Mystery - I've never seen this...

[DocJ]

i'll try to keep this concise.

30gal planted freshwater, well maintained, general community fish, set up for about 1 year.

i recently bought several gold barbs and a pair of blue rams.
within 1-2 days several fish began exhibiting the following:
fish seemed to lose color only in a thin vertical band around 20% of their body and swimming became erratic with the fish rubbing against driftwood but not excessively. i thought gill/skin flukes and medicated appropriately but fish have continued to die off. i've inspected them with a magnifying glass and don't see any signs of flukes.

i'm at a loss, could there be some sort of poison in the water? nothing's been done around the tank with any "foreign" substances. help!!!!

thank you...

 

[optix]

what are your water parameters ph hardness??

 

[DocJ]

Originally posted by optix
what are your water parameters ph hardness??

ph 7.0
medium-soft

 

[optix]

NH3, N02 in your tank at all??? what are your nitrate readings? I can't see what would go wrong with your set up. Only thing I can think of is either the barbs or your rams introduced an internal parasite. Did you quarantine the fish before introduction?

 

[Cloud-9]

It could be flexibacter

 

[Mantis_22]

Originally posted by Cloud-9
It could be flexibacter

correct, a good dosage of Melafix would be my first step to solving to an answer.

 

[DocJ]

nitrite and nitrate levels are not elevated.

i did not quarantine the new fish but i did dip them with paragaurd before introducing them.

i'm not familiar with flexibacter or the remedy Melafix?

thank you.

 

[Cloud-9]

I have never used Melafix. No comment from me about that remedy.

Generally, look for something that will cure cotton wool disease and finrot. You should not have trouble locating those in a pet shop. There's a medication called "Fungus Cure" that is commonly stocked that might work.

 

[Mantis_22]

Melafix fixes all of that with anti-bacterial/fungus curing agents. It also can be used for many other uses. I use it mainly to renew my cichlids fins which usually get chomped off after getting in a quarrel with another fish. You can get Melafix anywhere and regardless of what anyone else wants to say it does work. Ive used it for about a year or so now in a quarantene tank and my angel has grew back 85% of all of her fins in about a 4 week period. By the way, its made by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals.

Heres a pic of my box (Sorry for the bright contrast)

Also about flexibacter, it is a widespread fungus, usually said near the upper body of fishes such as there mouths but it can be present anywhere on the body of a fish where lessend immunity of damaged scales, fins, etc are.

 

[Raithan Ellis]

If it is Flexibacter (Columnaris), you really need to treat ASAP. That stuff can really attack certain cichlids very rapidly without any outward signs if it's an internal infection. Death is a common result.

Depending on your setup, wide spectrum antibiotics could be the best route to follow. Maracyn and Maracyn II used in combination with each other yield great results, as one attacks gram positive and the other attacks gram negative bacteria. I've used both together in tanks housing discus, angels, corys, otos, angel fry, guppies, ect... never had a problem with it and it hasn't yet killed my biological filter bacteria.

Dosing salt and keeping the tempatures at 74-75 will also help. Don't raise the temps past 76F with columnaris, it will be like wildfire beyond that point. However, I have heard cases of adding salt and taking temps to the 90's F will rememdy it as well, however that would be a last resort in my opinion.

Regards,
Raithan O. Ellis