# Columnaris Treatment In The Planted Tank



## Acton (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm posting this topic to see what my options are in the treatment of possible Columnaris in a 25g planted tank. 

From what I've read the number one treatment for Columanris is Furan-2, Kanamycin and daily Methylene Blue baths. I picked up Peabodys Medicated Kanamycin flakes since I did see that Kanamycin in the water column is deadly to plants. I didn't find out that Furan-2 is ALSO toxic too plants until after I purchased the product. I haven't dosed my tank yet though. 

My concern is that Furan-2 and Kanamycin isn't safe for the plants. I currently live with my in laws and have no space to set up a quarantine tank. 

My 25gallon is stocked with the following:
6 guppies
4 Neon tetras
4 Harlequin Rasboras
2 Cory Catfish
4 Ghost Shrimp
1 Bristlenose Pleco

From my understanding my only 2 options are ripping all the plants out of the tank then treating for Columnaris with the 2 medications above, or letting the disease take it's course then letting the tank sit empty for 8 weeks for the Columnaris to die off before adding any new fish. I'm sad to say this but getting plants adjusted to the tank and thriving seems to be much more challenging then it would be to just wait the 8 weeks with my tank empty before adding new fish if all my fish die off. . . . this is a pretty horrible choice to make since I love my fish AND my plants. If I have to choose though I'd have to go with the plants since getting them to the point that they're at now has been a long process. I feel horrible saying that though since I enjoy the fish too. . . 

Another thing to consider would be the shrimp, I know Furan-2 is toxic to them as well. . . If all the fish in my tank die off and I wait the 8 weeks, will the shrimp act as carriers for the Columnaris?

Edit: I also picked up medicated wonder shells from American Aquarium Products since this was their recommendation for a follow up treatment after the furan-2, kanamycin and methelyene blue baths. Unfortunately the medicated wonder shells have methelene blue and copper in them which is toxic to the plants and shrimp too. . . Seems like I don't have many options in the treatment of Columnaris with a planted tank with shrimp in it. . .


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## sohankpatel (Jul 10, 2015)

Columnaris is a nasty disease, I had a round with it and I pulled the fish as fast as I could and euthanized them and it only killed 3 fish. Furan-2 and Triple Sulfa is what I read. Cant do much more.


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## Nlewis (Dec 1, 2015)

I may be mistaken, but I believe Levamisole is the best meds to use.


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## Acton (Jan 19, 2017)

sohankpatel said:


> Columnaris is a nasty disease, I had a round with it and I pulled the fish as fast as I could and euthanized them and it only killed 3 fish. Furan-2 and Triple Sulfa is what I read. Cant do much more.


Yeah I read that adding aquarium salt in small doses can help in the treatment of columnaris too, but some sources say its only effective at concentrations that are toxic to the plants. 

Here's a list of what plants I've got in my tank for anyone reading. . . 

Dwarf Lilly
Anacharis
Telanthera Cardinalis
Water Wisteria
Aponogeton boivinianus 

I tried picking up dwarf hairgrass but it melted. 

I recently picked up Easy Iron and Easy Green from Aquarium Co-op and my plants have really begun to flourish. Especially the Water Wisteria and the Telanthera Carinalis! I'm using a Satellite Plus Pro Led light. I was injecting Co2 using one of the small gulfstream systems I picked up at petsmart. But it didn't come with a solenoid so I had no way of putting the Co2 on a timer to turn it off at night. I picked up a Co2 drop checker as well. After the Columnaris took hold I turned off the Co2 at my fiances request. We got into a huge argument about it because she felt the Co2 could be part of the problem, I tried explaining to her that when Co2 and 02 levels aren't in an oppositional relationship, but she wouldn't change her mind. She felt that if Co2 is high 02 must be low. . . . we agreed to turn the Co2 off until the disease was dealt with. I'm not against compromise especially if it means she's happy. If it was up to me though I'd still have the Co2 on.


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## Acton (Jan 19, 2017)

Nlewis said:


> I may be mistaken, but I believe Levamisole is the best meds to use.



I got my info from Wikipedia and American Aquarium Products. I know I've done a few google searches as well and have found that many different forum topics mention Furan-2 and Kanamycin as being the indcated treatment for Columnaris. 



> As Flavobacterium columnare is Gram-negative, fish can be treated with a combination of the antibiotics furan-2 and kanamycin administered together. A medicated fish bath (using methylene blue or potassium permanganate and salt),[3] is generally a first step, as well lowering the aquarium temperature to 75 °F (24 °C) is a must, since columnaris is much more virulent at higher temperatures, especially 85-90 °F.[4]


I found this on Leavmisole online.



