columnaris?

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jus85411

Feeder Fish
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Mar 16, 2009
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i picked up a lemarks angel about about a week and a half ago. noticed after a day or two that he had these white spots on him, kind of looked like ich to me but the spots looked kind of big for ich and there wasnt a lot of them. then after coming upon a site that had a picture of a molly with columnaris it had the same white spot towards the back of the top fin of the fish and also had a diagram of common spots on the fish for the white spots to occur and it was pretty much dead on. one spot toward the back of the fish on its top fin, and had like two spots on its tail. my fish also has two spots on its right side fin. but unlike what i have read my fish doesnt have any mouth fungus that relates with this disease. i have to dig out my camera and try to get a good picture of it. until then i just wanted to see what people thought. any input is greatly appreciated. :nilly:
 
Would have to see a picture to know for sure. But, if it is columnaris, it's bacterial in nature not fungal. In which case you should talk to a local fish guy and try to get something with tetracycline in it as a treatment. The white spots that look like ich could actually be ulcers. Columnarisi is also contagious and you should put the fish in a quarantine tank if you can.

I would perhaps avoid the shop you got the angel at also, from now on. Sounds like you may have gotten a bunk pick up. I hope that it doesn't take out anything else in your tank.
 
i couldnt get that good of a picture to where you could really see what i am talking about. the fish was hiding a little bit and everytime i pressed my finger to snap the picture he seemed to move and just came out blurry. i was reading the columnaris is a gram negative parasite, tetracycline is gram positive. i got coppersafe cause it said to treat with something with copper sulphate in it. while trying to take a picture of it i did notice a little white spec on its mouth. i will post a link to the page where i seem to think i found its columnaris from this picture with the spots on the fish to look for white spots. the fish is in a 29 gallon quarantine tank. i actually set it up like 3 weeks before i wound up getting a new fish. seeded it with a sponge and live rock rubble from a filter on my 75. i sure as hell am glad i set up this QT because i would not be happy if my puffers got whatever this is.
 
that is a great idea to have set up a qt tank just follow the directions to a T on the coppersafe. Once he is clear of the spots keep him in QT for a extra 2 week's to be sure nothing reoccurs.

good luck

mr.reef24
 
it says in the directions to dose and it says it treats water for a month. i dont have to do multiple dosings? just dose once and its good for a month? i did the original dosing like a week ago but havent done another one because it doesnt say to dose a certain amount of times.
 
columnaris might start out looking like ick but slightly larger but after a few days it all flattens out to appear like a whitish/gray slime over the surface of the fish. If this happens then you will need to treat it with a gram negative antibiotic. It's a very deadly infection so keep a careful eye on it. You might want to start raising the temperature to 86F.
 
i did think it looked big for ick, so i researched more diseases that are like ick and found the columnaris. but i have read that raising the temp doesnt help, only lowering it. so i lowered it a few nights ago after reading that, and it seemed to have helped a lot! the bigger white spot on his tail is almost all gone, the couple little ones on his side fins are gone, the one toward the back of his top fin is getting smaller, he doesnt seem as jerky when he swims around. always ate well so i havent noticed a difference in him eating more/less. and he seems to be out and about more in the 29 gallon quarantine tank. it seems like i caught it during the early stages and it didnt have time to start creating the "saddle" on the fish of dead tissue that gives it the name "saddleback disease". it only got as far as being a spot the size of a medium sized freckle, having a little trouble comparing it to the size of something lol. maybe almost as big as a bead of silica gel? but anyways its clearing up and he seems more happy :)
 
here is the paint picture of what the spots looked like. i did it according to the size they looked while on him. this is the closest i will be able to get to getting a picture of this up.

angelfish.jpg
 
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