Angelfish With Columnaris Or Saprolegnia

[Captain Retardo]

A few weeks ago I bought an Angelfish and 6 Harlequin rasboras for my 29 gallon tank. I got the angelfish before the rasboras, and the angelfish quickly fit in and in a few days was eating from my hand, the other angelfish i had was bullying him a little bit, but all was fine. I recently put new decorations in the tank, and while i was doing it the angelfish hurt his fin and left side of body, it was just a rew ripped off scales though, and he was healing quickly and well.
Then I bought 6 harlequin rasboras. Soon after they started dieing off one by one, then i became worried, I looked at the fish closely to see if they were sick, the sick harlequins would shimmy, one of their fins would turn a whitish slimy color and not work, and in the end they would have a hard time breathing, and die.
After this i noticed that my new angelfish had the white slimy stuff on his body as well, this is when i got really nervous, at first I thought it was columnaris, which i was pretty sure I had about a year earlier, when it infected my Kuhli loaches, during that treatment none of my fish died, so did the same thing this time, I lowered temp to 74 degrees, added lots of aeration, did big water change, added Melafix,put 2 Indian Almond leaves, and added salt. The harlequins kept dieing, and my angelfish is not getting better, the angelfish still eats and acts healthy though. So i decided to give it some tetracycline to eat (gel-tek tetracycline, which your fish can eat) I mixed it with some flakes and fed some to the angelfish yesterday. I did a 50% water change a few hours ago to get rid of the melafix becuase i didn't want it interfering with the tetracycline (i also added more salt), I didn't want it interfering with the Tetracycline, I plan on feeding the angelfish the medicated food again, but i'm starting to think it's not columnaris.

Here are it's symptoms:

• Left side of body is covered with white slime that you can only see from an angle
• Left front fin (forgot what its called, the fin near the gills that constantly move) tip is whitish and slowly degrading
• The right side of the body however looks completely normal and healthy, no slime, no degradation,,etc.

So I think it might be Saprolegnia, the Angelfish has acted healthy for the past two days, even though the left side of his body has been getting worse. But it might also be Columnaris, the Harlequins that died died very quickly.

I will hopefully have a picture up in a few hours, so you can see the angelfish.
Maybe this all happened because the fish were stressed, i recently bought many new fish (6 Harlequins,Angelfish, and Weather loach) and I drastically changed decorations, I added many new plants, I flipped my driftwood on its side, and I took out a fake tree stump and put in a slate structure that I made.

 

[WILDER]

What do the fish gills look like as I wondering if its flukes.
Do the gills look pale with excess slime or red and inflamed.
Any signs of flicking and rubbing or laboured breathing.

 

[Captain Retardo]

The gills look pretty normal I would say, now that I look at him again, he looks a bit worse than before, maybe it was the big water change with salt, or the other angelfish with picks on him, but now hes hiding behind the driftwood, his fins are erect, but once and a while he'll do a quick flick of his head and caudal fin, not that of big one flick, or that often, but once in a while. His breathing looks fine, he's not rubbing against anything, but his dosen't eat as readily, both angelfish are big pigs and don't know when to stop eating, my large marble angelfish (the other healthy one) is acting great, but the black angelfish (new, sick one) would only eat 1 medicated flake before hiding again.

 

[WILDER]

<a href="http/www.fish-disease.net/diseases.htm" target="_blank">http/www.fish-disease.net/diseases.htm</a>
The slime on the fish is it grey or white.
Look under costia to see what ypu think.
http/www.fish-disease.net/diseases.htm

 

[Captain Retardo]

I remember it looking white, I can't see him now, he's hiding, but the thing about the white slimy stuff on him is that you can only see it from an angle, looking straight at him, he just looks less vibrant, and more grayish (he's an all black angelfish) but if you look at him from like 45 degrees you see a thin white patch over his left side, from gills to caudal fin

From fishdiseases.net:
Infected fish have soft, film-like skin turbidity. A grayish white film of excess mucous covers the entire body of the fish including the eyes. Severe infestations can lead to skin inflammation and deterioration. Reddening of the skin and bleeding, most often occurs on the underside of the mouth and the pectoral area of the body. Sick fish often rub or scratch against objects in the aquarium in an attempt to relieve irritation. Severely infected fish may become reclusive, listless, lie on the bottom of the aquarium and stop feeding.