> Levamisole, sold under the trade name Ergamisol among others, is a medication used to treat parasitic worm infections.[1] Specifically it is used for ascariasis and hookworm infections.


That's according to wikipedia, and to be certain wikipedia isn't always right in many cases. . . .

I don't believe everything I read online, and I appreciate the input! I'm hardly an expert, I've got no experience and I'm just passing along what I've read online. I'd love to hear what experience everyone has had with successfully treating columnaris in a planted tank, and if it could even be done in my situation. . . .


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## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

I've used both in a planted tank to treat columnaris a while. The plants didn't suffer but the water turned yellow because of the Furan-2. Not sure if they'd kill shrimp since I didn't have any in the tank. Btw, Levamisole HCl is commonly used to treat internal parasitic worms such as camallanus.


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## Coralbandit (Feb 25, 2013)

It won't just go away in 8 weeks? With or without a host. It is a very difficult disease to kill.
Agricultural articles say it may be an annual infection.
I would put our fullest effort into killing and then hope you were successful.
Look into the potassium permanganate more also. It worked for me years ago without anything else besides culling infected, sick appearing fish.


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## Acton (Jan 19, 2017)

Coralbandit said:


> It won't just go away in 8 weeks? With or without a host. It is a very difficult disease to kill.
> Agricultural articles say it may be an annual infection.
> I would put our fullest effort into killing and then hope you were successful.
> Look into the potassium permanganate more also. It worked for me years ago without anything else besides culling infected, sick appearing fish.


The articles I've read did mention that potassium permanganate would also be an effective treatment in the form of a fish bath. I picked up methelyne blue though so I'll see if that works first. 

I started another topic and it was suggested to me that I take the plants out of the tank for a few days and place them into a clear tubberware container where they can get some natural sunlight while I dose the tank with the furan-2. I've also got a 3 gallon tank that I use to throw guppy fry into. I'll throw the shrimp in that for the week I'm dosing furan-2.


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## Archaeofish (Dec 18, 2014)

I thought I had a columnaris outbreak when I first started my planted tank. I kept losing fish, usually one at a time, and even noticed the characteristic gray saddle in some of them. I didn't have a quarantine tank. I too debated about how to treat with plants/shrimp in the tank, and purchased a number of antibiotics. In the end, I decided not to treat the tank and never used the antibiotics, as it seemed like it would have a severe negative impact on the tank with uncertain results. The deaths eventually stopped, and I've had no disease problems with the tank since then (about 18 months ago). 

I'm not necessarily saying that you should wait to treat, but I often feel like there is an urge to treat things immediately and drastically. I've found with tanks that a lot of problems will resolve themselves gradually if your underlying fundamentals are good. I can't remember whether this is the case with columnaris, but I recall reading somewhere that many disease causing bacteria are always present in the tank, and it is fish stress or poor tank conditions that instigate outbreaks. 

What signs point to columnaris in your tank?


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

http://www.myaquariumclub.com/columnaris-and-what-i-have-learned...-1689.html


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

i feel your pain...

firstly, you have a more mild case if you lose fish one by one over time. my instance infected one, then five, then 20 fish over the span of 3 days. by then it was basically too late to save most of them.

i went through the depths of columnaris hell last summer so I hope you can learn from my experiences...

initial thoughts / paraphrasing steps I took:

probably the worst experience in the hobby / if it happens to me again I will legitimately consider quitting. especially with a large tank like my 75g... it is a HUGE hassle to detox everything in that setup. best advice i can give you is take EXTREME CAUTION and do not cut any corners. if it comes back you will hate yourself

remember... this is the disease that people get, medicate fish, think they're fine, then two months later everything dies out of nowhere. it is notorious for coming back and wrecking tanks.

