Diagnostic Help Please

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FSUphitau85

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Aug 28, 2007
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Hi,

Some of my fish have been acting slightly weird. They have been flashing around on some of the rocks. I don't see white spots all over them, but just in case, I'm treating for Ich with a temp of 86 deg F and aquarium salt for 10 days. Some of the fish seem to have had the color of their lips change to a whitish tint. A few have whitish/grey patches on their sides (small), but I'm thinking maybe it was from some aggression in the tank. Also, a few of the fish seem to spaz out/seizure for a second or so, then they are fine. I have looked at some pics online and I may just be paranoid, but could it be Columnaris?

The tank has been setup for about 3 1/2 months and is a mixed cichlid tank. It is a 72G bow front with a Rena XP4, 2 modded maxi-jet 1200's pushing a total of 4200GPH, and an airstone in the back.

Here are my water parameters for the last week

Water Test
(3/21/09)
Nitrate 60ppm
Nitrite .5ppm
Hardness 280ppm
Alkalinity 180ppm
pH 7.8

(3/31/09)
Nitrate 60ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Hardness 300 ppm
Alkalinity 280 ppm
pH 8

I did a 30% water change half way through this time period.

Any help would be great. Thanks!
 
Update:

Upon closer inspection, my Bi-color 500 (one of the fish with a white tinted lip) has what looks like the top layer of skin on his upper lip peeling off. Don't know if this helps or not.
 
Sounds like columnaris but you can consider it to be generally poor fish health due to water quality. The cause would seem to be water quality as you have been having nitrite issues - .5 ppm is dangerous. Can you do an ammonia test and confirm what kind of test kit you are using, how long tank is set up, and what inhabitants are in it. Your Nitrates are also too high if your test is accurate - 40 or less, 20 or less even better.

Treatment should be large, large daily water changes - like 80% for at least a week. You should see huge improvements. If you start losing fish/see no improvement you may medicate with an antibiotic - maracyn or maracyn 2.

The first thing to do however is the huge water changes.

30% changes every 10 days is not really enough for general tank maintenance btw. You need minimum 25 - 30% per week; whatever necessary to keep nitrates well below 40.
 
Columnaris is bacterial and thrives in organic waste, I am not saying that it is Columnaris but the following will help to keep the water maintained until you discover if it is columnaris or something else. I would do another 50% WC, gravel Vacuum, you have already added salt to the water but might have to add some more for the water replaced by the WC. As one of your readings had nitrite showing I would probably to be on the safe side do daily WC until you discover what the problem is.

What is your ammonia reading and do you have any pics of the fish in question. Columnaris has a cottony appearance do your fish this type of leision.

If it is determined that Columnaris is the problem you will have to take any carbon out of the filter and treat with either copper sulfate or antibiotics.

Cheers
 
Coler said:
Sounds like columnaris but you can consider it to be generally poor fish health due to water quality. The cause would seem to be water quality as you have been having nitrite issues - .5 ppm is dangerous. Can you do an ammonia test and confirm what kind of test kit you are using, how long tank is set up, and what inhabitants are in it. Your Nitrates are also too high if your test is accurate - 40 or less, 20 or less even better.

Treatment should be large, large daily water changes - like 80% for at least a week. You should see huge improvements. If you start losing fish/see no improvement you may medicate with an antibiotic - maracyn or maracyn 2.

The first thing to do however is the huge water changes.

30% changes every 10 days is not really enough for general tank maintenance btw. You need minimum 25 - 30% per week; whatever necessary to keep nitrates well below 40.
Click to expand...

DLV082 said:
Columnaris is bacterial and thrives in organic waste, I am not saying that it is Columnaris but the following will help to keep the water maintained until you discover if it is columnaris or something else. I would do another 50% WC, gravel Vacuum, you have already added salt to the water but might have to add some more for the water replaced by the WC. As one of your readings had nitrite showing I would probably to be on the safe side do daily WC until you discover what the problem is.

What is your ammonia reading and do you have any pics of the fish in question. Columnaris has a cottony appearance do your fish this type of leision.

If it is determined that Columnaris is the problem you will have to take any carbon out of the filter and treat with either copper sulfate or antibiotics.

Cheers
Click to expand...


I had been using a Jungle Labs quick dip test kit, but in doing research I found that these can be inaccurate, so I went and picked up a liquid test kit by API. Is this one ok, or should I look into another one? I'll start doing 50% or more WC daily to see what happens. I also picked up some Maracyn 2 as it looked like it treats more things than Maracyn alone. Should I just do big WC for a week, then retest before using Maracyn 2?

