Treating Columnaris With Nasty Chemicals

[onidrase]

hey guys. A couple of my tetras seem to have white fuzzes on the body, but it's hardly noticeable. I would post pictures, but you can't really see it without said tetras being turned in a certain direction with the light hitting them right. Therefore it's a big pain in the #17##### to get a picture of them.

Anyways. I've been looking up alternative methods to treating that aren't buying like 60 dollars worth of powder medications that have never even worked for me to treat a 75 gallon tank. I've started a low dose salt bath by instructions of a few websites (may up the dose later on, just adding it slowly so I can do a big water change if my catfish show any signs of stress) but I don't even know if the salt treatment works. Salt seems to be instructed to treat every single type of disease/parasite out there. If the salt works, that's awesome, I killed an infection before it was even all too noticable. If it doesn't and progresses, well, time to pull out the big guns. They're cheaper and seem more effective in treatment.

I found by one reliable looking source that he treats rot diseases/columnaris with either potassium permanganate or methylene blue bath treatments. I looked into both of these, and a few sources say methylene blue doesn't work to treat columnaris, and to look into potassium permanganate.

I've seen potassium permanganate suggested to use in cases of parasites, ich, rot, bacterial infections, everything in the book, so I'm assuming this, rather than treating the disease head on, is the equivalent of sticking a dog in the microwave to kill off its fleas. I believe the method goes something like getting a 5 gallon bucket, and giving it x teaspoons per gallon, dunking fish in for x minutes, pulling them out and putting them back in the tank, rinse repeat once or twice a day til it's gone.

Seems pretty effective to me. Though I was thinking of using a 1 gallon bag and floating it in the tank to maintain water temperature during treatment instead.

Anyways. Has anyone used any of the suggested treatments before? Am I just stalling by putting salt in the tank to see if the little amount of what I think could be columnaris will go away? Does methylene blue work?

More importantly, are there any effective non powder treatments out there that I won't have to buy like 20 bottles of to treat a 75 gallon tank?

 

[afremont]

I suggest using the methylene blue at this point. I'd wait until you can really see something before using PP. It might be something other than columnaris that MB might take care of. PP can literally dissolve your fish if you overdose. MB is very safe and will teach you the ropes of doing baths and dips and calculating dosages. MB has a wide safety margin of overdose before it harms the fish. PP is so critical that you have to consider the amount of organic material in your tank to calculate a proper dose since the organic material will "use up" the PP before it does its job on the fish. To reiterate, too much PP WILL kill your fish. PP dips will remove the slime coat leaving the fish highly vulnerable for 12 hours or so, so it's safest to do low dose/long term exposure at 2ppm. Unfortunately that doesn't work with some problems. Both substances will kill your biological filter, so you don't want to use them in the main tank. MB is a stain and will do so to pretty much anything. They are both terrific substances, but you will want to read up and be prepared. MB is a stain and PP is an oxidizer (bleach). Though they both are good at killing bacteria, protozoans and fungus, the similarity ends there. The processes are completely different. Never use PP without the "antidote" present and the dosage already measured out. You'll know what I'm talking about when you're ready to use PP.

 

[onidrase]

I suggest using the methylene blue at this point. I'd wait until you can really see something before using PP. It might be something other than columnaris that MB might take care of. PP can literally dissolve your fish if you overdose. MB is very safe and will teach you the ropes of doing baths and dips and calculating dosages. MB has a wide safety margin of overdose before it harms the fish. PP is so critical that you have to consider the amount of organic material in your tank to calculate a proper dose since the organic material will "use up" the PP before it does its job on the fish. To reiterate, too much PP WILL kill your fish. PP dips will remove the slime coat leaving the fish highly vulnerable for 12 hours or so, so it's safest to do low dose/long term exposure at 2ppm. Unfortunately that doesn't work with some problems. Both substances will kill your biological filter, so you don't want to use them in the main tank. MB is a stain and will do so to pretty much anything. They are both terrific substances, but you will want to read up and be prepared. MB is a stain and PP is an oxidizer (bleach). Though they both are good at killing bacteria, protozoans and fungus, the similarity ends there. The processes are completely different. Never use PP without the "antidote" present and the dosage already measured out. You'll know what I'm talking about when you're ready to use PP.

I've heard you can kill PP just by doing a 5x OD of seachem prime. But after hearing all that, I really don't want to get it.

Will the salt get rid of columnaris in such a low stage, though? Or should I go ahead and do my research on the blue tonight and order that stuff?

 

[Tolak]

50% water change daily, wait about 10 minutes before adding dechlorinator. Free disinfectants in the tap water, may as well start with that.

 

[onidrase]

50% water change daily, wait about 10 minutes before adding dechlorinator. Free disinfectants in the tap water, may as well start with that.

I'm guessing I should leave the filter off during that 10 minutes, as well? Never even thought of that I'll go ahead and give it a whirl.

 

[afremont]

I've heard you can kill PP just by doing a 5x OD of seachem prime. But after hearing all that, I really don't want to get it.

Will the salt get rid of columnaris in such a low stage, though? Or should I go ahead and do my research on the blue tonight and order that stuff?

I don't know about using Prime to neutralize it, but peroxide will. I don't want to scare you completely off from ever using PP as it can be a miracle worker, but I can't emphasize enough how dangerous it can be too. I wouldn't expect salt to do a whole lot against true columnaris, but it shouldn't hurt. You can use MB in combination with all known fish meds without worry of negative interaction. That does NOT apply to PP.