HITH? Duck lips? ?

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I realize my methods might seem drastic, but when in the U.S. I had about 20 tanks, and a couple ponds going all the time, up into thousands of gallons, so having a disease like that spread would have been disastrous.
If you have only 1 or 2 tanks, treatment may be worth the cost and trouble, but I could not risk it.
With easy diseases to cure like ick, no problem, but insidious hard to cure easily, and expensive ones to treat like columnaris, one needs to weigh cost, time with expected benefit.
 
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I usually didn't do quarantine tanks per se. My MO was to just start a whole new tank and buy more new fish. Each new system was a QT until it wasn't.

It got out of hand having bought 17 various tanks and sumps, but my interests narrowed, and now I just run 3 modest systems, one 5g nursery, and a betta. I spent more for meds on that one tank, than all the others, over the course of 45 years! (As far as I know, I never encountered columnaris until 2015.)

duanes said:
. . .but insidious hard to cure easily, and expensive ones to treat like columnaris, one needs to weigh cost, time with expected benefit.
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Oh, I should have sterilized the whole tank. I spent 10x the cost of the fish on meds. But accepting defeat wasn't for me.

I eventually cured it, after thinking antibiotics had worked, and seeing it recur, but maybe antibiotics had weakened the disease until the salt and tannin would work to finish it off. No way to be 100% sure.

For months that tank and sump etc is all sitting dry in my junkyard, sterilized by the desert sun.

Anyhow I got lucky because 18 mos later I see no sign on the remaining fish. Since they went in the patio tank they've never been more active or attractive.
 
Like many pathogens, this one can lie dormant for lengthy periods, including in mud (as per studies linked to), only to surface if/when a persons fish come under stress. With this pathogen, at least with some of the strains, never say never. I'm with Duane on this, the only way to safely say that it is 100% gone, is to euthanize all fish & nuke the tank and everything that touched it or the water in it.
 
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There are a couple of late studies done on columnaris bacteria, according to which it is actually naturally occurring in every aquaculture systems and is only pathogenic when it gets it's conditions. I think nuking the tank is pointless.

Below is one of the studies.

I had one case of columnaris and all I did was treat with kanamycin sulfate. I started treating after I saw the first sick fish and I lost 2 in total. The remainder, being 6 harlequin rasboras and 2 clown loaches are still alive and doing well. That happened nearly 3 years ago and the fish were moved to a bigger tank with other occupants. I haven't had any such incidents since and the tank that was treated has been occupied by hillstream loaches after I moved out the others at the end of quarantine. All fish are fine.

There are different strains of columnaris and some are certainly more virulent so I might have been lucky getting away with it easily. My fish had the typical mouth rot and saddleback rot and the 2 that showed signs died within a couple of days from me noticing.
 
I believe some columnaris seem species specific, or at least family specific, as some may effect cichlids, and not infect others such as tetras, or goby's.
In the 60s it was casually known as "live bearer disease", and appeared at a time when there was a lot of load ive bearer hybridizing.
When it hit my tanks, it seemed to coincide with the cichlid hybridization craze.
I believe that when companies started creating mass amounts of FHs, and an excess of antibiotics were needed to combat the occurrence of less than good immunity genetics sacrificed by the idea of a big Kok and color, and this in turn created drug resistants columnaris forms.
I have found in the saddle back and head tuft column stages, there may be a better chance of cure, but once the duck lips, atrophied jaw stage hits, those cure chances fall off considerably.
 
Coryloach said:
There are a couple of late studies done on columnaris bacteria, according to which it is actually naturally occurring in every aquaculture systems and is only pathogenic when it gets it's conditions. I think nuking the tank is pointless.

Below is one of the studies.

I had one case of columnaris and all I did was treat with kanamycin sulfate. I started treating after I saw the first sick fish and I lost 2 in total. The remainder, being 6 harlequin rasboras and 2 clown loaches are still alive and doing well. That happened nearly 3 years ago and the fish were moved to a bigger tank with other occupants. I haven't had any such incidents since and the tank that was treated has been occupied by hillstream loaches after I moved out the others at the end of quarantine. All fish are fine.

There are different strains of columnaris and some are certainly more virulent so I might have been lucky getting away with it easily. My fish had the typical mouth rot and saddleback rot and the 2 that showed signs died within a couple of days from me noticing.
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This has been discussed in the past, and now, just as then, I do not believe that this pathogen is found in every aquarium world-wide. Nope, not buying that.

Colunmaris is a force to be reckoned with.

In less then 2 days, I have had 14 angels and 8 rams die whom were living healthy together for 8 months. I did the mistake the many beginners do being not quarantining fish, and this has brought a disaster to my fish room. On top of my all my 55 stock dying this disease has also infected my...
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I do not think so either, pathogens need to be introduced. IMHO. Aquariums are a closed system.
 
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Maybe I’m wrong but IMO I believe that this research, and studies, is referring more to commercial aquaculture facilities as a whole, not so much hobbyist aquariums.
 
Also wonder what the microbiologist thinks about this? duanes duanes
 
Although aquariums in themselves are closed systems, many of the fish that are introduced come from breeding ponds in Florida, or Asia, or anywhere in nature and carry loads parasitic organisms.
In LFS tanks are often mixed, and bacteria can be transferred fish to fish.
A friend of mine who runs the aquatic section on a zoo quarantines all new introductions for at least 6 months. I'm lazy and usually only do 2-3 months. Although it can take many pathogens 6 months to show up.
A bacteria like columnaris can sit dormant for 6 months, and only appear after conditions are perfect for it to become virulent, and only a single drop of water can carry millions.
 
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