Diagnostic Help Please
- Thread starter FSUphitau85
- Start date
Well, even after quarantine, Columnaris got my Bi-Color 500 :/ I'm trying to get my tank down below 78 deg, but it seems to just be staying there. I turned the stealth heater down to 72 with no luck, so I just turned it off. Any suggestions? Also, another one of my zebras is showing signs of the Columnaris worsening. He developed white lips and rings around his eyes, but now they are peeling and he is just hanging out by the intake. Should I go ahead and try quarantining him?
Thanks
Thanks
Ahhh, the water parameters seem to be getting better, but the fish worse. I lost a Kenyi today :/ One of my zebras eyes are completely fogged over and his head is peeling. My Regal Peacock has some white patches on his dorsal and tail fin. He seems to be acting different as well. I AM VERY CONCERNED and am wondering if I should start treating the tank with Maracyn-Two. If so, how should I be doing tank WCs in combination? Also, any recommendation on getting the water temp down? Even with the heater off, it only gets down to just over 76 deg. This Columnarisis absolutely reeking havoc on my tank!
Man sorry to hear its gone south.
I think you should move to Maracyn 2 as it really seems to have taken hold. If possible, I would even consider buying say a 20G Long tank, set it up as a hospital, remove fish the minute it appears on them and treat in there.
I think you should move to Maracyn 2 as it really seems to have taken hold. If possible, I would even consider buying say a 20G Long tank, set it up as a hospital, remove fish the minute it appears on them and treat in there.
I have a 20G tall I can dig out and setup. I'll prob do that tomorrow. Should I go ahead and start treating the 72G in addition to the hospital tank? Also, according to the Mardel disease guide, it says I should treat with Maracyn instead Maracyn-2. Maracyn 2 is for gram negative (Columnaris is also) and Maracyn is for gram positive bacteria. Also, wikipedia says to treat with Maracyn. Was there a reason you suggested Maracyn 2 over Maracyn?
Thanks
If you're really struggling to get the temperature down then try floating frozen half full pop* bottles. I'm given to understand it's quite key to treating columnaris.
*soda if you're American
Well, the tank stayed down around 70 for a while because we had a somewhat cold night, but went back up today to 76. I'm thinking it partially might be bc of the powerheads putting off heat? Not sure. I'm taking your advice and freezing a big bottle of water to float inside the tank.
I also started the treatment with Maracyn-2, now on the 3rd day. Before I started, I did one last good gravel vac and WC, but the nitrates were still reading at 10 ppm. No more WCs until I finish the treatment though. Ironically, my EB Johanni developed what at first I thought was popeye, but then maybe not, it may just be the columnaris, again, I'm not sure. The Maracyn-2 says to treat for 5 days, then do a 25% WC. Should I stick to this, maybe go for longer than 5 days, and do a bigger WC?
On another note, my EB Ahli was having problems eating. Like he wanted to eat the Spectrum pellets, but he kept spitting them out. I read somewhere that this could be do to the columnaris, so I fed the guys frozen bloodworms, which they gobbled right up.
Thanks for the help!
your powerhead is putting out heat, you are right. i would leave the temperature be and not fight it, because you make things worse by having it bounce around. leave it alone. maracyn-two is good med, so you can just treat the whole tank without moving the fish. just run the med 5 days like you should and only worry about water change during treatment if your parameters aren't good. if you think that med helps but fish still needs another treatment to fully recover, then do a huge water change, give it a day of break and then run the med agan the same way you did it the first time. do not use any other meds at the same time. most other meds will screw with your bio filtration or will be too much. make sure your heater is plugged in so that the temperature doesn't go over 76 but doesn't let it get much lower than that over night. for now feed your fish what they will eat, later they should start eating better. don't worry about nitrates right now. also, 10ppm isn't a big deal at all.
Thanks for the help. My temp is jumping up around 78 deg, so I unplugged the PH to reduce some heat. I only turned it in for a minute to spread out the Maracyn-2 when I added it.
I don't know what's happening to all my fish. Today I came home from work and found my Venustus dead and pinned up against my PH. On the back half of my kenyi, he has seemed to lose his color and instead has a big cloudy white patch on each side. Like you can see through his scales and it looks like blood on his body and dorsal fin on each side. But its not cottony looking. Lastly, one of my OB zebras has something funky going on with his bottom lip. Like instead of it being curved and matching up with the top one, it instead is flat and almost seems to be swollen, likes its sticking out or something. This happened to 2 of my other cichlids before they passed. Is this a sign of Columnaris or possibly something else. Maybe I'm treating for the wrong thing because I'm seeing some of my fish getting sicker rather than better. This is just absolutely awful.
