String of deaths possible COLUMNARIS or tb?

ceacole050505

Member
May 9, 2016
6
1
1
Norfolk, UK
Hi everyone,
I used to be a frequent flyer here a few years back
By the name of riverside any...

It all started with Reid... Our 135 plec that had this strange white patch on his side that seemed to just lose all its colour, totally lost its hue. However nothing else was wrong with him. This was it for ages, months. Then we moved him to another tank. A thew months after that this patch became bigger then redder. Then his tail became bent and he stopped eating and died in days.

Within a week or two of that our banjo cat fish developed these white spots... Looked like itch, totally not the same as Reid. We treated the tank but it did not work, we tried a salt dip as his tail became bent and it was a last attempt.
The external signs disappeared but hours tail remained bent. He died soon after for all our efforts.

Next with all the symptoms with a Bristlenose, except we did loads of water changes tried a bacterial medication. It seemed to help, we did two cycles of this and he was almost better but he just died. Found him on the bottom of the tank.

Now our pride and joy, our Rusty pleco has got these two bits of white lines around two scales.

All of our fish are older fish, our tank is established over 8 years old. Tank parameters have not changed in forever.
No new fish added in over a year or maybe even two.

Please help!

I have lowered the temp To 24 very slowly....
 

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Bigjohnnofish

Global Moderators
Staff member
Apr 15, 2010
1,399
2
36
Perth, Western Australia
im not really sure at all - never had anything like it myself....

im a great believer in keeping water quality as good as possible which usually means frequent water changes on a regular basis...

first point of call would be to test ammonia and nitrate... any ammonia is detrimental to fish and nitrates although relatively harmless in low levels can also cause problems if it creeps too high... in either case it will lower the fishes own immune system and create an opportunity for gram negative bacteria to flourish... in good water quality gram negative bacteria can never multiply enough to be a problem... in short gram positive bacteria out competes gram negative bacteria hands down majority of the time but when water quality is poor it allows gram negative bacteria to build up its numbers and become potentially a big problem... vast majority of bacteria which effect fish are gram negative including columnaris... there are so many different and evolving strains of bacteria so its very hard to actually grasp what it is....

most cases i have seen usually end up in a lot of fish deaths before it is rectified... you can treat with oxytetracylene or similar... but dont expect to be able to cure everything in your tank if it indeed is columnaris....

prevention is far better than cure - so for me i keep the water in my tanks as best as possible and touch wood - havent had much trouble....

im unsure exactly what it is but it does look to be bacterial - possibly followed by secondary fungal infections...

good luck with it and let us know how it pans out so others can learn from this