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A QUARANTINE TANK YOU WILL NEED TO BUY ONE ASAP

NEVER buy fish from the source you received the infected fish from again. it's not worth it

you should NOT treat your fish in your ultimate display tank if this is what you're doing. I would treat the fish in hospital/QT tank and totally bleach / detox your main tank while the fish are in hospital to ensure 100% you have a clean environment. obviously you need totally separate equipment for water change/nets/etc but this is common practice anyways and you should always QT regardless. trust me, it is worth it

any fish that already show outward signs of infection (fuzzy mouth, white patches, etc) are already dead. get rid of them asap. people may try to sway you to try and save them... i strongly disagree. they need to go. i had a batch of 50 that got hit with this stuff and out of the ones that showed symptoms 0 of them survived

you are on the right track treating with kanaplex / furan 2. this is what I did and I have healthy fish that survived and months later were introduced into my display tank again. I did them at the same time. the disease killed 75% of my livestock before I really started to panic and get serious about treatment. most of the fish that were treated survived though with these 2 meds. i think IIRC one treats the disease internally and the other will disinfect the water column. that is why it's a good combo.

plants might (pretty likely) be fine but whether you risk keeping them is up to you. personally, at the very least I would give them a bleach dip before introducing them back into a clean tank (i did this with some moss and anubias with success - these plants were also hospitalized with my fish for a month on top of this)

once you have hospital tank set up you need to start the fun part... i chose to bleach EVERYTHING in my main tank. 

DO NOT BLEACH STUFF THAT CAN RETAIN BLEACH - I did NOT bleach my filter sponges, media, or any driftwood. IMO driftwood, substrate, decorations, and maybe even plants should be throw in the trash or left out dry for months before attempting to re-introduce. again, not worth the risk and you do not want to bleach these items.

I bleached my entire 75g (empty tank) and all the equipment. i believe it was a 1:20 bleach:water solution that I ran with strong powerheads / ran my filter on for a full day. drained the whole thing. let dry for a full day. filled the whole thing / ran pumps and filters with a TON of Prime to dechlorinate. did some huge water changes, overdosed with more prime, repeat... eventually the bleach smell will be 100% gone and you can finally dry the tank and it will be ready to go. i got new substrate, new driftwood, new plants, everything... it sucked but after seeing how quickly all my fish died I had no choice

i also boiled all of my media / spongers that were in my filter instead of replacing them. boiled for like a half hour a few times and let dry for a few weeks before introducing.

So I have a lot of tanks lying around so luckily I was able to begin quarantining new fish while i hospitalized my survivors. these fish were introduced into my fresh main tank (75g) like a month after their QT was up and they were totally fine. my hospital tank containing the survivors was left alone for 2+ months while I just did water changes and fed my surviving fish. after that period of time I was confident they were healthy so I added them back to the main tank. no issues since then.


You may think my method was overkill but if I were you I would take the same amount of precaution... having it come back simply is not worth it. there is a reason others who have gone through this disease also recommend extreme measures like this. it is much easier to prevent these situations vs deal with them in the future.

also... if you don't already...

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS (you get the idea) QUARANTINE YOUR FISH!
Anyone who has not had columnaris or any disease: ALWAYS QUARANTINE YOUR FISH
It simply is not worth destroying your main tank because you don't want to wait a few weeks to QT your fish. it can happen to anyone

set up a QT tank with some trash plants like moss or hornwort or something with a little lamp and a crappy HOB on it and you are good to go. that is literally all you need. get some new fish, put them in, observe for the next ~4 weeks. if they're fine, acclimate them to the main tank. after going through this I will never not QT a fish again. even if I buy like 1 otto at the LFS - he get's QTd for a month. no exceptions


you can read through this similar thread of mine:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/21-fish/1078649-columnaris-what-do-fish-survive.html

I am also pretty sure my 75g journal has a good amount of updates on my columnaris journey near the end of it. work backwards and you will probably see it... link in my sig

good luck...


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## Nordic (Nov 11, 2003)

best treatment for this is simply emptying the bottle of bleach into the tank and start over.


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## jr125 (Mar 5, 2015)

klibs said:


> i feel your pain...
> 
> firstly, you have a more mild case if you lose fish one by one over time. my instance infected one, then five, then 20 fish over the span of 3 days. by then it was basically too late to save most of them.
> 
> ...


 This is a great example of the knowledge, experience and thoughtfulness available at this forum. Great post klibs. The forum is a better place because of members like you that are willing to take the time to offer such in depth and thoughtful information. 

After following a certain thread that was very active a short time ago I think it's appropriate to acknowledge the type of efforts that make this forum so valuable.

