White band around Neon appeared overnight

[1L19]

Remove the carbon, Don't worry about the heat- it's not very high and the frozen bottles will create other problems.

Don't bother with melafix, it's so weak as a treatment that it's rarely helpful.

Salt is a great treatment but not in this case. If it is columnaris (I don't know, lucky I haven't had to deal with it), then you need high strength medication.

Someone on here said they dealt with columnaris and Furan2 combined with kanaplex worked. That sounds similar to your combo in question 3, the active ingredients could be the same.

Thank you Naughts for the feedback. Furan-2 has been discontinued but it's primary ingredient is the Nitrofurazone so that lines up with what you are saying. Most appreciated!

 

[Lynnzer]

You have my total sympathy as this is so debilitating and really messes your mind. Like I said in my last post, the option of euthanasia may prove to be the best way out.
From a cost perspective it will be, as the stuff you're buying doesn't come cheap and there's no guarantee they'll be any better for it.
It's a hard decision........

 

[1L19]

I thought about euthanasia but honestly I don't know what that would get me. Seems like a high probability that the columnaris would appear again. I won't learn anything about addressing a treatable condition if I just wipe the slate and start over. Just so we have the numbers:

Cardinal tetras - Bought 10, all dead
Julii (false) corys - Bought 8, 3 died
Neon tetras - Bought 21, 5 died

So currently I have 16 neon tetras and 5 julii corys in the tank. I was losing one or two a day until I started treatment as follows:

40 gallons of water is assumed (not including the first two melafix doses) for the following actions considering substrate and hardscape
4/8 - added 8 tablespoons of aquarium salt
4/8 - added 30ml of melafix (cajeput oil)
4/9 - found my last dead fish (julii) in the tank, small lesions on the chest and white mouth
4/9 - added 30ml of melafix (cajeput oil)
4/10 - added 20ml of melafix (cajeput oil)
4/10 - added 8 level scoops of seachem kanaplex (kanamycin sulfate)
4/10 - added 4 packets of api general cure (matronidazole and praziquantel)

Fingers crossed I haven't lost a fish in two days. Can't really say what (if anything besides random luck) might be working but I'm going to continue the treatments and see what happens. melafix is for seven days, kanaplex is two treatments every other day and api genearal cure is three treatments every other day.

Come on fishies! Live!

 

[1L19]

I thought about euthanasia but honestly I don't know what that would get me. Seems like a high probability that the columnaris would appear again. I won't learn anything about addressing a treatable condition if I just wipe the slate and start over. Just so we have the numbers:

Cardinal tetras - Bought 10, all dead
Julii (false) corys - Bought 8, 3 died
Neon tetras - Bought 21, 5 died

So currently I have 16 neon tetras and 5 julii corys in the tank. I was losing one or two a day until I started treatment as follows:

40 gallons of water is assumed (not including the first two melafix doses) for the following actions considering substrate and hardscape
4/8 - added 8 tablespoons of aquarium salt
4/8 - added 30ml of melafix (cajeput oil)
4/9 - found my last dead fish (julii) in the tank, small lesions on the chest and white mouth
4/9 - added 30ml of melafix (cajeput oil)
4/10 - added 20ml of melafix (cajeput oil)
4/10 - added 8 level scoops of seachem kanaplex (kanamycin sulfate)
4/10 - added 4 packets of api general cure (matronidazole and praziquantel)

Fingers crossed I haven't lost a fish in two days. Can't really say what (if anything besides random luck) might be working but I'm going to continue the treatments and see what happens. melafix is for seven days, kanaplex is two treatments every other day and api genearal cure is three treatments every other day.

Come on fishies! Live!

Just an update on my situation. I lost one more cory the same day as I posted the above but since then (5 days) I haven't lost any fish. Woop! I honestly can't say which treatment or change, if any, had an effect but just for the record here is what I did in summary. Treatments are based on 40 gallons of water (rather than 55) due to substrate and hardscape.

