i'm about to lose my favorite fish

[LMOUTHBASS]

my angel fish is close to passing away:sad
he was fine until last night - he was shy and woulnt eat , he has been getting picked at for a few weeks now by a much smaller angel and he just took it i didnt think it was anything serious though just a little nipping until i noticed for some reason other fish like pot belly mollies and even ottos joined in on the fin nipping - last night half his body looked lifeless - he wasn't shiny anymore his scales looked rough and looked like his slime coat was missing and he has a deathly white look to half his body - the front half of him looks fine - well this morning he was face first in a plant - but he is strong he got up and tried to swim on - he's strugglin so badly i don't know what happened to him- did my little angel kill him? i feel like it's my fault - i shoulve removed the little ******* when i noticed he was nipping the big one - i put my big angel in a breeding net today to try to protect him and see if he pulls through i put some melafix in the tank last night - im pretty sad about this he was getting so big!
any thoughts thanks

[anonapersona]

First,. remove to a Q tank or bucket.

Yes, melafix may help. I lost no more fish fromthe day I started using it when I had columnaris in the cory Q tank.

Lower the temp in all tanks if possible, not more than 2 degrees per day, columnaris likes high temps.

Do some research. I suggest huge water changes daily. On both tanks if you can manage.

Google search columnaris and/or flexibacter. The stress of the newcomer and the nipping may have allowed normal bacteria to run rampant. The newcomer may have brought this in. The other fish may come down with it soon.

In my fish, lethargy and going off away from others was the first sign, then flapping gills, then just before death they spiraled. Took about 2 days from receipt of the fish to show up. I lost over half of the tank to it.


In the future quarantine your new fish to avaiod losing a favorite to this sort of thing.

[LMOUTHBASS]

it doesn't really look like columnaris and the little angel has been in the tank for over a month he is looking pretty good it's the one time i didnt q a fish though! but the symptoms were as you said i hope i can save him

[Leopardess]

Columnaris usually only manifests itself in the form of a white fuzzy patch on the fish's mouth (although some fish do seem to get the kind that spreads over the whole body). It is not a fungus as the common name "mouth fungus" implies but is rather, as mentioned, a flexibacter bacteria. It will eat usually stay on the mouth until the flesh rots away and the fish loses its ability to eat.

The symptoms anona gave you really don't sound like any I haev heard before from a columnaris infection.

Are there fuzzy white patches on the fish? Or fuzzy lesions? Those are the most frequent symptoms of this disease.

http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/columnaris.htm

http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/hdcolumn.htm

I've had pretty good luck with Binox , its a super strength med and a whole bottle will treat hundreds of gallons of tankwater. I've also used Jungle Fungus eliminator (also targets flexibacter) and it seemed to help.

[LMOUTHBASS]

there is no bacteria looking on stuff on him at all - his colors have just gone very pale whiteish from the middle of his body back to his tail - kinda like in a cartoon when someone see's a ghost! but everyone has taken to nipping him lately this has to have something to do with it i think he's been getting weaker form some reason - it all started with the baby angel nipping his fins and once he got sick of it he stopped swimming away or chasing the little one away so he jus started accepting it - but then this week i notice other fish joining in - it doesnt make sense cause he is the biggest guy in the tank - did my lack of attention to the nipping cause his possible illness? i feel horrible i thought he coul fend for himself n scare the little one away gues i was wrong but i dont even know if the little one is the cause of this - also it looks like one of his scales were a little scraped up

[Leopardess]

well...

I'd assume the lack of color is from stress and him being injured. Are the other fish still in with him and nipping him? Do you have a quarantine tank he could go to? Or the fin nippers if he's too big?

I'd add some melafix, a little salt (depending on what you've got in the tank, and perhaps a broad spectrum antibiotic for his wounds.

If your other fish are joining in, it could be a sign that they recognize that he doesn't have much time left/or that he's sick.

I doubt it is, but have you looked up tuberculosis? Some of the signs you mentioned are very similar...

Sounds like he's pretty far gone though:sad

Tears in angelfish fins are a bit more serious than a tear in say, a guppies tail. It *probably* would have been best to monitor the situation a little more closey when it started to prevent it from getting out of hand, but what's done is done and you obviously didn't do it on purpose.



Perhaps it is time to put him down?:(

[Aquarius0015]

Or you can just do what my parents did, and send it to a faraway aquarium where it'll have lots of room and good food and play with its friends all day.... It's sort of sad, I was never allowed to visit this aquarium. :sad

[anonapersona]

If you rely on just this source of information you are a fool (sorry, not a slap to this forum or any other)

You will find that there are many ways that columnaris will present, not just as a mouth fungus, not just as little haystack rods piles up, not just as the "saddleback" pale color. sometimes you see it first as gill problems, then the fin rot as I saw it.

