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Ok, so last night I did my clean and add second set of doses. I fished out 4 dead fish, and decided instead of watching them die, to remove and euthanize those fish worst affected. Perhaps it will help to not pass it on to the other fish when they die. I Euthanized 7 fish, 4 females and 3 males. They were all in horrible condition, but all with apparent "different" symptoms. This disease is so horrible! I would never even wish it upon my worst enemy!
SO the tank is at 76, I have added approx. 3 tablespoons of salt now, and am on dose 3 of the Furan. The Hatchets and Neons seem OK with the salt and the meds. They are showing no signs of disease at all.
On a good note: I dont know if its my imagination, but some of the guppies/platies seem to be perking up. I hope its a good sign.
Tank Readings again: PH 6.8 Temp 76F, GH >160ppm, Ammonia 0, Nitrites .1, Nitrates before wc 15ppm, after, around 2.5-3ppm.
I had to clean one peice of filter media in one filter, as it was clogged and not running water through. I rinsed it only in used tank water gently.

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I am going to discontinue the use of the Maracyn 2. I am going to continue on with the Furan 2 for the full dosage, and see how things go then. I have already begun to lower the temperature, and will pick up some aquarium salt tomorrow when I am in town.
I will keep an eye on the loaches and corys.
I did tell my sister about it this evening.
I will keep you posted on how things turn out, so far the fish appear same as before, with no deaths today noted so far *hopes*
Thanks for all your help Cory_Di!


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I forgot to mention the dosage I am using of Furan-2. It calls for 1 tablet per 10 gallons. I added 2 tablets, the tank is 25g. Thats almost full dosage. I dont want to try to measure it out in half as it is one of those plastic pills with powder in it that you open and pour into the tank.
Also, there is 3 marbled hatchetfish and some neons in there and the med doesnt specify whether or not to use a full dosage on Tetras.
The fish so far seem to be reacting well to the medicine.
No more deaths so far, and the fish havent worsened.


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I think you are fine with that dosage, which is just under full dose. There is probably less than 25g of water due to displacement by gravel and decorations. And, it is better for the neons. They can be sensitive.

What is good about the furanoids is that they are more readily absorbed into the bloodstream.

Watch now for ammonia and nitrite - daily. Make sure you have something like New and Improved Cycle on hand. I also use Prime in my hospital tanks or Amquel Plus. Both are good at neutralizing small amounts of ammonia and nitrite. However, be advised that you could see false positive ammonia spikes. In my experience, these are off the charts all the while the fish are fine. Read the fine print. One other word of caution is that these products can rapidly deplete oxygen if overused. I didn't measure when putting water back in my goldie tank and overdosed. They were piping for air within minutes and I had to do another water change to dilute it out.

Dropping an extra airline will help them too. Anytime fish are sick is a good time to push more surface movement.


Last edited by Cory_Di at 26-Jan-2005 08:08

I use prime as well. I have never found it to give false readings. I will monitor the fish carefully. I am just going to go watch them and I will post test results and visual results a little later this evening.
Thanks for all your help Cory_Di.
It is greatly appreciated.


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This same thing happened to me.

They all seemed to die so quickly and it looked exactly like the pic that was posted above. Unfortunately every single fish in the one tank died, causing me to loose all of my male breeding stock of my 1/2 black leopard guppies. This was caused by (bless his heart) Shannen who found some pretty guppies he wanted me to have from the LFS and adding them to one of my tanks...it spread like the plague.

How are your fish doing now? Did the meds you used work?

Ok, so the temp is down to 78 so far. The readings are: Ammo 0 Nitrite .5 Nitrate >10ppm. Water Change is tomorrow and then 3rd dose of medicine. I have lost another 2 fish in 48 hours. At least it isnt 8 in 24. The fish appear overall more perky, less lethargic, and are swimming around more. The affected ones seem the same as before.
I guess now only time will tell. I will keep you all posted of what happens as I near the end of the treatment.
I have dosed Prime to combat the Nitrite, and have added so far approx. 1 tablespoon of salt. I will continue the slow addition of salt solution of the next couple of days.
Should I clean the filters out while treating? Is there a chance this bacteria could infest my filter media? I can easily replace filter media or clean existing media. All that is in there is "Sponge" media and Peat.

