Adding new fish after columnaris outbreak

[hartgirl]

How do you know if it is safe to add new fish, and when? I lost all of the rummy nose tetra (pretty sure they brought the disease in) and all of the neons, all but 6 little amber tetras, 3 gbrs, 3 angels, 3 danios....and a partridge in a pear tree.

90 gallon tank....so eventually I will want to add back all of the fish I lost, except maybe the neons (cardinals instead)...and I WILL be QT-ing all of them? But when is it safe?

(As a bonus question, I got the angels from a breeder...would it be safer to just get 3 more from him instead of a lfs?)


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[hartgirl]

Note: I still have 2 days of meds left. Fish death is much less frequent (lost an angel yesterday) but all else seems normal-ish....obviously not going to do this right away...just for future reference.


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[Matt68005]

Sure it was columnaris?
Columnaris usually isnt overly infectious, and it lives on fish not substrate, so i would so keep the tank nice and pristine clean for a week with no fish and then it would be O.K to add a few more, make sure they are big and healthy fish, as they WILL be stressed from shipping and the petsrore, and stress is the primary factor that leads to columnaris outbreak.
Everything else, nets, fake plants ornaments should be stearilized in warm water and maybe very very weak solution of bleach, and the substrate vacumed well. Leave your filter good and "gooey" so that the tank dosent crash.
Out of curiosity, what meds have you been using?

 

[hartgirl]

Yup saddleback lesions and fin tail rot. Exploded after I turned up the heat to treat ich...there are still fish in the tank and I am treating with triple sulfa. I treated once before with maracyn plus (no longer available) and Sulfamethazine was an active ingredient so that's why I chose the triple sulfa this time ...I understand that it can live in the water column for 35 days after so I just want to make sure I kill it before adding anything new going forward. I will be bleaching the QT tank where some of the more adversely affected fish went. It's a planted tank so I did what I could on the gravel but did about 30% PWC again today and added more meds. One more round tomorrow and then another large PWC to follow and then I'll fill the tank back up. Debating keeping the salt around a little longer after treatment....columnaris hates salt...


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[Matt68005]

yes, i was gonna say maybe just lightly "kill off" the tank but keep the filter running on like a tub of water or something, maybe methylene or furan or malachite/formalin at half strength for a few days along with salt and NO aeration and you should be good to go on adding new fish, its not that its in the water you know that well as i do, its that the new fish are gonna be stressed and have no defense against whatever hits them first, thats why i like to give fish a medicine treatment as soon as i get them from the petstore. If you live in the USA you might consider this for feeding to new fish. Ken's Premium Sinking Pellets with Oxytetracycline 2.5mm
Its a very cheap very good antibiotic, and you just put it in your blender and blend it up feed that to the new fish for 10 days and i guarentee you they will not have problems with bacterium. Just giving you useful ideas.

 

[hartgirl]

That food sounds awesome. I am going to set up a new smaller tank for new inhabitants that will remain cycled at any moment as well...both to QT and give the fish a chance on a much smaller scale to build up an immune system....as you can imagine, treating for 90 gallons costs a small fortune! (Though I lowered my water level and am treating for 50 gallons instead)


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[Matt68005]

Did you get the Terramycin food? It wouldn't matter much in a 90 gallon because its, well food. Just feed the new fish that,and minimize stress to them, and you shouldn't have problems anymore.

 

[hartgirl]

Sounds good...thanks for the info. I haven't yet but I'm looking into it so far no more deaths and no ich. I am adding 3 more angels tonight from the same batch as the ones I have now....fingers crossed!


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[Delapool]

It will survive in an empty tank for about a month.

I reckon I must of had a 2 month gap when I had a repeat (some fish survived first time). The tank never really felt like it settled until summer went and tank temp lowered.

 

[hartgirl]

Crossing fingers for no repeats...hopefully the meds killed it. ?


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[Delapool]

In my case it was definitely every time I had a temp spike in tank (darn summer). Treating I found the fish would do better in cooler weather (although didn't save many). I don't know if it was just me but high temps seemed to not help at all.

 

[hartgirl]

I agree high temps are bad for that! I was starting to treat for ich with high heat when this all started!


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[Matt68005]

Yep, and all you need is a $6 bottle of Rid Ick from a fish store and it will be gone in 24 hours, people that don't use meds or dont believe in using them, or don't understand fish disease/parasites usually fail and give up. That is why their imput is useless to other hobbyist. I wish people would use the google thing on their computer and READ READ READ instead of ask other new hobbyist or Fish store people for advice. Neither one knows what their talking about 90% of the time.
Sorry for the rant.

 

[hartgirl]

I did successfully treat ich with heat and salt once before. IF you catch it very early, it works like a charm. In my sad case, either the fish were sicker than I thought, or maybe the temp went up too fast, and they got an outbreak. I am using Kordon ICH attack (good reviews) and so far I did lose the worst fish (the one that came in with it) but nobody else seems to have it. I have scaleless fish too, and they're ok (plus I hate when silicone turns blue after treatment ?)


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