# Fungal infection? How to treat?



## jonsnow (May 1, 2015)

I just purchased 8 boesemani rainbowfish from ebay, and they looked the worse for wear when they arrived. Here are some pictures from right after I put them in my tank (probably should have quarantined them):


20150520_181156 by Benjamin Busiek, on Flickr
20150520_181206 by Benjamin Busiek, on Flickr
20150520_194601 by Benjamin Busiek, on Flickr

Sorry for the bad photos, but as you can hopefully see one of the fish arrived with a missing gill and two of them had small infections of some sort (top of head and lip).

After about a week those two fish seemed to get better, but one of the other rainbows is now looking a lot worse, see pictures below:

20150529_172744 by Benjamin Busiek, on Flickr
20150529_172805 by Benjamin Busiek, on Flickr
20150529_172819(0) by Benjamin Busiek, on Flickr
20150529_172823(0) by Benjamin Busiek, on Flickr

As you can see one of the fish is almost entirely covered in a milky film. The last picture shows some of the other rainbows. There fins are retracted and the tops are white. Is this normal?

Can anyone diagnose what is wrong with my fish? How can I treat it without hurting fish, plants, RCS, or snails?

Should I request a refund from the ebay seller?


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## BettaBabe (May 1, 2015)

Really looks like fin rot to me. Do lots of water changes. If it's just fin rot, it'll clear up with clean water.


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

Many 'fungi' diseases are actually bacterial in origin. Several organisms can cause fin rot, and if the tissue is compromised a fungus can move in on the damaged areas. Fungi rarely attack healthy tissue. I think this is what is happening to the fish with white edges to their fins. 

I would move these fish to a hospital tank and begin treating with some medicine. Question is, which one? 
All over cloudy sort of look could be excess slime coat production, which just means something is irritating the fish. Parasite? Wrong water parameters? Since the others are not showing this, then I would tend to think parasite or disease sort of thing, rather than a water problem. 

Google some pictures of Columnaris. This is a bacterial infection that can make the fish look white. Starts in a small area, and spreads. Treatment is with something like Kanamycin in food. The same bacteria or other Gram negative bacteria can cause fin rot. Same medicine. 

Always quarantine new fish EVERY TIME.


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## jonsnow (May 1, 2015)

Thanks guys 

I think I'm going to do a couple of 20% water changes this week and see if that helps. The tank was looking a little worse for wear and it was pretty polluted at one point (too much food from autofeeders), but it is looking a lot cleaner now.

I think I have also learned my lesson about quarantining new fish.


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## Stone454 (Jun 1, 2013)

I would treat in a hospital/qt tank with Methylene blue, just remember never to use it in your main tank as it will kill your biofiltration, or you can set up a small container and give the fish a dip/bathe just rinae them off in a container or clean water before going back into the tank, MB will kill BB and will stain, but it works wonders


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## jonsnow (May 1, 2015)

It does look like it could be Columnaris, so I am going to treat it as such for now.

I plan on adding 1tsp of aquarium salt per 20 gallons. Is this a good amount to safely treat a planted tank?

I'm going to do 20% water changes every other day.

I'm going to put all 8 rainbows in a methylene blue bath if I can find the stuff. Any hints on where to look for it? It looks like Petco doesn't carry it, and shopping online is going to take a couple of days to ship.


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## jonsnow (May 1, 2015)

On second thought, I think I am going to skip adding salt to my tank, but I will add it to the Methylene Blue bath instead. I am going to follow the guidance provided in this article http://www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/2009/07/fish-baths.html


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## jonsnow (May 1, 2015)

I couldn't find methylene blue anywhere locally, so I ordered some from Amazon. In the meantime I did a 30 gallon water change yesterday and I put the rainbows in a pimafix, melafix and salt bath.

When making the bath I added 8L of tank water, 85g of aquarium salt (about 1%), but I wasn't really sure how much Pimafix and Melafix to add so I attempted to dose the entire 7 days at once, but I think I waaay overdid it (I dosed for 8gallons vice 8L with one of the solutions by accident). Within minutes some of the rainbows were doing somersaults and swimming upside down, so instead of leaving them in the bath for 30 minutes, like I planned, I took them out after 5 minutes, rinsed them, and put them back in the tank. 

They appeared to be doing fine this morning, so I'm glad I didn't do any permanent harm, but I'm going to be much more careful about mixing my salt and methylene blue bath tonight.

On another note, about 6 of my guppies have died since putting the rainbows in the tank. I am guessing that whatever they had is spreading to the guppies and killing them quickly, but I'm not sure. Some of the dead guppies I have found immediately and I can't spot any visible signs of infection, but others have obviously been dead for some time and are completely covered with long white fuzz (saprolegnia?).


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

Dead for a while, the fungi or other decomposers move in and the fish gets that long white fuzz.


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## jonsnow (May 1, 2015)

I managed to kill all 8 of my rainbows in one swift stroke  I should have just left them alone to fend off whatever they had by themselves. I have no idea how I managed to kill them.

I put all 8 rainbows, as well as 5 of the worst looking guppies, in a 1 gallon aquarium that I drilled holes in and left it floating in the main tank so that I wouldn't have to keep catching them.

