Columnaris bacteria still not going away.

[FishFriend0]

A few weeks ago I added some Waterlife Myxazin because I suspected columnaris bacteria.
You can read more about it on this thread:

Platies dying.

A couple of months ago one of my platys was staying at the surface and gasping for air. It did this for quite a few weeks until one day. I arrived back from short holiday to see some family over Christmas and when I returned, it looked bloated and was floating. It did not really swim down for...

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I euthanised the fish with the rotting tail as it did not move for multiple days and most of the tail was rotted.
Another smaller platy died although for a little while it looked like the symptoms were improving.
A third platy has developed a white spot on its face which I am not sure is linked

This morning I looked at the tank and saw a guppy gasping by the filter intake. This came out of the blue as there were no symptoms before. If anybody knows any other meds I could use or what could be happening please let me know.

 

[FishFriend0]

The platy with the white spot is hiding a lot and not eating much. The guppy hasn’t been by the filter output all day which is odd. If anybody knows any other medications I could try that are available in the uk it would be appreciated.

 

[Colin_T]

It's not Columnaris.

The fish has red around its eye and is breathing heavily, and it has a white patch on top of nose. The white is excess mucous. The red around the eye is an infection in the face (like a cold virus) but could be bacterial, protozoan or viral. The heavy breathing can be from the infection or gill flukes.

There was a video of a yellow guppy having trouble swimming in the earlier thread. that fish was skinny and probably had intestinal worms and gill flukes.

I would deworm the fish and add a heap of salt. Livebearers like platies and guppies are fine with salt. If you can get Flubendazole, it will treat all intestinal worms and gill flukes at the same time.

Section 3 of the following link has information on deworming fish and has a list of medications you can get in the UK.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres (5 gallons) of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water (2 litres or 1/2 gallon) and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.

 

[FishFriend0]

I have some NT labs fluke and worm treatment which I believe contains flubendazole. The thin guppy is dead now, would you still suggest adding
this medication?

So you think the platy has a different bacterial infection, protozoan or viral? How would you suggest treating that?

 

[Colin_T]

Yes treat any aquariums you have with the deworming medication because guppies and platies are regularly infested with intestinal worms and gill flukes.

Add salt to the tank to treat the platy with the infection. You can use salt and Flubendazole at the same time.

 

[FishFriend0]

Ok thanks