I'll get an ammonia reading and pics up as soon as I can.

Thank you again for all the help!
 
API liquid kit is perfect.

Yep - do large large water changes daily - as much as you can manage - fresh water heals fish quicker than anything else...for a week. If you see no improvement, consider meds. Post pics of the fish here if you can first.
 
Coler said:
API liquid kit is perfect.

Yep - do large large water changes daily - as much as you can manage - fresh water heals fish quicker than anything else...for a week. If you see no improvement, consider meds. Post pics of the fish here if you can first.
Click to expand...

I tested my water with the new liquid test kit and my ammonia and nitrites measured at 0 ppm. My nitrates were at just over 40 ppm. I did a very large water change, but ran into some problems.....

So I got down to 70% water out of the tank during the change and gravel vac. I then started filling up the tank using the outside hose. I then thought I could use the water jet from the hose to get into the crevasses I couldn't get to with the gravel vac. A bunch of solid waste started coming out, so I started the gravel vac back up to remove some of it (about 15G more). I filled the tank up to the top, then I noticed the fish were laboring for air at the top of the tank. I used some NovAqua de-chlorinator and started the powerheads up. All of a sudden the fish started freaking out. All of them got REALLY stressed, then I realized I was in trouble. About 40 minutes later, I lost a large spotted pictus and an albino catfish (that I had forever), 2 redfin borleyi, and a chrysonotus. I have my Bi-color 500 (the one showing the most signs of Columnaris) and one of my OB zebras in quarantine because they seem to be struggling to recover. Most of the others seem to be doing a lot better. I think something might be wrong with the OB zebra's swim bladder as he is staying turned upside down in the quarantine tank. I salted the quarantine tank, put in an air stone and a heater running at 78 deg.

As for the main tank, I put in 2 huge air stones and dropped the temp to 77 deg to get more O2 in the water, hopefully they won't labor as much. I also salted this tank.

I'm thinking maybe I didn't add the de-chlorinator soon enough and things went wrong from there. Also, maybe the change from 83 deg to around 74 deg during the WC stressed them out. I'm planning on letting the tank stay how it is for all of tomorrow, then doing daily 25% WC and aquarium salt for 10 days. I'm not sure if I should raise of the temp. Any suggestions on what I should do?

The guy at my LFS told me if the salt and WCs don't work, I should try Kordon's Acriflavine to cure the Columnaris.

Ahhh, this turned into an absolute nightmare for my poor fish. :headshake2:
 
I would agree that the temp change and late addition of the water conditioner did the damage, could've also stirred up a pocket of ammonia.
Try to add the water conditioner to the water in the bucket and let it sit for 10 minutes before adding to the tank. Water temp should match within 2 degrees.
 
Sorry to hear about your fish, have to agree with Reframer, the temp drop alone could have sent you fish into shock. In future make sure that the water is dechlorinated before it goes into the tank and that the temp of the water being added is no more than a couple of degrees different to what is already in the tank. Test your water daily before each WC to determine how much you need to change if there are any Amm or Nitrites do larger changes than you would do if there are none. As for raising the temp Columnaris does better in higher temps and low oxygen environment, leave the temp as it is until the tanks is stable also if you have a spray bar on your filter try changing it to provide more movement across the top of the water in the tank to help with the oxygen situation. Keep us posted please.
 
DLV082 said:
Sorry to hear about your fish, have to agree with Reframer, the temp drop alone could have sent you fish into shock. In future make sure that the water is dechlorinated before it goes into the tank and that the temp of the water being added is no more than a couple of degrees different to what is already in the tank. Test your water daily before each WC to determine how much you need to change if there are any Amm or Nitrites do larger changes than you would do if there are none. As for raising the temp Columnaris does better in higher temps and low oxygen environment, leave the temp as it is until the tanks is stable also if you have a spray bar on your filter try changing it to provide more movement across the top of the water in the tank to help with the oxygen situation. Keep us posted please.
Click to expand...

I'll def keep that in mind when I do the next WC. What temp should I keep the tank at to battle the Columnaris? Also, What is the best way to do large WCs w/o having to do it 5G bucket by 5G bucket and still keep the temp up? Finally, is there something I can do to correct the what looks like to be a swim bladder problem in the quarantined OB zebra?

Thanks
 
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