Columnaris (?) Killing all my fish... and fast.

I'm sorry. It made me feel sick to my stomach too. I didn't have the money to spend on all those meds either - I'm one of those paycheck-to-paycheck people. Since mine was in a 55g tank, I had to buy enough mends to treat the whole volume of the tank. Before I tried the Kanaplex, I went through nearly $100 to try & save $20 of fish. (I had tried Tri Sulfa too) I went through pages & pages here because I posted for help on treating columnaris. You should be able to find it if you enter columnaris in the search box. I got tons of advice from many members here.

The columnaris killed 11 cardinals, 4 black tetras, 2 blue rams, amd 6 celebes rainbows in a week.

Found that from the journal I had on the 55. In the end I tore it down, as all I had live were 9 celebes rainbows (oddly enough the fish that brought the columnaris in) I finally understood the need for a QT tank. They (the surviving celebes) went in a newly set up QT tank for months before I got another tank set up. They are still thriving, with their new tank mates. I worried that they could be carriers, like Typhoid Mary but they are fine over a year later. Many of my fish never showed any signs of being sick. They went from fine to dead so fast, within hours. I only saw the cottony growth on a few fish. There was some discussion about whether there were new, more drug resistant strains, and talk about fast acting acute columnaris vs. more treatable, more drawn out columnaris - which gave you time to treat it since is wasn't so fast acting.

I hate it for you, been there. Prior to my outbreak I didn't have a QT tank. Now my new fish stay in it for 2 months before getting introduced to a tank. Anytime I see what I think might be odd behavior or a strange spot (so far always my imagination) I freak, thinking it's new columnaris. Once I experienced it, I came to fear it all the time. I seriously thought about giving up on fish, but now I have more tanks than ever, and I hope you don't let it stop you from enjoying this wonderful hobby.

there are 2 bacteria that seem to cause what we call columnaris, the one blamed most commonly is flexibacter. according to an article i read (http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Columnaris.html) aeromonas can cause the same symptoms (virtually impossible to tell the difference without sampling the lesions). now flexibacteria, actually NEED good clean water. i read in another article (lost the link) that was a primary source of a researcher sampling and culturing columnaris, and that in low O2 cultures growth was strongly inhibited. this makes sense as flexibacteria are obligatory aerobes and need O2 for respiration. aeromonas, does not. and columnaris cases in dirty, poorly filtered and aerated tank are most likely aeromonas, not flexibacter cases.
so sorry, but just cuz the waters clean, doesnt mean your fish dont have a flexibacter infection. that said, dirtying the water and reducing dissolved O2 will likely kill the fish before the bacteria; so dont do that.

the minocycline should help. its very broad spectrum, unfortunately its not too strong either. if after 48 hours, asymptomatic fish become symptomatic, id consider adding another antibiotic. kanamycin or sulfathiozole, IF they dont interact with minocycline .