I wonder if klib's post shouldn't be a sticky.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

thank you for the kind words. I really wanted to offer some help on this one because if you get a bad strain of columnaris it can cost you a tremendous amount of time, stress, and some $$. really awful thing to have gone through

after reading some of the other posts here I very strongly disagree that you should just 'let things play out'. I sort of doubt these people really had a case of columnaris... if it IS in fact columnaris you will find out pretty quickly. white fungus-stuff on mouths, some fish get the patches on their sides, etc... these can ALSO be symptoms of different diseases though... the stuff I had literally ate away at the faces of my fish. it was horrifying. after a day half of their face would be missing down to the bones.

if the fish are showing symptoms like mouth fungus but are not blatantly dying / on the verge of death / dead then you may not have columnaris. I may be wrong but my infection was BAD. I had rasboras whose mouths were big white tufts, corys whose entire front of their faces started to decay and i felt so bad I had to euthanize, corys with bit white saddles on them, etc... these fish were not just showing symptoms and acting normally. they were struggling very badly

basically i would be surprised if you truly have columnaris and you manage to save all your fish. it sounds like the OP started treatment with the right stuff immediately so maybe there is hope... but again, 0% of the fish I had that showed symptoms survived. not a single one. if nothing has begun to die after seeing symptoms you are lucky. if you have a bad strain of columnaris like I definitely did all of your fish will probably be dead within 10 days if you do not treat. it moves that fast. first one will look real bad, then a few more, then you will be in panic mode taking rotting fish out of your tank every day.

my ottos were the hardiest fish in there and were totally fine through the whole thing. i didn't lose a single one / they showed no symptoms. corys were hit or miss.. some were in VERY bad shape while a few (even my oldest fully grown female) were totally fine. the rasboras got crushed / stood no chance (they are what introduced it though)

all of these symptoms / deaths happened in under 5 days

am looking forward to what OP has to say about what has happened to them thus far... we need more good documented experience on this disease because results may vary. I think there are also a lot of people who claim columnaris can be cured easily and you can wait it out that truly did not have columnaris but another disease like mouth fungus or a more mild 'white patch on the fish' situation


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

Nlewis said:


> I may be mistaken, but I believe Levamisole is the best meds to use.


you're thinking of Camallanus / nematode worms.

Columaris is bacteria.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

klibs said:


> i feel your pain...


Klibs, I followed your battle in your journal. Reading your post now, I could really feel your pain.

I admire your determination to overcome what sounds like a truly terrible experience. If I lost my fish like that, it would be difficult to cope with. Hopefully your experience can help others. 

And good luck to the OP, I hope you get this solved with minimal loss of livestock.


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## Acton (Jan 19, 2017)

Thanks for the input guys. Unfortunately I have no way of setting up a quarantine tank, cost isn't the issue its the space of where I could put such a tank. I live with my in-laws as I just graduated from college and I'm trying to get ahead of my student loans and credit card bills while I save up for our wedding and down payment on a house. Rent is ridiculous around here even on an RNs salary and I don't feel like wasting my money paying for someone else's property so yeah. . . .

My fiance's a Vet Tech and the Vet she worked for suggested in might be Columnaris based on the symptoms; which included white around the mouth and white patches on the body. They did seem to have other symptoms un-associated with Columnaris; including many fish that seemed to be constipated as evidenced by long strings of feces that weren't breaking off, and some fish with eyes that seemed to be popping. Some fish also had some swim bladder issues as well immediately prior to this outbreak, the constipation and swim bladder seemed to be cured by feeding de-shelled frozen peas that I boiled. I'm new to this hobby, and my fiance doesn't work with a practice that deals with exotics so neither of us have much experience to draw on. . 

That being said our outbreak started out a week ago with 1-4 deaths a day. About 35% of our population is left, all but one of our Neon Tetras passed but one, about half of our Harlequins and Guppies are left and the Cory Catfish and Ghost Shrimp don't seem to be affected. 

When our outbreak first started I immediately turned to the internet for the correct treatment and found that Furan-2, Kanamycin and daily Methylene Blue baths where the indicated treatment for this disease. That was last Friday, and none of the stores around us had the indicated medication used to treat Columnaris. My fiance gave me the line, "You shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet! Such and such who works with such and such at another practice told me to use these meds which ARE at Petsmart, so we'll try these while we're wating for the Furan-2, Methylene Blue and Kanamycin flakes to come in the mail". . . as I'm sure many of you know it's important to compromise in a relationship when you don't necessarily agree with your S/O as to avoid a huge conflict, so that's what I did. . . . that being said if I had my choice I wouldn't have done things the way we're doing them now. 

