under so much stress as it is, let alone from an ammonia or nitrite spike. I did not yet see an ammonia spike but it did see a nitrite spike. I've been treating daily with Prime for toxicity and of course the salt helps detox the nitrites.

I'll definitely add bacteria once the antibiotics are completed but I'm unsure if I should push through a full 10 days of it?
 
Thank you so much for these excellent links and suggestions.

I did post a typo in that I meant 'nitrofurazone' on the days you specified. I think I copied/pasted it as I type like a snail and I copied 'kanamycin' by mistake. But it was the 5-day treatment regime that you suggested.

On that regime, today is the 5th day. This infection was severe enough to quite literally wipe out 50% of the tank in less than a week. It seems to have ceased and oddly, the last two days I'm seeing visible growth on the survivors (all of these fishes are juveniles in grow-out).

I noticed it has been suggested to continue the treatment for 10 days. Is this redundant or too stressful on them or is it advisable to make certain it's gone?

Oh yes, you're spot on with the biofilter. Yikes did it set back the cycle. It's a daily endeavor to protect them from any toxicity spikes but they're under so much stress as it is, let alone from an ammonia or nitrite spike. I did not yet see an ammonia spike but it did see a nitrite spike. I've been treating daily with Prime for toxicity and of course the salt helps detox the nitrites.

I'll definitely add bacteria once the antibiotics are completed but I'm unsure if I should push through a full 10 days of it?

I think first check the fish's skin for any symptoms.
Have all the fish recovered?
I read somewhere where it says whenever a fish is sick, the first sign is often on their skin.

If they haven't fully recovered, then you might want to continue the medications for up to 10days.

But if they have recovered, probably you can continue to 7 days(total) just for precaution.

Just to share some doctors' practices.
In my country, whenever the doctors prescribe an antibiotic, they will prescribe for about 5 days of medication.
But in some countries, the doctors will prescribe up to 7 days of antibiotic.

Lastly, remember to sterilize all your equipment - the hose, siphon, nets, buckets that have come in contact with the fish.
I usually use hot water or bleach to sterilize and dry all the equipment.
Wash your hands clean after every tank maintenance.
Wear gloves and avoid breathing in the medication fume when using the medications.
 
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By the way, if you have time, you can download free ebooks about fish disease here:



Someone mentioned that we have to become a veterinarian, chemist and biologist in order to be a good fish keeper.
Lol
 
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