Mystery Diesease Returns, Help NEEDED!!!

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BioHazard

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Mar 15, 2009
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As many of you may remember, I recently dealt with what I thought may have been a columnaris infection. You can read about that here....http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214381

Now, it seems my bad luck has returned.

I tested the water yesterday, no ammo, no nitrites, very low nitrates. WC was done 2 days ago, Wed.
I woke up this morning to the EXACT same situation as I had earlier.

All endler babies dead. Gudgeons covered in silky, cottony growth, clamped fins. The cotton stuff seems to peel of, and not be strongly attached.

Unfortunately, my highly anticipated wigglers are also all dead.

All gudgeons were still alive. I had work in one hour, so this time I had a little more time to work with. Did massive WC, added salt.

I got off work, and went straight to the lfs to get Maracyn I and II, as I couldn't remember which one I needed for columnaris.

I get home, and the fish all look fine.

WTF.

I have no idea what to do now. I am reeling. What the heck is this? Columnaris doesn't just disappear with salt, does it???? It looks like the pics of columnaris Ive seen!

Should I still treat????

I feel confused and exhausted. I thought I'd beat this. My wigglers only had 2 or 3 more days to be happily swimming around.

Is it just something inherent to PGs?

Is something wrong with my tank?

It is a 10 gal, with 2 sponge filters and an AC20.

I never have any trouble with my 20.....
 

Cerianthus

AC Members
Jul 9, 2008
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COuld it be tap water?

Dont know how much was changed but Maybe, just maybe, it was too much for this tank.
Fry are more sensitive to massive water chagnes.
One way to find out is to perfrom smaller wc at a times.

I wouldnt med if rest of fish are OK.
 

BioHazard

Here and There
Mar 15, 2009
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COuld it be tap water?

Dont know how much was changed but Maybe, just maybe, it was too much for this tank.
Fry are more sensitive to massive water chagnes.
One way to find out is to perfrom smaller wc at a times.

I wouldnt med if rest of fish are OK.
The previous WC had been 2 days before. I think I changed around 50%. But I would think that by 2 days, there would not be any issues.
 

bluerat

im a girl ... not a dude
Oct 7, 2006
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aww sorry to hear about this
 

mel_20_20

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Sep 1, 2008
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Your params are good; things should be stable yet here we are again.

Anna, I'm wondering if Dr. Vader is on to something re: parasites. He mentioned that the pics made him think of that. I wonder if this could be excessive slime coming off the fish due to a parasitic infestation. The salt may have had an inhibitory effect on the parasites, but not killed them.

Salt can have an impact on Ich and Chilodinella, though I have no clue if this may be the problem. I have had experieince with Ich, but regarding other parasites I have no personal experience, thankfully.

You haven't seen any signs that Ich is present, but some of this sounds a little like Chilodonella, the symptoms of which are: changed (heavy) breathing, excessive secretion of mucus that makes the skin of the fish look cloudy, clamped fins, loss of appetite and scratching against aquarium decoration.

You can also observe a general loss of vitality in infected fish causing them to act more lethargically. In severe cases the fish moves away from the rest of the fish and hides somewhere. It should however be said that a fish can seem healthy long after being infected by Chilodonella and the disease can often already have caused serious damage to the fish when the symptoms start to appear.

Costia and Trichodina used to be affected by salt, in fact it was at one time useful in treating those two, but they've become resistant to it.

Other parasites are unaffected by salt.

So, whether this is a parasitic problem or not, I don't know for sure, but I think it's a real possibility.

You had salt in the tank, and you used erythro. Sensitive parasites may have been impacted by the salt, and the erythro may have knocked out any secondary bacterial that was involved, which is often the case with parasitic infection as they have a big negative impact on the immune system of the fish.

I think it wouldn't hurt to treat your fish for parasites using Prazi (Praziquantel), just in case. I've read a lot of threads in which a lot of very experienced fishkeepers treat new arrivals, as a matter of course, with Lupin being one of them. Prazi doesn't kill fish lice or anchor worms, but you haven't seen those and they are pretty visible.

Prazi kills most other external and some internal parasites as well, and is pretty easy on the fish.

I think before I'd start other antibiotics or other meds I'd try that. Keep the water pristine, of course, and see how that goes.

I hope Dr. No stops by to help. His advice is invaluable and his experience vast.

Having said all that, I think the salt dip Rachel advised and you did last time did help, for whatever reason, and in whatever this was/is. I have another article that supports salt dips in the early infection, not just pre-infection, of Columnaris, for the Doc to consider.:) I have to leave the house; going to Joe's Crab Shack :D, but will check in and copy and paste the info I have re salt and Columnaris. (I'm pretty sure that's not what you have there, however)
 

msjinkzd

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dang girl, when it rains it pours.

They are asymptomatic now? If so, I would not treat at this time. I am so sorry for all your troubles, i know how frustrating this can be.


And for teh record, I do use prazi or fluke tabs on new wild imports. Prazi is a pretty gentle med. I would be tempted to observe.

