# Columnaris treatment in a walstad tank



## Jfmary (Dec 29, 2018)

Hello,
Some guppies that I have isolated have columnaris. The ones in the tank haven’t shown any symptoms yet and the isolated ones are still not that bad. Both are in a walstad tank, main tank is just about 2 months, the other is almost 2 years old. What are the treatment options that would not unbalance the tank or kill bacterias?


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

Do they die within 72 hours of showing symptoms?

Columnaris isn't usually treatable. You might get lucky treating the fish with heavy, expensive antibiotic with a bare bottom tank. You'd have to break down the infected tank.


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## Jfmary (Dec 29, 2018)

No, no death yet, but it looks like columnaris though. It’s been 4 days since first noticed it on 1 fish. 1 week old fry doesn’t look affected.

Trying melafix in main tank to see what it does.
Another option would be using salt, but have never done it in a walstad and I fear for my plants and substrate. Any opinions or advice?


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## Jfmary (Dec 29, 2018)

Just came back. 2 other females are affected. The males and fry look totally fine.
Affects fins and body...


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## Jfmary (Dec 29, 2018)

And a death in isolation tank...


Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

I was just looking in my disease textbook (Ed Noga) for treating columnaris, a bacterial infection. Treatments using either potassium permanganate, copper sulfate or salt would have to be done in a separate tank. The antibiotic oxytetracycline is recommended if the fish have body sores.

In my article 'Flukes and Sick Guppies' on my website, I describe treating my guppies successfully in a hospital tank with salt. Guppies are very tolerant of salt, so I would try this simple home remedy that works for _many_ diseases caused by surface bacteria and parasites.

Melafix in one scientific study didn't work very well for disease treatment.

I am not a fish vet, nor have I had any experience with columnaris, but my best guess is the salt treatment described in my article. I would try to save the best and healthiest fish, keep the tank without fish for a few days during the treatment, and then put them back into the planted tank.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

Since there is a death and quick infections, it does sound like Columnaris. I'd follow what dwalstad suggested with salt and oxytetracycline. There are likely to be internal infections as well.

I would break down the planted tank though. There are lots of organics in the tank where the columnaris bacteria can hang out to infect healthy fish.

Here's how to use salt from an actual fish vet.





He doesn't have a video on columnaris.


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## Jfmary (Dec 29, 2018)

Antibiotics is ruled out unless I can find them online in another province. Quebec has made it a vet and doctor privilege last year... I am not going to a vet with a sick fish, death guaranteed.
If they are not all dead, I will start the salt treatment saturday. If they are, I will see how the cichlids below manage it. So far, they show no sign, so do the guppy males.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Mistergreen, Dr. Loh's video of salt treatment is excellent. It was particularly endearing to me because of the information on using a salt concentration that matches salinity of body fluids so that a weakened fish doesn't have to osmoregulate. I found this to be a key factor in the survival and growth of brine shrimp; harvests were much better at lower salinity [a little greater than 1% (10 ppt)]. That's because if you use higher salinities (e.g., 3.5% or 35 ppt salinity of seawater) the brine shrimp waste precious and considerable energy pumping salt out of their bodies. (Article 'Hatching and Growing Brine Shrimp' discussing this little tidbit is on my website.)

With sick fish, Dr. Loh in video recommends a similar salt concentration (0.9%) where fish are in an isotonic solution. That is, the water salinity matches the fish's internal salinity. That is exactly the salt concentration (0.9%) that I used to successfully treat my guppies for flukes. However, the treatment took 2 days in a hospital tank.

Based on Dr. Loh's video and guppy resistance to salt, it sounds like jfmary could try a 5 min salt bath- 5 min in a solution of 20-25 g/l. I weighed out a tsp of table salt to get 7 g. So you could add 3 tsp (21 g) of salt to a liter of water. Remember that the smaller the fish, the more they will be stressed by this, so treat the bigger guppies first.

I would use this as an opportunity to weed out your more disease-susceptible guppies- genetically speaking. That's what I do with mine. The only disease I get now is flukes occasionally in juvenile females. I discard the sickest and keep the less affected. These non-sick ones go on fine without further ado to become future breeding stock.

Also, female guppies are more susceptible to flukes--and probably a contagious disease like columnaris--because females socialize and shoal together. That probably explains why you see less of a problem in your male guppies.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

dwalstad said:


> Also, female guppies are more susceptible to flukes--and probably a contagious disease like columnaris--because females socialize and shoal together. That probably explains why you see less of a problem in your male guppies.


Don't you find in general guppies do better with salt in the aquarium? Guppy growers sell off guppies before they get too old knowing that they'll get sick and deformed.

Dr Loh has some great videos on gill flukes.


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## Jfmary (Dec 29, 2018)

Thanks a lot. Will buy salt from the pharmacy and try to save them tomorrow.


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## bertha (Sep 19, 2018)

mistergreen said:


> Since there is a death and quick infections, it does sound like Columnaris. I'd follow what dwalstad suggested with salt and oxytetracycline. There are likely to be internal infections as well.
> 
> I would break down the planted tank though. There are lots of organics in the tank where the columnaris bacteria can hang out to infect healthy fish.
> 
> ...


Nice, thanks for sharing


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

mistergreen said:


> Don't you find in general guppies do better with salt in the aquarium? Guppy growers sell off guppies before they get too old knowing that they'll get sick and deformed.


Possibly they could and I know breeders that keep them with salt for that reason.