Research both flexibacter and columnaris on Google

Also research at Aquatic Plant mailing list (http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/)

You don't have much time.

Did you add the melafix? as a bacteriastatic, it can slow the infection down to allow the fish to fight it, but it is not as strong as antibiotics. Of course, if you don't know for sure what your fish has, random antibiotics are likely to weaken not cure.

If the infection is slowed, good water changes and gravel vacs may allow the fish the chance to overcome this. When I had this with the cories, I did not treat with anything but melafix (although I was already using metronidazole for internal parasites it does not touch this infection) As I said, I lost no more fish after starting the melafix and they recovered rapidly after that.

[anonapersona]

Originally posted by LMOUTHBASS
there is no bacteria looking on stuff on him at all - his colors have just gone very pale whiteish from the middle of his body back to his tail -

look up "saddleback disease", neon tetra disease

[Leopardess]

If you rely on just this source of information you are a fool (sorry, not a slap to this forum or any other)You will find that there are many ways that columnaris will present, not just as a mouth fungus, not just as little haystack rods piles up, not just as the "saddleback" pale color. sometimes you see it first as gill problems, then the fin rot as I saw it.



Are you referring to me? If so, I have researched it...I've had it...and treated it. I said it *usually* manifests itself on the mouth, but can occur in other places...It is a relatively rare occasion that it will spread across the body.

As for the melafix, imo it will only help soothe the fish, not treat columnaris - columnaris is a pretty strong bacteria...the active ingredient in melafix is 1% tea tree oil if I recall...do not rely on this as your medication. If you determine it is columnaris, get a med such as binox or furan 2 that targets it.

[yashinfan]

That happen to my friend's angel and it turned up dead very shortly afterwards. The second angel got dropsy and pop eye about a week after the other angel died. But the first angel had just been swimming weirdly for a couple days before it turned white and died. Sounds like you're going to lose it. Sorry.

[anonapersona]

Leopardess, sorry, no, didn't mean to call you anything at all, just sorta lost my cool -- the whole world is at one's finger tips here and it is SO easy to Google search for more info on how this looks and can be treated. So, I got frustrated when the poster hadn't jumped on the research I suggested. Foolish for not researching ASAP, that's what I meant.

When the Skunk Cories I had been looking for for a whole year were shipped in, I lost 7 out of 12 to columnaris. It took me a few days to realize that I had a problem and several more to start to identify it and begin treatment, cories don't take many of the standard treatments well. this 'favorite fish" needs help promptly.

[LMOUTHBASS]

thank you all for your help i did isolate my angel but when i came home from work he was upside down so i lost him :( ::: - i tried researching it but it came on in ONE night he was fine swimming around eating doing everything he always did until the other night he woulnt eat and this guy was a pig he coulnt get enough food - the next day he died - so whatever it was took him quickly - i was just thinking that the fin nipping of the little angel may have contributed - but it didnt seem like anything serious to me because the big one woul sit there and let the little one nip him it seemed he was almost enjoying like a massage or something plus people have told me this was common behavior in angels? - if the little one bit him in a way he didnt like ten he woul chase him off - but then one night the other fish started nipping him and this upset me because it wasn't normal - i woulve have moved him to my q tank but it was being treated for ick i didnt want exposed him to that - so i removed the two mollies who started nipping him - he next day he looked pale and awful and then he was gone - i just don't know i wish i removed him a few weeks ago when the little one started nipping him but i dont know if this was the problem or not?
i was very depressed about his loss yesterday i still am to tell you the truth even though it's just a fish he was my favorite fish ive ever had and i miss him a lot i used to target feed him brineshrimp and he woul come up and peck it from my fingertips - now i look at the small angel and can't help but dislike him i feel like it was his fault - does anyone think it was his fault?
overall i know it was my fault for not moving him to some sort of other tank - thanks for your help i'm mourning my fish lmb:sad :sad :sad

[Aquarius0015]

I'm sorry for your loss. You might not be able to hold 'em, but the cute little buggers work their way into our hearts all the same. Don't beat yourself up. Just last week my betta died, and I am pretty sure it was my fault. You gotta wake up each day and realize you aren't the same person you were when you fell asleep. Or that's what I like to think.

And don't blame your other angel, he was just doing what millions of years of evolution told him to do.

[LMOUTHBASS]

aquarius those were kind words - makes me feel better