Altum Angels

[SmallMonster]

i am using Furan 2 and Quickcure and salt at the same time, will those medication clash and cancel out the effects? im getting stressed because i've gone through 2 complete treatment of furan 2 and even metronidazole and things are not looking good.

however, why do u say it might be time to raise the temp? when should it be raised?

i had a batch of 15. and dam im left with 13 now. mine looks healthy and all, just have that irritating white specks on them+incomplete finnages. the fins dont seem clamped in all of them. all are greedy as hell. and im still worried as hell.

and yea, u are right, i am STRESSED :S im developing feelings for this graceful creatures. whats worse, it seems to me that some of their eyes are becoming bigger. pop eye? :/

 

[SmallMonster]

btw, should i isolate the really bad looking ones?

 

[impala]

Just turned my lights on, down to twelve, There are two opinions on temp. some say keep it at the low end, 78-80 so as to slow the growth of bad stuff, or bump it to 85-90 to speed the parasite/bacteria cycle up.

I'm keeping mine at 84, they look very stable and eating everything, but still three unexplained deaths. What temp. are yours at now ? I've read of people slowly bumping their temps. to 90 for the QT period.

Personally I would not isolate them, just my 2 cents, and thats about all it's worth. Wish I could be of more help, last time I had Altums, in the 90's I lucked out, no problems, no losses. These problems are all new to me too. Good luck.

 

[SmallMonster]

wew thats a heaven lot of luck!

my temp is 25 degrees celsius now...

 

[impala]

wew thats a heaven lot of luck!

my temp is 25 degrees celsius now...

25 C = 77 F I don't want to give you the wrong advice, but I would consider very slowly bumping up the temp. to 29 C - 84 F

If you have time check out finarama.com not sure of the spelling, they are the wild angel pro's forum, well worth registering with imo.

 

[illumnae]

Sorry it took me so long to get back, neglected to check in here.

In your case, it may well be that by the time you started treatment, it was already too late. Once the columnaris bacteria attacks the gills and/or internal organs, it's more or less "game over" for the fish. The fish may still "hang on" for a few weeks more, but there's scant little that can be done to reverse the slow death once infected to that stage. Over the years, I have found early treatment to be very effective with Furan-2. Usually, when Furan-2 doesn't work, nothing much else will work since Furan-2 is extremely effective in wiping out the bacteria. If the Furan-2 doesn't work, it just means that even with the bacteria eliminated, the fish have been physically damaged too far to recover any more, and they just slowly waste away.

Be careful in playing around with temperature. Literature suggests that columnaris bacteria is most active and reproduces the fastest in warmer temperatures of 25-29 C. Hence, the natural reaction to raise the temperature of sick fish tends to kill columnaris-infected altums even faster. If you are able to, raise your temperature temporarily to 30-32C, ABOVE the comfort range of columnaris. This would speed up the metabolic rate of the fish as intended, without giving the columnaris bacteria a reproduction spurt. Of course, this will not be the permanent temperature of the tank, but after a couple of weeks when the fish are stable, you can gradually lower the temperature to proper levels again.

Sorry if I haven't been able to be of help earlier, I was pretty out of it myself struggling with my own batches of altums. I did a few things different this year and expanded my knowledge on the altum quarantine process - but at a steep price as usual Glad to say that my latest batch of altums are making it out of the woods though after correcting mistakes induced probably by sloppiness, laziness or sheer ignorance (this is the last time I'm gonna "do things different" from my own tried and tested methodology - stop changing what works!!).

 

[illumnae]

A few more quick responses to some of your earlier queries:

#1 The purple solution you see is potassium permangenate. It's often used as a disinfectant, but you need to be experienced to use it. It's usually used as a dip and not a permanent treatment. When I mentioned using clean water, i meant not to use water that's been in contact with other fish. RO water and dechlorinated tap water should be safe. if in doubt, run a UV on your tank, but make sure the flow rate of the UV is slow enough to kill bacteria.

#2 Yes, ketapang leaves lower the pH of your water.

#3 Bulging out eyes seems to be one of the late-stage symptoms of columnaris, together with "swollen lips" and "melting fins". Fish at this stage can still be treated, but chances are not so good.

#4 don't isolate, treat the whole tank. Chances are the bacteria has already spread to all the fish, so just go ahead and treat everyone. After the treatment, if there are some that still don't seem to be recovering and are getting worse then isolate them.

 

[Abby91523]

is it possible to keep altum with scarlare? Are Altums good community fish with anything other than discus?