Columnaris ?

[150EH]

I think this fish has Columnaris but I have no idea how to treat it, API suggests Pimafix for 7 days along with Aquarium Salt and claims no ill effects to plants or bio media, should I treat the fish or put it in the freezer? It is in a 150 gallon planted community tank and I don't want to risk all my other fish, I also just purchased this fish on 12-20-11 and I'm not sure how contagious this fungus can be, Help!

[jweis]

How sad looking. Poor guy looks miserable.

I didn't think flounder could handle salt though.

EDIT: Did you see this article: http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Columnaris.html

[Cristy Keister]

That looks like a good article. I haven't read through it all, but it doesn't seem to stress that Columnaris is highly contagious. Extreme caution should be used to prevent the disease from spreading to other tanks on nets, tubes, hands, etc.

[150EH]

Thanks for the added info and I also have just sent Rachael a PM asking for an opinion as well, I started to read the article and got side tracked but I'll go back to it in a minute. I got the fish in question out of the tank and into my vacant nano, I found his brother belly up on the substrate but he was barely alive so I put him in the freezer, a third one looked fine, and I couldn't find the last one but I did rinse my net is scolding hot water.

Flounder are actually brackish water fish but do ok in freshwater, I have kept these before with limited success and a life span of about 2 years at best which is pretty short, if you have any more suggestions I could use them. She does look miserable and I would imagine that there is no way she can eat or at least not much, but without the cotton mouth she could be a real cutie, lol.

[Cristy Keister]

You can make a sterilization bucket by mixing 4 cups of salt per gallon of water. Mix the salt in hot water and give it overnight to dissolve for a saturated salt solution. The solution will kill everything within a minute. For more info, see Frank Cowherd's article in the summer 2011 Delta Tale.

[150EH]

Wow that's some high salt content but I'll have to look at the info with a google search.

Julie the link you posted was a great article with updated and good information, it also leads me to believe it is Saprolegnia which is covered in the second part of the article and often mistaken for Columnaris but it is good news with most of the same cures but not as hard to cure or so it seems. Almost all of the other sites I came across had old out dated information including one of our LFS told me to crank up the heat which would have made the Columnaris spread like wild fire so I'm very happy to get the link.

[jweis]

Tim, you are welcome for the link to the article. How did we survive before Goggle? Remember all those term papers and pulling out the family's old encyclopedias?

[150EH]

Christy I have found the article about the salt dip for cleaning nets, etc. thank you.

I took the Flounder from the nano today which has no heat to keep the temp low so the fungus doesn't spread faster, this also keeps the fish a little lethargic so it was very easy to catch and put into a salt bath. I used a quart of water from the nano for temp/parameter control and slowly added 3/4 tsp of dissolved Kosher salt and let the fish sit for 30 minutes, I also got some new photos and the branch like structure can be seen so it is Saprolegnia and it has been cured with salt only before.

[150EH]

The fish got a second salt bath today and even seemed eager to get one by sitting in the same corner of the tank and almost jumping in the net, so it went very smooth. I also put a small piece of shrimp pellet in the tank yesterday and most of it was gone this morning so she is eating, I keep calling her as a female because she is the largest in the group, I'll try to take some photos but my group of shots were not very good yesterday but it looks slightly smaller. I will be very happy to save a fish and I have never been able to in the past, so this would be a first.