The first two sentences and last sentence seem right, but there is no reddening of the skin, it dosen't cover the eyes, and he dosen't scratch against objects.

 

[WILDER]

If the patch is slimey it sounds like a parasite involved than columnaris.
Plus if you have used tetracycline the fish should shows signs of getting better with tetracycline.

 

[WILDER]

Take a look here as it dosn't sound like columnaris to me.
Can you post your water stats please.
So the fish are not flicking and rubbing.
[URL="http/www.flippersandfins.net/flexibacter.htm"]http/www.flippersandfins.net/flexibacter.htm[/URL]

Milky Skin- Milky skin is excess mucus production. If no new fish have been added more than likely the reason is from pH plunges. Symptoms: Fish hanging at the surface, their skin will appear milky, and their eyes may turn whitish. Treatment: If the pH is stable, but you have added new fish, you can consider ammonia burn, or perhaps parasites. In either event, using salt is highly recommended. In some rare cases, a salt resistant Trichodina, Costia, or Fluke infestation may be the culprit. Use of a microscope will be needed to diagnose this. Then you would treat for the parasite you discovered accordingly.

 

[emmsy]

Flavobacterium columnare sounds like the problem here. Myself, as a vet,would prescribe kanamycin laced foods. We generally stock 2 bands at a cost of £16.50 per 100g

Emma

 

[WILDER]

If it was columnaris I would of expected the tetracycline to be doing something.

White, Milky Slime—Patches of milky slime on the body or eye of your fish usually indicate a bacterial infection which should be treated with an antibiotic. Such patches can also be caused by small external parasites. You would need a microscope for an accurate diagnosis, but if the infection doesn’t seem to respond to antibiotics, try treating for external parasites.

 

[emmsy]

(Moves head from side to side) tetracycline can take time to work depending on the resilliance of the fish. Can u post some pics please. Me and Wilder I think are gonna differ on this one.(That will be a first eh Wilder?)

Emma

 

[WILDER]

No lol, its how you learn.
I will be honest not totally convinced yet its columnaris.

 

[emmsy]

abosolutely Wilder. I'm not putting hand on heart to say you are wrong, but I need to see a pic

Emma

 

[WILDER]

Captain retardo is it possible to have a skin scrape done on the fish in the states.

 

[Captain Retardo]

sorry about being off the internet for a little while, I really appreciate you guys helping me though!

My batteries are recharging, so tonight I will have a picture up, if I can get a good one

updates-I added some melafix into the tank again, and it seems to have helped the angelfish, he isn't hiding anymore, and he's out and about begging for food again, I fed him another medicated flake. I think the problem with the tetracycline though, is that they won't eat it unless i mix it with their food, but then the big angelfish will dominate the tank and steal the medicated flakes. So although the bottle says to give them 5 drops twice a day, the sick angelfish has probably only received half of that.
I think that it could be Costia as well, so if the angelfish dosen't get better by tommorow, I'm going to go to petsmart and buy some Pimafix, and a more potent remedy (suggestions would be well taken).
I don't know about the skin scrape stuff, I really don't want to go through the trouble of bringing him to the vet and back and going through all that.
I'm not giving up on the tetracycline, however, if the angelfish is worse by tommorow, I'm trying a different remedy.

 

[WILDER]

Parasites do cause bacterial infections.
They do need to get the antibioitc into there system for it to be affective.
Do any of the fish flick and rub, though then gain they can flick and rub with columnaris.