My fiance started with Melafix and General cure, then moved onto what we're currently treating with; Tetracycline, Erythromycin, and Fungal cure all by API. I was a little worried about dosing all these medications together but the research I did online only mentioned Furan-2 being contraindicated while dosing other antibiotics. We are also giving them Kanamycin medicated flakes currently. We dosed for two days and did a 25% water change yesterday, now we're on the day 1/2 of the second part of the treatment. Our last death was Tuesday, so something about this treatment IS working for now at least. I have concerns though because a lot of articles mention that not doing the correct treatment can initially beat back the outbreak, but when dosing stops the "plague" can come back twice as strong because it wasn't killed off completely and then built up resistance because of that. 

After this is done we'll be doing another water change Sunday, at which point I'll also give all the fish a Methylene Blue Bath. I'm going to move all my plants into a clear tubberware container, move the shrimp into a 3g tank I keep guppy fry in, then dose my main tank with the furan-2 while continuing the treatment of Kanamycin Medicated Flakes. . . hopefully the outcome is good. My other hope is that I might have incorrectly diagnosed Columnaris and it's something else that we've got going on. While more then 50% of my tank is gone, some have said that my my casualty rate would have be even higher then that if this really IS Columnaris that I'm dealing with. . . . I know you mentioned that as well klibs.

The fish that are left at this point seem to be doing a lot better, but these fish wheren't really exhibiting any symptoms in the first place. At this point all the fish that seemed to be effected where removed from the tank and euthanized. I realized what a deadly disease Columnaris was after just doing a small amount of research online and my fiance agreed with me. It remains to be seen how the remaining fish will do after finishing the treatment. I'd like to restock the tank as well, and I'll be looking for a reputable distributer in the future whatever the outcome is. On that note I've heard that buying online can be a pretty good option these days. Does anyone have any suggestions on any online retailers that sell Harelquins, Guppies, Neon Tetras and the rest of the fish that I listed before if it comes to that?

I'll keep you guys updated, and if anyone else has any other suggestions I'd like to hear them. I really appreciate the input guys, especially klibs, since I didn't consider the fact that I'd need to bleach my plants before adding them back into the tank after treating this disease, and I really DO wish I had somewhere to set up a quarantine tank which would be the optimal situation but I don't. It's not an issue of cost more so then a space to set up such a tank. If my fish all die, I'm going to tear the tank down and buy a new one. I've got the money for such a thing and I'd feel more confident in just buying a new tank rather then bleaching the old one. I'll just throw the old tank out if that's what it comes to. Obviously I'm never going to buy from the same LFS that I did when I bought this stock.

Thanks again guys!


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

When all the fish die, start over. Bleach bomb the tank. Throw everything in the tank out, substrate, etc...

It'll give you a fresh start.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD


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## Nordic (Nov 11, 2003)

It is sad when we have to spend five times the fish's value on medicine.


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

I commend you for doing the research to try and take proper care of the fish you keep. AAP is a great site at that, with valuable info. (actual scientific info and tests, not just marketing talk) from Dr. Carl Strohmeyer.

Kanamycin and Nitrofurazone (Furan-2) used in combination is shown as the most successful treatment. The sooner treatment starts, the best chance of curing.

Some have mentioned experience using both meds did not harm their plants, but I can't say for certain if all plant species (sensitive/delicate) will tolerate it well. Kanamycin should be pretty well tolerated. Furan-2 is the one that may be a bit more harsh to plants, and does tint the water yellow. Considering how nasty Columnaris is, I've always felt it's worth correctly treating everything rather than wanting to save/not treat this or that plant, and risk spreading/keeping Columnaris alive.

I personally prefer Seachem Kanaplex (powder) over medicated foods. Kanamycin is easily absorbed by fish via water column and since the entire tank is dosed, it's sure the entire tank is treated, evenly.

Cooler temps can slow down Columnaris progression (wouldn't go too low or too fast). Sugar from foods can cause the bacteria to grow faster (such as done in labs). Salt is also said to be useful in combating Columnaris, but needs to be a strong enough concentration, but I'd probably only recommend depending on what types of fish you are treating. Methylene Blue swabs are said to be useful, but if the outbreak is far progressed it probably won't do much, and the stress done to the fish by chasing them with a net may cause more harm than good.

As with all antibiotics, the full treatment should be administered the entire duration to not create any drug resistant/immune superbugs. Even though some of the meds you are already dosing are ineffective against Columnaris (a aerobic, gram-negative bacteria), the antibiotics should be completed. Even though meds are meant to help, the meds can negatively impact the fish, so using many meds all at once can not be so great for the fish (whether they damage kidneys or induce stress in other ways).

If treatment doesn't reach in time (all fish die), I would suggest bleach sterilizing everything, let it dry out and start over.


