11 replies to this topic

[mattknepley]

I'm sure this is very common, but I have been lucky enough not to encounter it yet. Several new addition cyprinids have very quickly, as in almost overnight, developed a white line that runs down their caudals, progressing from the tip of the tail towards the body, shredding everything behind said line. Will be moving them to temp housing later this AM, but have to log some time at work first.

Best guesses as to what this nasty stuff is? I am attaching one photo, not because it's good for showing the actual infection site, (or anything else) but because it gives a good impression of the line marching across the fishes' caudals. The uppermost fish, and the onr furthest right, give the best impressions.  PA250082.JPG   67.68KB   2 downloads

No time for a better pic or description, but I'm guessing anything that blitzkreigs across a fin like this is reasonably easy to id...

[mattknepley]

Today's "couple hours" turned into getting home at 19:30...

Thanks, Uland. I can handle your prognosis as it stands for these noobie fish. Will do my best on their account, though. Just as importantly, have you ever had this spread to other, established and healthy, fish? Do I need to be concerned for the rest of the inhabitants, or does it seem to be a problem for the recent arrivals only?

I am now officially a big believer in salt. I am by no means a major player in native fish capture and transport, but I have acquired enough experience to know that no salt-treated fish of mine have ever had problems, but "non-salts", such as these were, are hit and miss in the health/survival department.

[mattknepley]

Thanks for the input, everybody. The ice pack idea makes sense, too. I think I'm going to leave a bag of salt in the glove box for those "oh, crud, left the salt at home in the photo tank" moments. Or would the constant heating and cooling in the automobile environment break down its usefulness? (Can't imagine it would, but I have seen other things, such as tylenol and allergy meds, suffer serious degredation in a glovebox...)

[mattknepley]

i know my methods seem extreme to many here, but i have always been most successful with treating columnaris with a shotgun blast of antibiotics.

i have read that it often becomes immune to one type, only to return after treatment. the last time i treated for it, i used every antibiotic i had on hand, and the deaths ended immediately and the columnaris did not come back.


normally, i prefer not to use antibiotics. with columnaris though, i ran out of patience.

Extreme is as extreme does...

In the end, I opted to do nothing but remove the carcasses of those unfortunates who perished. Thanks to input from the folks above, I decided that since this is largely stress induced, and not likely to be contagious, the best course of action would be no action. Why further stress those fish and introduce stress to the established, healthy inhabitants?

I did lose about half the new fish, but the survivors have since bounced back pretty well. Though careful observation will quickly betray the point to which their caudals deteriorated, it will also show that said fins are repaired and healthy and fully functional. Casual observation shows no signs of damage at all. (At least to my untrained eye.) Is this common of columnaris? Not that a ~50% mortality rate is acceptable, but I was expecting a much more gruesome scenario.

Thanks again to all who commented, it probably saved that other 50%, as otherwise they'd have been facing some serious stress in being relocated.