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No toucha the filter media when you have a mini-cycle going on. IN fact, only do hover vacs to pull out poop sitting on the surface. You don't want to disturb your good bacteria more than you have to.

Jamie, when that happened to you did you lose the "new" stock you/booger put in? It sounds similar to what happened to me. Except the "new" stock survived, and my older stock parished...the fry and teens of the older stock are still fine though...life is weird sometimes...Heidi

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i might not of seen it, but what is tyour stock ,and the size of the tank?

Also, what was your old stock before things started dieing?

You probably did those poor fish a favor if they were badly affected, while sparing others the same fate as they transfer it.

Keep us updated on how the Furan works.

Heidi....THEY ALL DIED. Everything in the tank died except for the dam snails and the bristle nose...

bah...strip the tank...redo it top to bottom and buy some biospira. then you can dump whatever fish you want in at once no headaches.

That is what I am going to do once either all my fish die or they are healthy again. If I can cure them, I am probably going to give them away. I am going to strip down the tank, totally re do it. Turn it into a breeding tank for my angel pair.
I have decided I may only going to keep 2 trios of guppies from now on, or perhaps 3 males and 4 females or something along those lines. No more than my little 10g can handle anyway. Then again, I may do away with them forever. I cant stand seeing the little beauties die. Love guppies far too much. It sure is a strong point that overstocking smaller tanks like a 25g is too easy and too devastating in the state of illness. Everything spreads too easily in a small space. Perhaps others will read of this and know that if you have baby guppies, trade em in! You cant keep em all no matter how much youd like to.

On a happier note, the number of dead daily has seemed to drop to just one now. I finished the full round of doses, and my tank has almost recovered: Ammonia 0 Nitrite .1, Nitrates ~7ppm. The prime has helped and I have gotten the salt now up to approx. 4 tablespoons. One more to go. I cant get temp below 78, cuz thats how warm my landlords keep it in here and we have central air. But so far it seems to be helping. I still have a couple fish that seem iffy. If they get worse they will probably be put down as well. Better than them suffering and me having to fish em out after the fact.

Well, if anything, it is a learning experience, to have good meds on hand, and not overstock. Not let guppy populations skyrocket to extremes either! They are just such a frisky fish. Now I will have the chance to keep my Angel Pair in a tank to themselves. Possibly with some pepper corys, but nothing else but plants and a few snails.


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Well, Guppies and platys are still dying. Since completeing the full four doses of Furan 2 I have lost 6 more fish, including one of my favorite hi-fin platy females who was almost 3 inches! I am seriously thinking I will probably lose every single guppy and platy in that tank. I am down to about 9 platys and less than 25 guppies now.
I am going to try another round of the Furan seeings it seemed to help. If that doesnt work, I basically am gonna give up and just let it run its course till all the fish are dead I guess. I have exhausted my budget for fish supplies for the next 6 months on just medicines for this tank! I have definetly had enough of sickly guppies from fish stores! I have lost approx. $250 dollars worth of guppies and platys (some of which were really fancy and I paid upwards of 5.99 each for), and I have spent almost $150 dollars in medication for this tank, and all because of a lovely trio of guppies I bought in the LFS for 12.99! Ever since I got those 3 I have been losing fish. I could have a new tank for that price, or a fabulous breeding pair of turqouise discus I saw in the store for $250 dollars, which would have been a lot of savings!!
I wonder how long it will take for all the affected fish to die? My tank already looks so empty. The hatchets and neons still show no signs of illness.
Tank readings are Ph 6.8, Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 15ppm (water change due on Saturday though). gh is down to 120ppm for some weird reason. Plants are doing well despite all the meds. When all the fish are gone, and once the neons and hatchets are in quarantine, should I totally break the tank down and sterilize everything? How could I sterilize the gravel, or should I just replace it with ecocomplete for the plants? Should I also sterilize the filters? Should I use bleach? Or should I boil what I can and take some salt water or vinegar water to the rest?
Whatta shame. Poor guppies. Darn fish stores with sick fish!!! Darn me not using a quarantine tank.!!! Darn the whole thing.



