Return Of Columnaris?

[372xp]

I was advised recently that one of my female bettas had flexibacter columnaris. Most of them had slightly ragged looking fins but were behaving normally. The one fish had a sort of whitish translucent film on her tail and patches on her side which were only relly visible when she was under the light. So I treated with eSHa 2000. This sorted the problem out. I introduced 3 more females 2 weeks ago to bring my numbers up to 7. My oldest female died 3 days later, old age I think, then one of the new fish started swimming oddly, she was isolated and then refurned to the main tank. 2 days ago another one started wedging her self under plants and looking sick, clamped up fins but feeding ok. She died today, the returned fish died yesterday and the original sick fish has the film reappearing and her fins are starting to clamp again. Last week I treated the tank again with eSHa 2000. The water is consistent and good. None of the other species are affected, 7 tetras 1 endler an ancient corydorus and 1 ghost shrimp, neither is the non fancy Plakat female.
Please do not move this to the emergecies section as I think this is a betta problem ( I have had no losses in a year only female bettas in this tank).
What can I do?

Top picture healthy female
bottom return of the disease on original victim

 

[Flute]

Sorry you haven't had a reply on this yet 372xp. I've never had to deal with columnaris, so can't really advise. I will move this on over to the Emergency section, where hopefully more people will see it and be able to help you out. Good luck, hope you manage to sort your girls out

 

[snazy]

All I can say is that bettas are more succeptible to disease like this and columnaris likes tanks low on oxygen such as betta tanks.
You'd need to treat again and then find out what is causing them to get sick. It's something in the enviroment that doesn't agree with bettas specifically and columnaris is a pathogenic bacteria always present in the water but takes hold of the weakened immune system. Or you got it with a new fish and it just spead to yours.  It's really hard to tell but someone may have a better idea.

 

[Wildbetta]

This is one of those diseases that makes you really have to tear apart the tank and clean even if only certain fish are affected and not the whole population.  If one of the females had it once-it is more likely to have a repeat infection anytime it is stressed.  For you to have this problem-there is an underlying stressor somewhere for the betta females and it could be as simple as not having multiple bettas in the same tank that might fix the problem.  Alot of the time sororities do not work because they naturally do not live peacefully together so it is always stressful for them which lowers the immune system and causes them to get sick.  Even with treatment, columnaris is not always cured unfortunately and the more times you treat-the harder it is on the fish.  I know this is not what you want to hear but this is all from personal experience with dealing with the problem.

 

[372xp]

Thanks. Spoke to man in LFS about treating with eSHa exit as well as with eSHa 2000 as 2 tetras are now showing signs. A green tetra had a few small spots on her tail and a neon has the same filmy patches as the bettas. 1 more treatment befor water change and we shall see in a couple of days.
Problem 2 the loss of female bettas has created a power struggle and this increase in bickering could now pass on disease or rot through nipped fins.
Dont know what to do about this as I wont restock until tank is clear.