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Help!!! possible cottonmouth?

10K views 25 replies 5 participants last post by  christian_cowgirlGSR 
#1 ·
I have two white cloud mountain minnows and two leopard danios in a 29 gallon tank, where they've been since it was set up a couple of weeks ago. I instantly cycled the tank using a sponge filter that had been in my 5 gallon tank for months.

Yesterday, I noticed some white fuzz on the lips of the two WCMMs. I did a partial water change yesterday and didn't think anything of it - 'till I started doing some research on it this morning when it was still there. Currently, the only thing I see wrong with them is the white stuff on their lips. They are swimming around normally. Their gills and fins look normal. Could this be columnaris? What do I do about it? I've also got red cherry shrimp in the tank and have found 2-3 dead shrimp in the last 24 hours.

Today, I did a partial water change - about 20%. I've got melafix and pimafix on hand. Should I dose with this? Will it harm the shrimp? I don't have any lfs close by, so I have to do with what I have on hand...
 
#5 ·
Forgot to mention... I took the HOB off of my 10 gallon tank and added it to the 29 gallon, which previously only had a sponge filter. I added a second sponge filter yesterday, not because of this "stuff" but because I didn't think the one was enough. When I added the 2nd sponge filter, I removed a 6" bubble stone.

I'm now gonna add a new sponge filter to the 10 gallon.
 
#6 ·
75*F should be good... I would also put the bubblestone back in to increase surface agitation, as increased O2 levels seem to help in treatment. Do large, daily water changes: clean water helps a lot.

Here is a link for a site that discusses treatment: http://guppyplace.tripod.com/Ailments.html

Here is a (bad) pic of one of my female bettas that died of columnaris:


The pic is fuzzy, but you should be able to see the patterned color loss on the fish. This fish went from looking healthy to this condition (and dead) in less than 2 days. Columnaris is a NASTY disease.

I noticed the following symptoms with my fish:
-heavy breathing ("panting")
-loss of color in patches (saddleback)
-deteriorating/shredded fins, beginning with the caudal fin
-swelled body
-rapid deterioration and death

I was told by a rather knowledgeable person that treating with Furan 2 could help, but II had to order it and wait for it to come in when I had the outbreak in one of my tanks. By the time it arrived, the fish seemed to be responding to the non medicine treatment I listed above (increased aeration and large water changes).

I have also heard to add salt to the tank, but I couldn't because I had corydoras.

I wish you luck, and hope it isn't columnaris. If you aren't seeing the "saddleback" like deterioration, it might be some other kind of fungus.
 
#10 ·
I had a similar thing that happened to my harlequin rasboras... I don't think it was columnaris... all just developed that odd looking white fuzz and died. They didn't look like they'd been passed through a garbage disposal like my fish did with the columnaris outbreak, and it was limited to the rasboras: none of the corydoras in the tank suffered any ill effects.
 
#11 ·
Good news: My fish are still alive and swimming normally this morning.
Bad news: It's hard to tell since they don't hold still very long, but the danios MIGHT each have a white spot between their eyes. It's very difficult to tell, though, since they don't hold still and, instead, zoom around the tank.

According to this website, there are several strains of columnaris, each of which has a varying degree of lethality to fish and which has varying symptoms. I think my fish have the third strain, out of the 4 types. I have added salt to the tank, lowered the water temperature, increased circulation/air flow in the tank. I don't have any Maracyn to add, but am considering adding melafix.
 
#14 ·
IF this is columnaris (and from what I understand columnaris is one of the most common infections for an aquarium to get), it will thrive in high oxygen warm water. I had it destroy my betta sorority. Also fish will react differently, I had one male who came down with it, he just acted lethargic and wanted to lay on the bottom. He wasn't clamped or anything and acted fine up until the last day when it bloated him and killed him overnight. He was a GORGEOUS dalmation crown tail. It got my giant betta Otis and he started acting clamped and not eating right. Next the toughest little crown tail female I've ever seen came down with it so bad she was puffing it out of her gills and mouth trying to attack it. It killed a DT and a CT female I had with no symptoms, just fine one day, on the bottom the next.

What I finally did to combat it was to take a bunch of the isolation cups the fish ship in. I prepped in a one gallon container:

*half tab of tetracycline (enough to treat 5 gallons),
*half a JFC tab (5 gallons worth as well)
*double dose of Stress Coat (10 to 14 drops/gal)
*4 tsp of salt

to make a roughly 4X concentration of prepared treatment. I then prepped another gallon jug with just 10 drops (double dose) of stress coat.

I put each fish in one of these cups and left them at room temprature (the giant betta I actually used a pickle jar). I changed the water once a day, you could tell when it was needing changed as the water would go from bright green to a very tannic looking redish brown. After this I have lost NONE of my bettas. I've treated three of them so far and one as a precaution. Make sure to go through the full cycle and clean the tank top to bottom with bleach/peroxide. Good luck with it, there are several strains of columnaris and they will attack one fish completely different from how they attack the next.
 
#16 ·
If you have shrimp, you need to be extremely careful about treating the tank, because from what I understand, they are quite sensitive to medication.

As far as bleaching plants, I always bleach new plants before I add them to my aquarium. I soak them in diluted bleach, then soak them in dechlorinated water and add to the tank.
 
#17 ·
My fish are all still alive today!

However, I've lost a handful of shrimp (one or two every day that I've found), and I haven't put anything in the tank that should affect them. Does columnaris affect shrimp too? Is there something else that might be affecting the shrimp? I've got half of my RCS colony in the affected tank. The other half is in a separate tank, which is looking healthy at this point.

I am more worried about losing the fish than I am the shrimp, but I'd rather not lose either if I can help it. Is there some other disease/infection that might also affect shrimp? Any ideas of what I can do to help the shrimp that I'm not already doing?
 
#23 ·
As the pimafix does not seem to be helping as much today as I had hoped, I have started doing some more in-depth research on columnaris and have come up with some interesting information. There are actually 2 or 3 infections/problems that may all be confused with columnaris. Thus why there are so many conflicting reports as to what people have used to "cure" "
"columnaris".

I had considered that my fish might have a type of fungus, as I am only seeing white cottony growths and since whatever is affecting my fish also seems to be killing my shrimp. Therefore, I started dosing with pimafix, which says it treats fungal infections. On day 3 of 7, the treatment doesn't seem to be helping, which tells me that I might be dealing with more than one problem (as seen by the differences in symptoms between danios and white clouds) or that I may be treating for the wrong thing all together.

For my information and for the information of others who may be dealing with these or similar symptoms, here is a list of web sites I have found helpful.

I still don't know for sure what my fish might have. None of them are showing the "saddle back" that is listed so commonly as a symptom of columnaris. The "lighter colored spots" that the danio(s) has/have doesn't look like cotton like a fungus would. Rather, it just looks like a lighter colored patch. The white lip(s) of the WCMMs don't look cottony either, just a very WHITE spot on them. None of the fish show any other signs. Whatever is wrong with this tank has also been killing my RCS.
 
#26 ·
Good news: The white stuff seems to be gone on all affected fish!
Bad news: Three days of treatment are left in the 7 that were recommended on the instructions, and I'm out of pimafix. I'll continue the treatment with melafix, and hope that it's enough.

I've placed an order for several medications, including furan 2, potassium permanganate, methylene blue, and of course, pimafix. I will hopefully get these in the next week and will then have them on hand for when I need them.
 
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