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Yep! It kind of goes like this:

Cost of fish: $250
Cost of Meds: $150
Cost of q-tine setup: Priceless.

Hard lesson to learn.

Have these guppies been flashing at all or scraping against objects? There could be something at the root of the columnaris infection. I do know that once it takes hold it is really hard to break. It needs to be caught early. Maybe there is still hope for some. I do know that Livebearers are highly e to it. In fact, that's how it got the nickname Black Molly Disease.

I'll tell you that the best setup for quarantine with regards to filtration is a cheapy 3-4 dollar, old fashioned box filter. You put some gravel from the main tank in the bottom to weigh it down and for some bacteria, put some filter floss on top of that and plug that baby into a decent air pump and its good to go. Furthermore, you can easily add activated carbon at any time you need to pull one med out for another, then discard it. I buy the carbon by the carton and it lasts forever. Ditto with the floss. And, sterilization is a breeze because I just soak it overnight in a week bleach solution - the plastic.

Gravel can be sterilized if you can't afford the Eco-Complete right now . Baking it is one method. Boiling is another. You could probably bleach it, but if you do, spread it out outside on some newspaper after its done and rinsed many times with an overdose of dechlorinator. Let it air dry for a couple of days to make sure all chlorine gas is gone.

Filters are a challenge as many things that sterilize can damage seals and plastic. Drying will not kill parasites like Costia which can become active again when wet. I have allowed my filter to run with a heavy enough dose of Potassium Permangenate (get a bottle of Jungle Clear Water as it is the active ingredient) in the water to make it a dark magenta. I'd only go an hour or so. It stains so be careful and don't allow it to get on your skin as it is poisonous. It will turn brown and go ineffective in the presence of heavy organics. If you see this, it must be dumped as it is no longer useful at that point. It must remain magenta/purple/pink.

Rinse it many times. Small traces won't kill the fish as Jungle Clear Water is intended to go into the tank in low doses to bind organics and clear the water. I've never used it for that, rather I soak my nets in it for a good hour after moving sick fish.

By all means do a second round of the Furan-2. It says this may be necessary on the package. The nitrofurans are one of the most rapidly absorbed meds from the water to the bloodstream so they are getting some. They are also effective against columnaris. I'm just thinking there may be something else prompting it such as costia, velvet or some other unseen parasite.

Don't mix meds. If you were to try it, use activated carbon overnight, then remove and go for something like Rid Ich Plus or other product containing formalin. Use plenty of extra o2 with airstones while using this as it is a gas and makes them breathe heavy. Don't turn up the heat for the same reason - o2 is a challenge with formalin in the tank already without adding heat. Watch for signs of stress and be prepared to do a water change if you see jerking, erratic swimming and other unusual behaviors. Reducing it a little may make it go away.

I would never dose such products unless I could be home to observe. Formalin is usually gone from the water within 4-6 hours. Malachite will still be there. I recommend formalin as it is the only thing that can help kill off a costia infection other than high doses of salt (1 Tbsp per gallon for a 0.3% solution and 2 Tbsp per gallon for a 0.6% solution dissolved in 1 tsp per gallon every 12 hours or more to slowly raise salinity). Not all fish can handle even the 0.3%.

I should add that your other fish may not be able to handle the formalin or Rid Ich Plus in full strength. I'd go with only a half dose first to see how they handle it. YOu can always try it again with a little more the next time, but you can't take away.

Again, I would only do this if you've seen flashing or other signs of possible parasite infestation.

In quarantine I use this filter and I actually put my BioSpira or New and iMproved Cycle right on the floss to kick start things. I often only dose melafix and pimafix to new incoming fish since netting can spark columnaris within 72 hours of bringing fish home. These antibacterials together would check that. Silly fish store associates often use the same net for removing dead fuzzy fish as they do to net new fish. - Bad Decision.

Tri-Flow Corner Filter



Last edited by Cory_Di at 04-Feb-2005 12:05

Cost of fish: $250
Cost of Meds: $150
Cost of q-tine setup: Priceless.

