white fuzz on rainbows

[HeatherW]

O I go to feed my fish this morning and notice one of my turquoise rainbows has a white fuzzy substance on his side. then I noticed another one has a spot too.
SoI am assuming this is a fungus. how am I supposed to treat it? do I need to remove them from the large 90 gallon tank? the only other tank I have is a small 2.5 gallon.


In my large 90 gallon (with the sick rainbows) I have
harlequin rasbora
German blue ram
dwarf gourami
molly
polka dot loach

just checked the water yesterday:
nitrites 0
ammonia 0
nitrates 10
temp 80.4

 

[HeatherW]

not sure if it is relevant or not. I lost 3 bosemani rainbows since 26 feb and 1 harelquin rasbora on the 28th. this is a fairly new tank. tank cycled using fishless cycle, and then added fish. all rainbows have been in the tank 14 days now and the harlequin lasted about 10 days. all rainbows purchased at same store, harlequin purchased at different store

 

[jlk]

Oh no! I am so sorry, Heather! I would def move the sick fish to qt tank. Can you possibily get pics of the fish in question? I doubt its a fungus because your tank is healthy. I would be more suspect of a possible bacterial infection.

 

[HeatherW]

Here are a couple pics

 

[jlk]

It may be columnaris im afraid to say. I would treat the fish in question in qt with reduced temps (72-74), low dose of aq salt & a gram negative antibiotic (kanamycin or minocycline) and see how they respond to treatment. Good luck!

 

[HeatherW]

It may be columnaris im afraid to say. I would treat the fish in question in qt with reduced temps (72-74), low dose of aq salt & a gram negative antibiotic (kanamycin or minocycline) and see how they respond to treatment. Good luck!

well that is not good. These guys are still under my pet store warranty. should I take them back? what are the odds they will survive?

what about the rest of my tank? this is contagious right?

 

[jlk]

Theres a few strains of the bacteria- some are quite devastating & can kill in 24-48hrs while others take longer. It will be to you whether to take them back or try treating. Heres a link with more info:

Columnaris (Flexibacteria); Aquarium/Pond Treatment, Prevention; Fungus, Saprolegnia

 

[HeatherW]

so do I need to treat my main tank as well?

turns out my gourami had "popeye" as well...

 

[jlk]

Is the popeye one eye or both? Remove the sick fish for now- meds to treat your entire tank will be costly but let me see what i can find.

 

[HeatherW]

pop eye on one eye - I took all the sick ones back to the pet store. I still have a dalmation molly that might have a slight case of the pop eye also, but I still have him in the large tank.

I am turning down my heater but not sure it is going to work. don't know why - that is a whole other post. but for some reason I can't get it to go below 80F. I turn it down and it still comes on. it is a visa therm 300w and it is set to either 72 or 74 and still heating my aquarium to 80F. when I set it to 87F it heated the tank to 87, but now doesn't want to drop. I hope it drops tonight. did 3 more clicks to set it to 74... we will see if it drops.

ok, sorry I got side tracked there -- ok so I am trying to lower temp, adding salt (1 TBSP per 5 gallons) so that is a lot of salt. I ran out so I have only treated the equivalent of 35 gallons of my 90 gallon tank. I will buy more tomorrow.

will my loaches be ok with salt?

I bought some maracyn two - should I add that or just try the salt in the large tank?

 

[jlk]

Leave your salt where it is- right now your salt is @1tbs per 10g. This is a theraputic low dose & should be safe for your loaches. If you notice they are acting unusual, do a 50% wc to drop the salt concentation lower. Unless you bought a huge amount of maracyn 2, you probably wont have enough to treat your tank- undertreating may complicate things. If you have enough, go right ahead & stat treatment. Heres a link to National Fish Phamaceuticals- you can purchase kanamycin (enough to treat your tank for awhile) inexpensively compared to buying kanaplex on amazon. Click on 'products' & go to page 2. Good luck, Heather!!

FISH DISEASE DIAGNOSIS & FISH DISEASE TREATMENTS

 

[HeatherW]

OK, I am unsure of which I should do. the maracyn two will require a total of 63packets. I hae 48 right now and I hope I will be able to get another box.

should I start this since i already have it? would it be better to start now or wait and get the other suff?
both of these products I use with my filter media still in there (no carbon) right?