Are you keepign a notebook about your experiences? This may be really helpful if you are maybe missing a commonality that woulld otherwise not stick out.
 

fishorama

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Jun 28, 2006
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Oh no Bio! I'm sorry things are not going well. I'd continue the salt as it seems to have helped but skip the prazi, it really only gets things like tapeworms, not a "usual" kind of parasite.

Kanamycin is a good antibiotic if you decide you need 1, fairly gentle. Furan 2 is more potent. I've never had much luck with the Marcin 1 + 2 combo but many swear by them.

Are the fish eating? I have used medicated flake from http://www.angelsplus.com/FlakeMedicated.htmhttp://www.angelsplus.com/FlakeMedicated.htm
 

BioHazard

Here and There
Mar 15, 2009
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Your params are good; things should be stable yet here we are again.

Anna, I'm wondering if Dr. Vader is on to something re: parasites. He mentioned that the pics made him think of that. I wonder if this could be excessive slime coming off the fish due to a parasitic infestation. The salt may have had an inhibitory effect on the parasites, but not killed them.

Salt can have an impact on Ich and Chilodinella, though I have no clue if this may be the problem. I have had experieince with Ich, but regarding other parasites I have no personal experience, thankfully.

I looked at chilodinella, and that is a possibility. It does look kinda like columnaris.

You haven't seen any signs that Ich is present, but some of this sounds a little like Chilodonella, the symptoms of which are: changed (heavy) breathing, excessive secretion of mucus that makes the skin of the fish look cloudy, clamped fins, loss of appetite and scratching against aquarium decoration.

Breathing was kinda heavy, skin was covered in slightly puffy , filimentous white stuff, fins were VERY clamped. Appetite was fine yesterday, haven't even tried feeding today. Haven't noticed scratching, but hard to tell. They do sometimes race around so fast they send gravel flying.

You can also observe a general loss of vitality in infected fish causing them to act more lethargically. In severe cases the fish moves away from the rest of the fish and hides somewhere. It should however be said that a fish can seem healthy long after being infected by Chilodonella and the disease can often already have caused serious damage to the fish when the symptoms start to appear.

Costia and Trichodina used to be affected by salt, in fact it was at one time useful in treating those two, but they've become resistant to it.

Other parasites are unaffected by salt.

So, whether this is a parasitic problem or not, I don't know for sure, but I think it's a real possibility.

If Chilodonella is very salt sensitive, that could be a possibility.

You had salt in the tank, and you used erythro. Sensitive parasites may have been impacted by the salt, and the erythro may have knocked out any secondary bacterial that was involved, which is often the case with parasitic infection as they have a big negative impact on the immune system of the fish.

I didnt use erythro this time. Just salt. Salt and an 80% WC, and tons of Prime and Stresscoat.

I think it wouldn't hurt to treat your fish for parasites using Prazi (Praziquantel), just in case. I've read a lot of threads in which a lot of very experienced fishkeepers treat new arrivals, as a matter of course, with Lupin being one of them. Prazi doesn't kill fish lice or anchor worms, but you haven't seen those and they are pretty visible.

Prazi kills most other external and some internal parasites as well, and is pretty easy on the fish.

I think before I'd start other antibiotics or other meds I'd try that. Keep the water pristine, of course, and see how that goes.

I hope Dr. No stops by to help. His advice is invaluable and his experience vast.

Having said all that, I think the salt dip Rachel advised and you did last time did help, for whatever reason, and in whatever this was/is. I have another article that supports salt dips in the early infection, not just pre-infection, of Columnaris, for the Doc to consider.:) I have to leave the house; going to Joe's Crab Shack :D, but will check in and copy and paste the info I have re salt and Columnaris. (I'm pretty sure that's not what you have there, however)
Maybe I should get some of that Pimafix or Melafix herbal stuff. Could be a compromise between 'treating' and 'not treating'.
 

BioHazard

Here and There
Mar 15, 2009
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dang girl, when it rains it pours.

They are asymptomatic now? If so, I would not treat at this time. I am so sorry for all your troubles, i know how frustrating this can be.


And for teh record, I do use prazi or fluke tabs on new wild imports. Prazi is a pretty gentle med. I would be tempted to observe.

Are you keepign a notebook about your experiences? This may be really helpful if you are maybe missing a commonality that woulld otherwise not stick out.
They seem to be asymptomatic. The cloudiness is gone, no more white stuff, fins no longer clamped, moving around better.
Not keeping a notebook persay, but how long do they save records here? I figured this could be an electronic database.
 

msjinkzd

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these records would be kept indefinitely. One thing I learned from the great neon debacle of '09 is that there may have been things I didn't connect from recollection. On all new imports I now write down their arrival, params in bag, params in tank, any observations of symptoms/eating/behavior, etc. I keep this journal for at least the first 2 weeks. I am hoping it will help me to isolate issues I may have overlooked otherwise. Can't hurt anyway.
 
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