Urgent Urgent!!!!

Sounds like columnaris... I had an extremely contagious form about 6 months ago that wiped out half my african cichlids...


I'd quarantine ASAP and try to treat with antibiotics.


Also, I'd recommend potassium permanganate dip, which has worked really well for me- although a bit nerve wracking

here's a link that goes over the procedure. I have seen different methods, basically the stronger the solution the shorter the dip

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/columnaris_disease.php#Potassium Permanganate

As stated before Quarantine and treat the fish with Antibiotics.

There are 2 different Antibiotics basically. Gram negative and gram positive based treatments. The antibiotic used will depend on the type of infection as gram positive treats gram positive infections and gram negative treatments treat gram negative infections. Seeings how you will probably never know what it is specifically Id recommend treating with both positive and negative medications. You will want to quarantine the specific fish. I have a 10 gallon tank set up just for this. Then I would recommend going and getting some Maracyn and Maracyn II medications. Maracyn is basically Erythromycin. It will go after gram Positive infections. Maracyn II is Minocycline, basically a form of Tetracycline. It is used to treat gram negative infection. MOST but not all infections are gram negative. Both of these medications can be used together with no harm. Follow the instructions on the package to the word. DO NOT stop treatment early even if the fish looks fine. Antibiotics can be hard on your beneficial bacteria in your filtration and why I also recommend a hospital tank. Treatment should be about a week. I recommend the two medications above as they are easy to find at most any pet store as well as big chain Petsmart/Petco. As well as they are not very expensive.

Columnaris is a gram negative bacterial infection. The Maracyn II is effective against it. But as stated before its impossible to always diagnose what your fish may have. Most infections like this are due to a cause. Could be water conditions or other issues inside the main tank. Be sure to check your conditions and if any issues improve them.

Oh god not this again, This is definatley it and last time it was in my tank it took out the entrie tank. Should i treat my whole tank because he is currently in there with like 4 other small fish.thank goodness i havent added any other fish yet, just my originals. But should i antibiotic my whole tank? also when the excess food comes off the bottom it has the same sort of stuff on it. is that a sign the whole tank needs to be treated? also can i get the antibiotics at like petsmart or do i HAVE to order them? Also i will definatley go to petsmart today to pick up the Maracyn and Maracyn 2 stuff, ill have to give it to my entire tank because thats what hes had this ordeal through and like i said before the same stuff appears on excess food that gets loosened up from the bottom. I knew this has been too good

Ok, several things.

If your concerned with the other fish I would quarantine them all into a hospital tank. The reason being is antibiotics are very hard on biological filtration. Thus the reason to not dose the main tank.

The maracyn and maracyn 2 you can get at pet smart. I would also add the recommended amount of aquarium salt to the hospital tank as well to help as well. Don't go heavy on the salt. Just the standard amount. It will help with slime coat and healing.

Be sure to dose each antibiotic per each instructions.


Test your main tanks water perameters. Test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph.
Something is not right. After testing do a large water change. If you medicate the main tank do a 75% water change before medication. Be sure to get any rotting food out.

The fungus covering the food tells me you may be over feeding or there is another issue that your tank has going on. What are you using for a filter? What kind of circulation is in the tank?

How much are you feeding? How often do you feed them? What are you feeding?

You should never have food rotting and getting covered with fungus? Your fish should be able to consume all the food you feed them quite quickly.
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I havent tested my tanks in a week or so because all the amonia and nitrates wereat 0 (PH high 6's). i dont overfeed if anyting i underfeed, i add very fewpellet and flake mixed to the tank once a day and even theneven some gets missed all. my otherfishlook healthy and as forfiltration i have a power filter that is rated for40gallons on a 40, im thinking of adding another 10 gallon filter to it and i think i am for sure now. theonlyother fish that has been acting funny is 1 of 2 neons but i think itsplaying with its reflection. i havent even begun to add new fish to the tank yet. 1 panda cory (others jumped) and panda garra along with 1 cobalt dwarf gourami and 2 neons, im going toget another test thingy at petsmart today ( its name is not coming to me) and imgoing to look for the Antibiotics that were told. I dont have a quarentine tank going at the minute soim most likely going tohavetoadd the antibiotics to my main tank, even if it goes through another cycle iwont be heartbroken because these werent thefishi was planning on adding to begin with. althoughit would be nice to have them. i hope the anitbiotics work, the gourami is theonlyfishwithit at the moment, but im going do a 50 % water change and add some water to a 5 gallon i have thats dry and hope thats enough to do the trick. thanks forallthe help, sorry if im missing spaces the space nar tends to stink on this laptop, oh and the tank has excelent circulation, no spot that is stagnent in the least. or i can change out the current bio material for new stuff until treatment is over, there should be some in the gravel, although im probably just going to leave it and hope for the best

@[email protected] said:

sounds like columnaris (flexibacter infection).
its a b*tch to treat. took me over a week to cure a betta of mine of it, and bettas are really hardy to begin with.
quarantine the fish, but treat everyone. its contagious as hell.

i used sulfathiozole, but kanamycin would probably work better. increase temps, add salt, the works.

Click to expand...

With columnaris you never want to increase temps as it thrives at higher temps.

Treating with sulfa based gram negative antibiotics along with about 2 teaspoons of salt per 5 gallons of water in the tank.

You can also do a short term bath with methalane blue, salt and an antibiotic such as maracyn 2. The bath is done for 30 minutes.

Here is some great info on columnaris.
But. Realize you would have to use a microscope to identify it.


http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/columnaris.html

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