Removing Bacteria From Water

[jaacka]

You helped me diagnose my red finned shark with columnaris flexibactor, and this morning it's dead (we have no petstores nearby so getting meds is not as easy as you'd think). We moved him from the main tank (a 28 gallon) to a smaller tank (10 gallon) that had some fry and a pleco in it (that's as close to a hospital tank as we could get). Are the other fish infected? If I move them into the bigger tank will I be infecting them all? I'd like to move the fry over to the big tank (they are now almost an inch long) but leave the pleco in the smaller tank. I know you don't want to treat healthy fish, and they have no symptoms, I just want to do what's right for the tank and the fish.

Thanks for any advice you have for me on "righting" the tank again!

 

[thomas10051988]

your best bet would be to treat the tank with a general medication then leave in the 10 gal for a few weeks to see if anything developes

 

[Colin_T]

If medications are hard to get then do 50-75% water changes each day for a week. Then monitor the fish for another couple of weeks. If they don't develop any symptoms then they can go into the other tank. But make sure you leave the separated for a few weeks in case they have the disease.

edited to add. if you need a quarantine tank then plastic storage crates work well.

 

[jaacka]

Thankyou for your advice... I got meds (found out a pet store is just 15 minute away thats not a big chain store! yeah!!!) and hopfully can get rid of this. Thanks again.