4/8 - 75% water change then removed carbon packs from the Fluval 307, lights in evening mode or off only (stress reduction?), 8 tablespoons of aquarium salt
4/8 - Started a 5 day treatment of melafix. 30ml for two days and then 20ml for three days after I adjusted for 40 gallons
4/10 - 8 level scoops of seachem kanaplex (kanamycin sulfate). 3 treatments, once every 48 hours
4/10 - 4 packets of api general cure (matronidazole and praziquantel). 2 treatments, once every 48 hours

I didn't want to change the water during the treatment so I tested every day and spiked with 50ml of prime a few times to be safe. Fed them every two days with New Life Spectrum Optimum flakes and Hikari algae wafers. Once again I can't be sure what, if anything, improved my situation but if I have another outbreak of columnaris I would repeat the process though I might consider leaving out the melafix. Peace!

 

[Colin_T]

Metronidazole and Praziquantel didn't do anything.
Metronidazole treats internal protozoan infections in fish.
Praziquantel treats tapeworm in fish and other animals.

The Kanamycin (antibiotic) and salt probably helped.

 

[DoubleDutch]

Flakes and algaewafers don't provide a lot of nutritional value for Corys. They are 95% carnivorious.

 

[1L19]

As a final update it's been 10 days since I lost my last fish. Still have my four goofball false juliis and 16 neon tetras. Thanks to everyone who provided help and insight. Here's hoping my tank stays healthy.

 

[outofwater]

Good for you!

 

[Alice B]

Neon disease. It's caused by a bacteria and will kill everythng in the tank if not treated straight away.

It would have been introduced with the last batch of neon tetras. This is why it's best to buy an entire school of fish at one time and quarantine all new fish for a month. Too little too late I know, but for future reference try to buy all the neons at the same time from the same tank and quarantine all new fish regardless of where you get them from.

-------------------------
You will need anti-biotics or something strong enough to kill bacteria. You will need to treat the tank they are all in.

Most medications that treat this will wipe out the filter bacteria so you will need to monitor ammonia and nitrite levels for the next month and do big water changes if you get any readings above 0ppm.


-------------------------
BEFORE TREATING THE AQUARIUM
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. The water change and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

*NB* You should also wipe the glass down, do a 75-90% water change and gravel clean the substrate, and clean the filter before re-treating the tank.


-------------------------
Work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

If you have big rocks or driftwood in the tank, remove these before measuring the height of the water level so you get a more accurate water volume.

You can use a permanent marker to draw a line on the tank at the water level and put down how many litres are in the tank at that level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "FishForum.net Calculator" under "Useful Links" at the bottom of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating with chemicals or it will adsorb the medication and stop it working. You do not need to remove the carbon if you use salt.

I'm going to add to this, having tried every antibiotic available to me over a period of a year, because neon tetra disease infected first my hex, that I put the neons in, then other fish in the hex that moved out to my other tanks. According to a wholesale aquarium pharmaceutical manufacturer, there is NO effective treatment for neon tetra disease. No cure. He was working with me to try meds and I failed. totally. If Neon tetra disease is in your tank isolate in quarantine all other tetras, as they are the most vulnerable for several months probably. That is what the commercial aquarium services do. they remove the tetras (not sure what they do with theirs) and add no new tetras for at least 6 weeks. I'm glad the OP did not have Neon Tetra Disease in his tank.

 

[DoubleDutch]

I'm going to add to this, having tried every antibiotic available to me over a period of a year, because neon tetra disease infected first my hex, that I put the neons in, then other fish in the hex that moved out to my other tanks. According to a wholesale aquarium pharmaceutical manufacturer, there is NO effective treatment for neon tetra disease. No cure. He was working with me to try meds and I failed. totally. If Neon tetra disease is in your tank isolate in quarantine all other tetras, as they are the most vulnerable for several months probably. That is what the commercial aquarium services do. they remove the tetras (not sure what they do with theirs) and add no new tetras for at least 6 weeks. I'm glad the OP did not have Neon Tetra Disease in his tank.

NTD isn't caused by bacteria (microsporidia Pleisophora hyphessobryconis) so indeed antibiotics won't do anything. It is rare, contagious, lethal and incurable. It will affect allmost all fish and is only called NTD cause it was first ID-ed on a Neon Tetra (not a smart idea).

A certain strain of Columnaris bacteria can cause symptoms alike which is reffered to as False NTD