However, I have plants in the tanks. More importantly, I am raising my guppies under normal conditions. I want them to do well without crutches. The prolonged culturing of guppies with salt and antibiotics and semi-sterile conditions leads to fragile, disease-prone guppies. IMHO, there's _way too much_ of that these days. At one time, guppies were hardy, beginner fish. Probably half of the Jfmary's columnaris problem is a lack of disease-resistant genes.

Attached is picture of my good breeding female at 10 months old. She wasn't the prettiest of her batch, but she's survived the longest of her female siblings. Several of the males are still alive and doing well, but the rest of females are all dead or culled. I'm saving all her babies and will select long-living females from them. I'm also outcrossing and avoiding inbreeding.

The normal life-span of guppies is 1-3 years. I'm working on it!


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## Jfmary (Dec 29, 2018)

Well... just came back from work and all females are dead (except one I just euthanized because it was almost dead)...
Going to get the salt and get the procedure right, in case the males and cichlids show signs.
The young fry seams unaffected too.

The poor immune system could be in cause. The 2 males are from another genetics. Let’s see if the fry gets to maturity.

I will wait 3 weeks before putting new occupants in the tank.

Thanks for all the advice, made me learn a lot. Appreciated.


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## Jfmary (Dec 29, 2018)

No other deaths... So far so good. Those males are keepers!


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## Jfmary (Dec 29, 2018)

So, the fry has grown and is getting its colors. But 2 weeks ago, they were showing the same white velvet patches. But they survived with no intervention. They are well now. What is this? If it was columnaris they should have died,no?


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## Gerald (Mar 24, 2008)

No, not every fish exposed to a disease dies from it. If their immune system is healthy and water parameters, diet, etc are good, then they can often fight it off. Early exposure as fry might even have helped. But, i'm wondering if this is columnaris (aka Flexibacter, Flavobacterium). In my experience it's usaully just newly-acquired fish that get it (and sometimes the older fish in the tank with the new ones). I've never seen it reappear after it goes away unless I add new fish. Could it be some other bacterial infection or skin protozoan?


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Gerald said:


> No, not every fish exposed to a disease dies from it. If their immune system is healthy and water parameters, diet, etc are good, then they can often fight it off.


I agree. On occasion, my guppies still get flukes, so I know that flukes are endemic to my tanks. Guppies can and do develop resistance to flukes.

In my tanks, juvenile females that are stressed are the only ones where it shows up. For example, last spring I moved 15 young females into a 10 gal tank. Some females started showing symptoms--shimming and not eating. Immediately, I removed and euthanized about 7 sick ones. The remaining females without symptoms never got sick and are doing great.

I believe that these survivors may have a few extra genes for disease resistance or possibly got a smaller fluke dose than the others.

One master guppy breeders used endemic Costia to weed out disease susceptible individuals from his inbred strain.

Potential pathogens are everywhere. I'd rather build up disease-resistant fish than try to eliminate the pathogen or raise the fish in semi-sterile, ultra-clean tanks. Of course, there are some pathogens (e.g., Camallanus) that I won't tolerate in my tanks!


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## Jfmary (Dec 29, 2018)

I agree with having resistant fishes. I am trying to figure put what it is. I am going to introduce new females soon. Let’s see how they do.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Hope these new ones do well for you.

A lot depends on the actual breeders of the purchased guppies. Some breeders of mass-produced guppies just use only young, 3-4 month old fish for breeding ("seasonal breeding"). Other breeders raise their guppies under semi-sterile conditions (salted water). I prefer the philosophy of breeders who use older guppies for breeding, raise their fry under normal conditions, and cull out the weaker individuals. Inevitably, this leads to more disease-resistant guppies.

The Blue Grass guppies I got from Thailand last summer are still under trial, but I'm encouraged. Male died at 6 weeks, but the female, now at least 6 months old, seems pretty tough and is producing nice progeny on schedule. Her daughters had a minor fluke episode (described in yesterday's post), but I've had no other troubles.


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## Jfmary (Dec 29, 2018)

So, as it seams quite difficult to find antibiotics and I better keep my ecosystem intact, I chose the culling and natural selection method.

So, only the guppies are affected.
I have one male left, the other died suddenly, probably from something else.

2 females are still alive and doing very good.
8-10 babies, about 6 weeks old. I did some intensive culling at the first sign of contamination.
16-20 babies, from today.

I will repeat the culling if some show contamination. They seam to be doing well.

Another hypothesis crossed my mind... what if the male is a sociopath? A bit anthropomorphic, but...
What if the infection was actually being a symptom of stress due to the male harassment. I wonder because the two female left are also the biggest of the lot and don’t seam to pay attention to whatever the male is doing.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

I like your choice of breeding for disease-resistance. 

I continue to work to increase the longevity and disease-resistance of my guppies. It's easy, quick and fun to get male guppies with exciting colors. In contrast, breeding for fitness factors takes time to get results as many subtle genes are involved. 

You're right about males sometimes stressing younger females to the point of their coming down with disease. And some females get picked on more than others. I had one beautiful male that I finally got rid of for his obnoxious, obsessive bullying. I think he was a sociopath! 

Overall, I like working with older, bigger females. Generally, they can handle an overly exuberant male. You can breed them to a succession of different colored males over their long lifespan and compare the results. To save tank space, I like to keep younger select females with an older female and a good breeder male. The male doesn't pay much attention to the younger ones and I can raise the young females without problems.


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