I had a ten gallon tank consisting of a male betta and three pristilla tetras. I added a candy stripe pleco and a piece of african driftwood, which I had been soaking in hot water for about a two weeks. Shortly after the new additions, I noticed that the betta's fins were being eroded at the ends and had holes in them. I suspected the pleco was being agressive and moved it to another of my ten gallos with 3 swordtails. I found the pleco dead two days later with some sort of white stringy stuff growing off of it. After further inspection, I found some of it on the driftwood in the other tank as well. I removed the driftwood. Since then the betta continued to lose color and sit on the bottom moving its gills as if it were having trouble breathing. I know that bettas breathe at the surface so I can only assume that it was discomfort. About a day later, the pristillas began to get white growths that looked like ich but larger. They died in another day with the betta following shortly after. The betta never had ich or any visible growths on him. Currently, two of the swordtails look sick. They have ich-like white spots and rear fins that seem to be eroding with white stringy growths coming off of them. They have also been scraping their bodies against the gravel on the bottom. They have been sick for about three days and the one seems to be getting better while another is getting worse. Treatment has been with Aquari-Sol protozoan and ich treatment and I have raised the water temperature according to the instructions. I also purchased some aquarium salt a few days ago and added the recommended dose for typical freshwater aquarium use. The main problem that I am having is that after looking around online for a while, nothing matched the description completely. I am just treating for Protozoans because it is my best guess. Everything in the betta's tank is dead so I just need to know how to clean it but I would also like to save my swordtails if possible. Does anyone have any further suggestions or a diagnosis? I will try to get a picture later if I can get ahold of my girlfriend's camera. Thanks.
Unknown Outbreak, Protozoans?
- Thread starter yardjass
- Start date
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mfdrookie516
Aquarium Free - 2+ Years
Doesn't sound quite like my experience with columnaris. When I went through it, my fish had cottony looking blotches on them, and their mouths literally started falling off. If it is indeed columnaris, lower your tank temp down to about 70 very slowly. You'll need to do lots of water changes. Treatment for columnaris depends on who you ask. Some say its incurable, others swear by certain medications. I had good luck simply using aquarium salt, melafix, pimafix, and daily 50% pwc's. I'm just not sure that what you're describing is columnaris though.
It looks like what is on the first two betta pics when you do a google image search for "columnaris". The mouths are fine though and the betta never had anything visible growing on him so I am not really sure. Anyway, I will give it a try. Thanks.
