Some thoughts on antibiotics after treating a nasty disease.

[lipadj46]

It sounds like a systemic bacterial infection, perhaps with more than one type of bacteria. The fluffy covering on them sounds like columnaris. Can you further describe this? Did it cover the body, or was it just in a certain spot? The classic appearance of columnaris is a "saddle patch" like this platty:

Glad to hear you got it under control.
As far as who is to blame for this, it's really difficult to say. For so many different species to be effected to rapidly it sounds like some stressful event triggered this. You seem to maintain your tank pretty well, and water parameters are good. What diet do you feed? Can you think of anything out of the ordinary that happened around that time?

The fish did not have a saddle patch like that, it almost looked like a mix between velvet and early dropsy with the tetras and danios. The dojos had cloudy bulgy eyes and were floating at the surface breathing air but no other external signs, the dwarf gourami looked normal but a bit swollen and had a bluish stripe down its belly when it died. The plecos were not affected besides the one that died and that one looked normal.

I did add a big piece of manzanita driftwood that I poured boiling water over. Other than that and maybe some farting around with CO2 nothing really stressful that I can think of. As far as diet the fish get omega tropical flakes, hikari algae wafers, zuchinni, melon, other random veggies, NLS mini pellets bloodworms once and a while, hikari sinking mini wafers.

As far as my own medicine cabinet I'm thinking maracyn 1 and 2 and maracyn plus for the really bad stuff, prazi pro and then I have the quick cure (malachite green/formalin).

 

[calioutlaw1a]

By "basic" bacterial infections, I meant bacterial infections where you know the cause (such as columnaris) and there are no other compounding diseases, not the severity of the infection (I agree kanamyacin can be harsh, please link to your quoted studies on it though). Sometimes you don't even know exactly what you're treating for, and have to cover additional bases.

Also, gram negative or positive is important, sorry typing on an iphone is a PITA.

Gotcha. Here's a link to the abstract of the paper on pubmed:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6092605

I'm not sure what your background is, but if you have any clarifying questions about the abstract feel free to ask! The full paper can be accessed in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and many colleges will allow you free access if you happen to be in college.

Just as a side note, aminoglycosides are also inhibited at more acidic pHs (though I'm not sure how low the pH needs to be before this becomes significant). This means that in tanks with low pHs there's potentially decreased antibacterial activity AND increased renal toxicity.

The fish did not have a saddle patch like that, it almost looked like a mix between velvet and early dropsy with the tetras and danios. The dojos had cloudy bulgy eyes and were floating at the surface breathing air but no other external signs, the dwarf gourami looked normal but a bit swollen and had a bluish stripe down its belly when it died. The plecos were not affected besides the one that died and that one looked normal.

I did add a big piece of manzanita driftwood that I poured boiling water over. Other than that and maybe some farting around with CO2 nothing really stressful that I can think of. As far as diet the fish get omega tropical flakes, hikari algae wafers, zuchinni, melon, other random veggies, NLS mini pellets bloodworms once and a while, hikari sinking mini wafers.

As far as my own medicine cabinet I'm thinking maracyn 1 and 2 and maracyn plus for the really bad stuff, prazi pro and then I have the quick cure (malachite green/formalin).

When you say velvet do you mean velvet disease, or are you just describing how the lesions looked? The cloudy eyes, exophthalmia ("pop-eye"), and dropsy all indicate a systemic infection (likely bacterial).
The guarami is a concern of mine now that you mention it. Just about every guarami that enters the U.S. carries mycobacterium with it, which can cause all of these signs, but this may have been a secondary infection. If you are actually talking about velvet disease, this may have been what allowed the mycobacterium to enter the fish through the skin.

 

[Lupin]

Any antibiotic that you use is going to kill some of your BB. It may not kill all, but it will kill some.

But from the sounds of it, you had columnaris, which is a fungus, and then your tank ended up kicking you in the you know what with a bacterial infection.

Maracyn or binox would have done the job.

But there has to be a reason this happened. This just doesn't happen for no reason.

What are your parameters, water temp, water change schedule?

Fungus and columnaris are not the same. Columnaris is bacterial in nature as it does involve gram-negative bacteria whereas fungus is not. Columnaris is far more lethal as it is also very contagious and can establish faster when your fish suffers open wounds that are left untreated/ Antibiotics that treat against gram-negative bacteria should be able to do their job well on that.

