So I have a columnaris outbreak - sucks - thought it was fungus at first until this morning one of my congo tetras looked like it was wearing white lip liner. :irked:
I know I need to treat with antibiotics, but I want to treat my entire tank (60 g) because so far two cory cats and the congo are infected.
I am beginning to drop my temp to below 74 F. Should I get erythromycin? penicillin?
I will take all of the filter media out of my hob's to protect the biofilter that is on them. I anticipate water testing twice daily to check for spikes in need of water changes.
I appreciate any advice - and prayers for my fish! :1zhelp:
60 gal
78 F (dropping to below 74 now, but slowly)
pH: 6.8
am: 0 ppm
nitrite: 0 ppm
nitrate: 5 ppm
I have assorted plants including amazon swords, anubias, banana, and some grasses. 5 bronze cory cats, 8 congo tetras, lots and lots of snails (i like them)
I had one strain of Columnaris where I cured a Krib. I used Kanamycin and 2% solution salt dips 3 or 4 times a day.
I have also had a strain where I tried everything from Potassium Permaganate to 3 types of antibiotics - the strain was resistant to all. It was probably a systemic infection.
I would try to get Kanamycin (Kanaplex). If not, try for the Maracyn 1 and 2 Combo. Kanamycin is the much better choice IMO.
Until you get the drugs get any obviously infected fish into a quarantine tank ASAP and do a big water change in the main tank. If you don't have any salt intolerant species left in the main tank, I would also salt the heck out of it after the big PWC. It would be wise to do a big PWC every couple of days until you dose it.
Edit: Just saw your last post: Don't think a high salt dose would be a good idea considering those fish species and snails... but not an expert on them, either. I've read conflicting info on salt and cory cats.
I think I would treat the whole tank. It will be costly to dose that size tank, but the Flexibater is in that tank and has spread.
Kanamycin is good, and the Maracyn and Maracyn II combo is a good choice as well. Whichever is available to you.
If it is going to cost too much to buy the amount to dose the 60 gallon tank, then I would move all the fish to a smaller hospital tank and treat them. You could even get a 20 gallon size sterilite container from WalMart to use.
Make sure there is good oxygenation, a filter, and keep the temp below 78 degrees.
If you decide to treat in a hospital tank, then after you get them out of the 60 gallon I would clean it out and disinfect it.
A 3% salinity of the tank water has been shown to drastically reduce the spread of the infection to other fish, in fact if any fish had not already been infected they did not become infected in studies with that degree of salinity.
I had Otos, a Brochis splendens and snails that all tolerated 3% very well when I treated for Ich, so I think 3% would be OK. That would be 3 level teaspons of salt per gallon, or you could do a slightly rounded tablespoon per gallon, which is the same thing.
Be sure to dissolve the salt in some tankwater before adding to the tank, and add it gradually, over 48 hours.
Be careful with buckets, nets, or any other equipment you use if you have other tanks, because it is very contagious. You want to be sure to clean everything with bleachwater and then use dechlorinator.
You need to monitor your parameters during treament and keep the water pristine. If you find any detectable ammonia and/or nitrite you need to do appropriate water changes and be carefull to keep your salinity correct. You can treat without salt, but it truly does help and would be good if you could.
Water changes don't interfere with the antibiotic treatmen. The antibiotics are unabailable after a few hours anyway, so you could do water changes every 24 hours if needed.
Keep us posted and let us know how things are going.
Thank you very much! I bought maracyn today (they were out of maracyn 2, so I'm hoping I don't have any gram neg stuff in there...)
I went ahead and dosed the whole tank. It turns the water green under the fluorescent (normal?) I'll be doing water tests as often as possible to monitor the bio filter.
I'll start adding salt, too! I knew that it would help, but I've read so much about salt and corys that I was hesitant. But if your otos tolerated it, the corys should.
I treated today at approx 7 PM EST. All fish are happy. I'll update as I go!
Fish that have Columnaris are infected with the bacteria Flexibacter columnaris, more recently named Flavobacterium columnare, but they usually also have a secondary bacterial infection caused by aeromonas.
You really need both Maracyn meds for this. The Maracyn and Maracyn II combo work together to take care of the Columnaris and the aeromonas infection.
It won't hurt that you've started them on the Maracyn alone, but you need to find Maracyn II ASAP. You dose the tank with both antibiotics at the same time.
Keep the temp around 75F or 76F but no higher. The bacteria take off at 77F and higher.
You may lose your beneficial bacteria. I hope you have another tank with some healthy filter media. If not, maybe you know someone with a healthy tank who could let you have some filter squeezings to help jumpstart the biofilter when your finished treating this illness.
I'll try my other lfs' tomorrow then. It's so expensive! ...and I don't even know how this all happened. I've been keeping fish for years and I've never seen this. My water was nice, too! 0-0-5! Oh well - now I just have to get through it.
I've also mixed some of the maracyn into their food for the upcoming week and I'll be feeding it to them.
Temp is good, and I have a very healthy, very mature tank with media that I will use when all is back to normal. Thanks again for your help! I greatly appreciate it!
Columnaris is gram negative. Any fish that are showing signs of the disease should always be removed ASAP from the other 'healthy' fish to avoid further contamination. This is because there is no guarantee that when you dose the main tank the antibiotics will even work and all fish have a greater chance to become infected.
Both the hospital tank and the main tank should be dosed with antibiotics that are effective against flavobacterium. Maracyn I is not - i don't care what the package says, either. So now that since the diseased fish are still in there with the healthy fish and Maracyn I does nothing for flavobacterium.... well good luck.
Thanks, Kiv - I'm getting Maracyn II today after class. These are the original fish that I stocked the tank with, so they've all been exposed to f. columnaris over the past few weeks. I want to treat the whole tank so that the stressful addition of more fish later doesn't trigger another outbreak.
Morning of Day 2: improvement seen in all infected fish. Spots have decreased in size. Fish appear unstressed.
in the future if you want to get meds, try www.kensfish.com, he has the most reasonable prices & shipping charges.
funny thing, when I posted my discus issues with these white dots IN their tail fins (not on fins like Ich) & some tail rot starting, someone diagnosed most definitely I had columnaris (tho I didn't have the same symptoms as you) & offered to sell me pure meds for that purpose. if I can locate my prior post will pass it on to you. I had treated with melafix & pimamix combo with big w/c's - that helped my case but I don't think I had columnaris.
but looks like suggestion of marycyn + 2 will help you.