 

[jlk]

Nope- if you want to treat in your qt, go ahead (not sure if someone is in there or not). Dont treat your big tank until you can dose the full amount of meds for the entire length of treatment. Dosing a lesser amount or for not long enough can create bacterial resistance & then you will have greater difficulty trying to get things under control. Use the meds with your filter media (no carbon) but you will have to watch your parameters closely- antibiotics dont discriminate between good & bad bacteria & it may have an effect on your bb.

 

[ejaramillo01]

Nope- if you want to treat in your qt, go ahead (not sure if someone is in there or not). Dont treat your big tank until you can dose the full amount of meds for the entire length of treatment. Dosing a lesser amount or for not long enough can create bacterial resistance & then you will have greater difficulty trying to get things under control. Use the meds with your filter media (no carbon) but you will have to watch your parameters closely- antibiotics dont discriminate between good & bad bacteria & it may have an effect on your bb.

Agree, watch daily your ammonia level, there is a good chance that your tank will re start cycle... you will need to do PWC as needed..
Good luck

 

[HeatherW]

Well I went ahead and started treatment of the big tank. I got the temp down some too. It is now at 78f. Is that low enough or should I drop it to 76 or 74?
I also added the salt yesterday- only some. Should I just let it sit there at that level?
If I have to do water changes do needed to redose the tank with the medicine? When I am done with the medicine do I do a water change or let it stay in there a few extra days? Do I need to add the carbon filter when I am done or will just doing water changes be enough?

Thanks for all the help! Will I see any changes on my fish's pop eye? And if so how soon before I know the meds are working?

 

[ejaramillo01]

Well I went ahead and started treatment of the big tank. I got the temp down some too. It is now at 78f. Is that low enough or should I drop it to 76 or 74?
I also added the salt yesterday- only some. Should I just let it sit there at that level?
If I have to do water changes do needed to redose the tank with the medicine? When I am done with the medicine do I do a water change or let it stay in there a few extra days? Do I need to add the carbon filter when I am done or will just doing water changes be enough?

Thanks for all the help! Will I see any changes on my fish's pop eye? And if so how soon before I know the meds are working?

IMO let the salt level low. The medicine should show results in three to four days IME.

Before you start the PWC, follow the directions from the medicine. In other words, if the directions are to treat the tank every 24 or 48 hours with no PWC, do that.... Once you finish the treatment as directed in the medicine box, then you do the PWC, then you add back the carbon. And only after all that is when you start to monitor the ammonia and nitrites levels.... And the data will tell you how much good bacteria survived the treatment.

Make sense?

 

[jlk]

Well I went ahead and started treatment of the big tank. I got the temp down some too. It is now at 78f. Is that low enough or should I drop it to 76 or 74?
I also added the salt yesterday- only some. Should I just let it sit there at that level?
If I have to do water changes do needed to redose the tank with the medicine? When I am done with the medicine do I do a water change or let it stay in there a few extra days? Do I need to add the carbon filter when I am done or will just doing water changes be enough?

Thanks for all the help! Will I see any changes on my fish's pop eye? And if so how soon before I know the meds are working?

If you can drop the temp a bit lower (74), that would be great but i know you mentioned heater issues so manage the best you can. If all of your fish seem happy with the salt level & theres no unusual behavior, the level should be fine. If there is strange behavior, a pwc will drop the salt level further.

In respect to water changes (if you need to do them), try to do them @ the same time everyday so the meds are in the water for a full 24hrs. Then a wc & redose meds & salt (for the amount salt that was removed only). I know they recommend not doing wcs during treatment but if you start to see spikes in amm/nitrite, healthy water comes first. The meds are useless if the water is unhealthy. At the end of treatment, a big water change to remove the meds & you can run carbon for a 1-2 hrs to remove any additional traces then replace with your regular media. Hopefully, you will start to see some improvement in a few days! Good luck!

 

[HeatherW]

Thanks everyone

Water is still good so far. PH looks to be dropping just a little but I will watch it.

 

[jlk]

Heres on other thing you can do if you see white fuzzy spots on the fish you still have, you can carefully remove the fish & dab hydrogen peroxide directly on the white spots once a day. It will further aid in killing the infection. Keep us posted!

 

[HeatherW]

Heres on other thing you can do if you see white fuzzy spots on the fish you still have, you can carefully remove the fish & dab hydrogen peroxide directly on the white spots once a day. It will further aid in killing the infection. Keep us posted!

no other spots yet... that is a good thing because the next question would be "how in the world do you dab a fish???" i get the first part - catch them in the net...