 

[lipadj46]

When you say velvet do you mean velvet disease, or are you just describing how the lesions looked? The cloudy eyes, exophthalmia ("pop-eye"), and dropsy all indicate a systemic infection (likely bacterial).
The guarami is a concern of mine now that you mention it. Just about every guarami that enters the U.S. carries mycobacterium with it, which can cause all of these signs, but this may have been a secondary infection. If you are actually talking about velvet disease, this may have been what allowed the mycobacterium to enter the fish through the skin.

The lesions on the tetras and danios looked velvetyish not sure if it was actual velvet or something else (def not ich though). They were the only fish that displayed those symptoms. I've had the gourami since march.

Edit: looking back through pics on the net it was definitely not velvet.

 

[J.Lake]

Yeah macryn 2 is great for gram negatives, using macryn also helps if there are any secondary infections. Columnaris doesnt always manifest as "saddle back" flexibacteria can manifest on other ways as well. Im not sure if flavo and flexi bacteria are the same. There is alot of misinformation on the web regarding columnaris, Calioutlaw is a wealth of accurate information IME.

 

[aclockworkorange]

I never had any luck treating columnaris with maracyn 1 or 2. Calioutlaw, I really appreciate you putting out great info with links to actual studies on medication. I have a lot of experience treating fish with different medications from my old job, we even had a pharmacist we would refer to for advice on medications, and would often try new things. But, the majority of my knowledge is simple real world experience, and I don't have a background beyond basic chemistry to explain exactly why and how some things work, and scientific studies done on side effects.

I am in school for fisheries biology, and hope to expand my knowledge on the subject in the future as I continue my education.

 

[calioutlaw1a]

The lesions on the tetras and danios looked velvetyish not sure if it was actual velvet or something else (def not ich though). They were the only fish that displayed those symptoms. I've had the gourami since march.

Edit: looking back through pics on the net it was definitely not velvet.

Hmmmm, well it's tough to say without pics or any diagnostics, but as I said before it sounds like more than one pathogen was involved. Having the gourami (or any of the other fish) for a while before this happened doesn't rule out the possibility that some stressful event occurred or the conditions changed just enough for something that was being carried to explode.

Yeah macryn 2 is great for gram negatives, using macryn also helps if there are any secondary infections. Columnaris doesnt always manifest as "saddle back" flexibacteria can manifest on other ways as well. Im not sure if flavo and flexi bacteria are the same. There is alot of misinformation on the web regarding columnaris, Calioutlaw is a wealth of accurate information IME.

Flexibacterium was recently renamed flavobacterium, so yes they are the same thing.

And thank you. I hope your arowana and flowerhorn are doing well.

I never had any luck treating columnaris with maracyn 1 or 2. Calioutlaw, I really appreciate you putting out great info with links to actual studies on medication. I have a lot of experience treating fish with different medications from my old job, we even had a pharmacist we would refer to for advice on medications, and would often try new things. But, the majority of my knowledge is simple real world experience, and I don't have a background beyond basic chemistry to explain exactly why and how some things work, and scientific studies done on side effects.

I am in school for fisheries biology, and hope to expand my knowledge on the subject in the future as I continue my education.

No problem. Thank you for all of the experience you have to share with the hobby. And it's not just you that is primarily using real world experience when it comes to treatment, it's the entire hobby! Fish medicine isn't exactly high on the totem-pole when it comes to getting research grants, and as a result our knowledge is extremely limited on the efficacy of various treatments, let alone what we are actually treating! The only fish that we have any amount of research on are farmed fish, and so it isn't appropriate to extrapolate all of this research to ornamental fish.

Most of what we do comes from trial and error and anecdotal evidence, which unfortunately is about the lowest form of evidence that can be applied. My goal is to combine my "book knowledge" with the "real world knowledge" from people such as yourself so that we all can learn and move the hobby forward.

That's great that you are pursuing your education in the field, and I don't doubt that you will continue to do great things!

 

[mshill90]

One thing I left out, as I think we all did..

Is QUARANTINE your fish first, and your chances of illness is a lot lesser.

 

[lipadj46]

Hmmmm, well it's tough to say without pics or any diagnostics, but as I said before it sounds like more than one pathogen was involved. Having the gourami (or any of the other fish) for a while before this happened doesn't rule out the possibility that some stressful event occurred or the conditions changed just enough for something that was being carried to explode.

Yeah I'm not so much worried about figuring out what it was. I'm just glad that I learned a bit and able to save the fish I did. Now I will have more medicine in my cabinet for sure.