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## Bsponsler (Dec 31, 2012)

Speaking from the vantage point of someone that is finishing up a treatment program after having an infection that killed off about 75% of the community fish in my 60 gallon low tech tank, I've done a ton of reading about columnaris in the past few weeks as I knew nothing about it before the outbreak in my tank. There were a few takeaways from some of the studies and veterinarian journals that I feel are worth mentioning. 

The first is that columnaris is latent in almost every tank in the same way that almost every doorknob has potentially harmful bacteria on it. Under normal circumstances the ecology of the tank and fish will keep it from flaring. Bleaching everything will definitely kill the infection, but it will be back the same way that the door knob will get more bacteria on it after the Clorox wipe. 

That being said, it may only take one trigger to start an outbreak. In my case it was a poorly adjusted automatic feeder while I was on vacation. Way too much food messed up the balance in my tank and columnaris took advantage of the opportunity. 

I went the antibiotics route, but I don't have any fragile plants in my tank. Just Anubis, java fern, and water sprite. The Furan hasn't seemed to bother them so far at the six day point. 

I will however be more fastidious about my feeding regiment when I leave town, and also am going to start using a small amount of salt in my tank. 

I have also been converted to a believer in the quarantine tank to prevent an outbreak from a newly introduced fish that might have an advanced infection.


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## Archaeofish (Dec 18, 2014)

klibs said:


> after reading some of the other posts here I very strongly disagree that you should just 'let things play out'. I sort of doubt these people really had a case of columnaris... if it IS in fact columnaris you will find out pretty quickly.


That may very well be true. I just wanted to share my experience as someone who was new to the hobby at that time, was concerned about the deaths, read up on columnaris on the internet, and almost nuked my tank for something that didn't turn out to be as serious as I thought at first. If there's no question that you have columnaris, it's best to pay attention to the people who have dealt with it before.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

if you really can't set up a second tank you will need to heavily medicate with furan 2 and kanaplex like you currently are. columnaris is a bacteria and needs to be treated with anti-bacterial (i forget which gram it is) like these meds. a lot of the other meds you listed will probably have no effect

after that just hope for the best i guess... i personally would still be pretty scared that it will come back, just be prepared if it does with the meds

and I agree with the above post that diseases can come out of nowhere given the right conditions / are present to some degree in all tanks. I also believe columnaris is one of, if not the worst of these diseases and needs to be treated with more caution. if it is a bad infection tank-wide that impacts the majority of stock there is obviously a lot of this bacteria in your tank. IMO the bleach method will crush it and give you a really good head start. meds might also achieve this goal but i would rather be safe than sorry.

just be careful going forward. monitor things very closely when you do things like add new fish, etc...

hope everything works out for you!


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## Nordic (Nov 11, 2003)

One way to reduce the amount of medicine needed is to drop the water level for a lower volume.


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## Coralbandit (Feb 25, 2013)

Unlike the antibiotics we keep building these stronger bacterial issues with, it is a natural oxidizer like chlorine, but can be safely administered with fish and many plants.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160313202506/http://skepticalaquarist.com/potassium-permanganate


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## Nordic (Nov 11, 2003)

Yes, one just needs to be very sure of dosage, as it indiscriminately oxidises organic matter.



> My fiance's a Vet Tech and the Vet she worked for suggested in might be Columnaris based on the symptoms; which included white around the mouth and white patches on the body. They did seem to have other symptoms un-associated with Columnaris; including many fish that seemed to be constipated as evidenced by long strings of feces that weren't breaking off, and some fish with eyes that seemed to be popping. Some fish also had some swim bladder issues as well immediately prior to this outbreak, the constipation and swim bladder seemed to be cured by feeding de-shelled frozen peas that I boiled. I'm new to this hobby, and my fiance doesn't work with a practice that deals with exotics so neither of us have much experience to draw on. .



This bit worries me, it has all the symptoms a tank that is not clean enough. Almost all of those primary ailments were caused by anaerobic bacteria that don't really flourish in healthy oxygenated tanks with good flow and filtration.


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## jake21 (Aug 11, 2019)

This is an old thread but i just wanted to provide a tidbit of information on furan-2.

I can state with quite a bit of first hand experience that furan-2 will complete melt hornwort. It does not appear to have impacted the other plants in the tank and i'm not totally upset with the complete destruction of the substantial amount of hornwort in this tank since I can move more into the tank from another but the destruction appears complete to that plant.


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