Coral, do you think the 'sunken" bellies is a sign of columnaris or aeromonas/pseudomonas or is it a sign of mycrobacteria "fish TB" ?????
Really curious about what causes this sunken belly in guppies.
First sorry to OP if this seems off track to them(I don't think it is)??
Matt most of this is just MY interpretation of how I read stuff and unfortunately common sense(which requires little to no education!).
A lot is mentioned of enzymes in the fishes system which I interpret as a mild"acid" on the fishes organs.
Much is mentioned on rapid organ failure.
Many mentions of "good bacteria" being killed by "bad bacteria(the columnaris thing)"until the bad is in control.
Add those things together and you get symptoms that show shortly before death.
Many disease actually can have /cause curved spines and sunken belly.
IMO TB will have "s" curved spines not like the arched spine with sunken belly.
Columnaris lives in good water!For real!
Most other disease have compromised water quality in all honesty involved in the issue.
The individual keeper can easily differentiate between aeronomas and columnaris by honestly assessing their water husbandry IMO.
If you know you are always good on waterchanges and have not introduced anything it is columnaris IMO.
If you pay little attention to parameters and a diseased fish may go unnoticed for days or longer then anything can happen as secondary infections are very common also.
I also only really read pretty straight forward info on aeronomas and other common disease,but every page is different on columnaris.
Many don't even understand the difference in the different strains,many don't still fully understand so much about his (IMO) unfortunately evolving disease.
IMO it could "wear a different hat" tomorrow and still be proven to be columnaris.
The more I read on MANY diseases and dissolved organics that are NOT removed enough by water changes makes me think I am glad I know about and have Potassium Permaganate!
Seems to mentioned in almost every read!!!!HUM?