Hard lesson to learn.
How true! I sure hope if some newbies read this, it will help them to understand how important the quarantine tank is.
I will dose another round of furan 2, as soon as my order from Big Als comes in. I am currently doing small water changes to try to remove/inhibit too much bad things in the water. For some reason, I find the fish respond better after adding Prime. I dont know why, as there is no ammonia or nitrites present, and my small water changes are keeping the nitrates below 10ppm.
I have still found on average 3-4 fish dead each day. Today for me it was small juveniles that were born only about 2 weeks ago. The new born fry seem unaffected for some reason.
The fish are not itching or flashing at all that I have seen. They just seem fine, then after a bit, seem to be resting on the ground a lot, and then are developing the classic "saddleback sore". The females seem to develop the sore, while the males seem to get funny little lumps in their tails. I wonder if the root of this problem is guppy disease? I suppose over crowding could have sparked it, but now that the population has been decimated, wouldnt the death rate go down? I definetly know it started after the addition of the 4 fish I purchased that one day almost 3 months ago! The fish do not appear to be breathing heavily, and even up till the very end continue to eat. Still the neons and hatchetfish are not affected. My watch on the yoyos and corys from the tank is still going fine. They also appear completely unnaffected.
It is definetly like fighting a losing battle.
From now on, its quarantine for 28 days no matter what!




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Saddleback lesions are one of the strong characteristics of columnaris - no doubt about it.

Guppies and other livebearers for whatever reason are simply e to it and columnaris is highly communicable. It's been known to wipe out an entire tank population in days and is so stubborn. Your other fish are apparently warding it off. I still think it comes down to how e a fish is to fighting it. Maybe livebearers just don't have the right immunity or genes in contrast to the other fish. I just know that it is also named Black Molly Disease due to its prevalance among livebearers.

The Prime is a good idea. I too use it whenever a fish is in q-tine with a weak filter or a hospital tank with meds, whether I see ammonia or nitrite or not. I dose 1 drop per gallon either once daily, or if it is risky, every 12 hours. Overdosing will make them pipe for air and if that ever happens, just do a water change and it will stop. Always measure the drops.

I know where this came from too, my sister and I went out one day about 2 months ago, each purchased 4 healthy looking guppies from the same store. Within days our fish started dying. She is losing fish daily same as I.
I will advice her on the proper treatment as well.

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Well I dont know whats going on. My guppies have been dying off randomly, some days none, some days as many as 4-5 fish. I have checked my water conditions: ph 6.8, temp 80F, ammonia 0 nitrites 0 nitrates 5ppm
No signs there
I have treated with salt, no luck, with melafix and pimafix, nope, with Marcyn 2 nothin, and im plain out of ideas. This has been going on for the past 2 months, and most of the fish that die, I can see no external signs of death.
This is the oddest thing, I can be sitting watching the tank, and a fish will swim by, stop by the glass to say hello as usual, looks perky, looks shiny eyed, physically perfect, then all of sudden the fish looks suddenly agitated, zooms off at high speed across the tank, then flips belly up and is dead. This happened with 2 fish last night, a guppy and a platy.
The only symptoms I have seen, resting on the bottom (yet they come to the top to eat), some appear slightly thinner than usual but nothing extreme , no red gills, no red lines anywhere, no abnormal behaviour, just the common resting on the ground. So what gives?
I recently took a huge load of young fish to the LFS and reduced the bioload significantly, and I have in the past 4 months added an additional filter to the tank (running a Cascade 150 and a Cascade 100).
I am almost ready to take every single guppy in to the pet store and sell em off before they all die. Im stumped. Does anyone have any clue as to my guppy die off mystery?
Oh and not just guppies have died, but mostly guppies. 2 platys have died, one was one of the instantaneous deaths I mentioned earlier. I lost all my 4 cherry barbs as well. Strangest thing. Wish I had some clue. Ive tried every fish health diagnostic in the book, every test, water changes, everything. Nothing helps, it just keeps happening. I am ready to give up on guppies forever. I just cant handle seeing their beautiful little bodies wash up dead with no signs of what killed them!
ARGH!

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