Help! Help! Cotton-like Fungus? On Cory Catfish (pictures)

carlv

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Hi,

I have a sick Cory catfish named Feldman. He's currently in a small hospital tank:

Tank Size: .5 gallon
Temperature: 80 F
Water Change: Using turkey baster to clean the bottom. Approx. 25%/day
Medicin: 2 drops daily of Mardel Maroxy for True Fungal Infections of fish and eggs
Tank Mates: Thankfully none. None of my other fish/frogs are sick

Noteworthy items: 4 days ago we noticed that Feldman had what appeared to be a fungus-covered food pellet stuck above his right gill. Sometimes a piece of uneaten food would get stuck in a plant and develop a similar looking "cotton hairy" look to it.

I tried to remove it gently with a cotton and quickly realized that it was firmly attached to him and that it wasn't food! I noticed that he was bleeding slightly on the back side of the growth.

We quickly removed him from the community tank (description below) and put him into a new hospital tank. We've been treating his little tank daily for 4 days and he appears to be getting a little worse. The medicine says not to use it for more than 5 days - so I'm really not sure what to do next.

Feldman's breathing seems regular and his mouth and eyes look good. He doesn't seem to be in too bad of spirits, other than that he's not really eating his food.

The uneaten food quickly becomes "cotton hairy" in the hospital tank so I'm concerned that this Maroxy stuff isn't doing anything at all. There's no date listed on the bottle, but I bought it at a superstore, so it shouldn't be very old.


The community tank has undergone some changes in the last month:
- Added two (2) cory catfish about 3 weeks ago.
- One of our three live plants started turning brown and falling apart
- One of our three live plants started developing what looked like brown dirt on it.
- Our third live plant looked fine and was the same species as the one that started looking "dirty"
- The two "sick" plants started falling apart and there were times when the gravel was partly covered in dead plant debri.
- We developed a small snail problem that I've kept somewhat in check by manually removing the eggs from the glass and plants.

Community Tank Details:
Tank Size: 20 gallon
Temperature: 80 F
Water Change: 10% water change weekly using syphon hose to clean the gravel
Medicin: 20ML on day 1/3/5 of Merdel Marycyn Plus Antibacteria (I've treated twice since the disease was detected)
Tank Mates: 1 Male Betta (had them for 9 months),2 African Dwarf Frogs (3 months), 3 live plants (2 months) and about 50 small snails that hitchhiked on the plants.

I removed all of the plants right after the disease was discovered because the debri (and possible diseases) made the tank too hard to keep healthy.

Thankfully none of the other fish appear to be sick. Here are the pictures of poor Feldman:

feldman-1.jpg

feldman-2.jpg


I really hope he doesn't become my first fish casualty. Please help him if you can!!! :-(
 
You need to change meds, as that's not working, to be honest don't no what the fish is suffering from can you explain it in more detail.
 
It sounds like you are doing the right things. The cottony growth is a disease known as columnaris. It is a bacterial infection (not fungus as commonly believed). Maracyn is a good med for this infection, as is eythromyacin, tetracycline, or kanamyacin.

Since he is in such a small tank, you are giong to need to do frequent water changes (even more so than now) to contorol the ammonia levels. I would also increase the temp a little more to 82*, as the antibiotics work better at a higher temp. Here is a trick for you - when using meds in such a small tank, disolve it in something times ten - like ten tablespoons of dechlorinated water. Then dose giving 1 tablespoon per gal. Make sure the rest of the meds stay refrigerated. I know disolves easily, i can disolve one in 10 ml of water.
 
You need to change meds, as that's not working, to be honest don't no what the fish is suffering from can you explain it in more detail.

If you refresh the page, you should be able to see his pictures now. It basically looks like a bump with straight white strings sticking out of it in a round sphere.

The strands are approximately 4mm long and they look kind of like hair. The hairs are very uniform in length and they form a spherical shape (like a ball completely covered with short hair on it)

Please let me know if you want me to try to describe it in more detail or take a better picture (these pictures took me almost an hour to get)
 
the pix are very hard to see the fungus in it. However, here is an easy way to tell. True fungus only grows on dead or dying skin, so before the fungus began was it on an open sore?

Fungus is very rare, while bacterial infections that look like fungus are very common.
 
Sorry when i was answering the full post didn't come up. I would go with ttnjftttt answer.
 
Thanks for you responses! :)

I have a fish disease chart that makes me think it's True Fungus instead of Columnaris. Here's how it describes each:

True Fungus: Whitish tufts of cotton-like material found on the fin, tail and body at sites of injury. Fungus infections are usually found at the site of an injury or recent attack.

Columnaris "Body Fungus": Greyish-white stringy material covering most of the body, white or grey patches. Columnaris is caused by bacteria and is slimy in appearance.

Feldman's problem seems to be localized to one spot - it's not covering his entire body. It really does look like a white cotten-like tuft.

We have 2 african dwarf frogs that occasionally peck at the corys. There was evidence of bleeding from day 1 through today (a very, very small amount if the infection site is bumped), but I'm uncertain if the disease caused the bleeding or if the disease attached to a pre-existing open wound.
 
you asked for advice and two of us agreed on that it was probably columnaris. It is your choice on whether you want to take it or leave it.

You have tried treating with fungus meds and seen zero improvement. Why not try the bacterial meds? Also, the bacteria is much more lethal to the fish, so you can try treating for bacteria first, then if no improvement continue with the fungus
 
Plus if he had excess mucas on the gill it will stick and it had caused an infection.
 
I certainly didn't mean to sound ungrateful!!! I really, really appreciate your advice! :)

I just couldn't figure out how to take a good picture of him and wanted to make sure I was describing the probem well.
 
Seriously, fungus is VERY VERY VERY rare. I have seen one case of it ever (and i think it was a different one than the one wilder saw). Every day on here there are many cases of columnaris. There are many different presentations of this disease. Try the antibioitcs. Since he is in such a small tank, i like kanacyn, since it is easy to disolve in small amounts of water (i use it on my bettas).
 
One other thought - I've been cleaning snail eggs by hand out of the aquarium using a toothbrush. The sacks are clear and really sticky, so they usually stick really well to the toothbrush except when I was trying to remove them from my plants.

Is it possible that a piece of an egg sack got stuck to him and caused this problem? They're clear so they would have been pretty hard to spot. Could an egg sack cause true fungus - or do you still feel very strongly that it's bacterial and that I should go with kanacyn?
 
All i know on snails that if they rot away in the tank the toxins can kill the fish.
 
Day 6 Update:

I switched him from the .5 gallon hostpital tank to a new 10 gallon tank. I also started him on a regiment of tetracycline based medicine (He's on day 3 of that now). I also added a small amount of freshwater salt, because the people at the pet store said it would help calm him and ease his pain.

When I put him in the new aquarium last night, he seemed to be a lot happier and swam around quite a bit. When I came home from work today, he was hiding underneath a little bridge I got for him.

When I lifted the bridge, he swam out but was completely out of control. He kept flipping as he swam and when he stopped, he'd fruquntly be upsideown or on his side.

The infection looks a lot worse now too - it's taking up about twice as much surface area as before and there are visible open sores on him.

I'm afraid that putting him in the new tank caused his condition to deteriorate quickly - maybe I'm trying too hard to save him and make him better.

I'm going to run out to get a water tester to see if there's anything wrong with the water in his new tank.


Please let me know if you think the battle is lost here and if I'm being inhumane in continuing to try to save him. :-(
 

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