Day 1: Dunked for 5 minutes in 8L of tank water with 1% salt and way to much pimafix and melafix. Rinsed them in tank water, then transferred back to the tank.

Day 2: Dunked them for 30 minutes in 8L of tank water with 1% salt and double the normal dosage of Methylene Blue (40 drops). Rinsed them, put them back. Everyone seemed like they were doing fine.

Day 3: Dunked them for 30 minutes in the same 8L MB solution. They survived, but I transferred them to the rinse bucket and left them unattended for 10-20 minutes. When I came back all 8 rainbows were dead, but the 5 guppies seemed fine.

I have no idea what killed the rainbows. I used the same MB solution for days 2 and 3, and I used the same rinse water for all 3 days. Maybe something built up in the 5 gallon rinse bucket that poisoned them, or they were just too weak to handle the transfer between the high salt concentration solution and the no salt concentration rinse bucket. Either way, it is pretty disheartening.


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## anewbeus (May 28, 2015)

I think it was likely the salt. Salt should be approached with caution, and personally I don't like using salt on any freshwater fish. Some folks swear by it in all their tanks, but it mostly is a wive's tale as it only helps in dirty tanks to detox nitrite...you get enough of that from fish food.

Salt mostly will affect GH in the tank and switching fish back and forth will put them through stress from a changing of regulating fluid as it passes through the fish "skin". Think of when you drip acclimate your fish to new water...most folks believe it is pH shock, when in reality it is more a TDS shock which includes GH and KH.

A QT is always a good idea, but if you don't have one or for some reason don't wish to use on...something I have done in the past is use a Paraguard bath, move the new guys in and continue dosing the tank with Paraguard per normal directions for two weeks with daily 25% water changes just prior to dosing.


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## jonsnow (May 1, 2015)

anewbeus said:


> I think it was likely the salt. Salt should be approached with caution, and personally I don't like using salt on any freshwater fish. Some folks swear by it in all their tanks, but it mostly is a wive's tale as it only helps in dirty tanks to detox nitrite...you get enough of that from fish food.
> 
> Salt mostly will affect GH in the tank and switching fish back and forth will put them through stress from a changing of regulating fluid as it passes through the fish "skin". Think of when you drip acclimate your fish to new water...most folks believe it is pH shock, when in reality it is more a TDS shock which includes GH and KH.
> 
> A QT is always a good idea, but if you don't have one or for some reason don't wish to use on...something I have done in the past is use a Paraguard bath, move the new guys in and continue dosing the tank with Paraguard per normal directions for two weeks with daily 25% water changes just prior to dosing.


The salt was my guess as well. 

I am going to replace the 8 boesemani rainbows, but I'm going to wait until the guppies stop dying and the tank is healthy again. I'm also going to need to figure out how to quarantine them properly before introducing them into my tank this time.


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## shloken38 (Aug 17, 2012)

Sorry to hear that you lost these guys. A simple, cheaper solution to a QT tank would be a 10g rubbermaid tub, a sponge filter and a heater. You can always have a sponge filter running in your main tank, in the background. Just a thought.

And definitely get that tank healthy before getting anything else.


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## jonsnow (May 1, 2015)

shloken38 said:


> Sorry to hear that you lost these guys. A simple, cheaper solution to a QT tank would be a 10g rubbermaid tub, a sponge filter and a heater. You can always have a sponge filter running in your main tank, in the background. Just a thought.
> 
> And definitely get that tank healthy before getting anything else.


Thanks, that sounds like a great idea. 

Would you recommend treating the QT with anything? ParaGuard sounds like a good option, but I also already have Pimafix, Melafix, and Methylene Blue. 

Is it always good practice to treat the QT, or should it only be done if you see signs of an infection/disease?


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## anewbeus (May 28, 2015)

My personal opinion is only if signs appear. I am not a fan of adding things to a tank that are not necessary. Paraguard was a suggestion if a QT is out of the question.

If I can expand on my earlier comment about the salt...

I don't think the salt directly did them in, but it was the apparent sickness then combined with the salt/MB dips then back to non-salted water that probably put them over the edge.


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## jonsnow (May 1, 2015)

anewbeus said:


> My personal opinion is only if signs appear. I am not a fan of adding things to a tank that are not necessary. Paraguard was a suggestion if a QT is out of the question.
> 
> If I can expand on my earlier comment about the salt...
> 
> I don't think the salt directly did them in, but it was the apparent sickness then combined with the salt/MB dips then back to non-salted water that probably put them over the edge.


The fact that all 8 of them died within minutes of transferring them from the medication bath to the rinse leads me to believe that it was almost definitely the transition that killed them. I am very surprised that the transition seemed to effect the boesemanis so drastically but that none of the guppies were effected.


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## anewbeus (May 28, 2015)

It maybe, but you said the BRs were compromised when you received them. So they were already sick.

Sick fish react different as well as all fish...I would chalk this up to a combination of factors and the salt/MB then to non-salted water put them over the edge...the guppies were not as sick so they were able to cope.

That's all I am saying.

Something I have learned is that if you receive fish from a seller who does not warranty them I would stay away. Most sellers, if reputable, will tell you how to go about fish that are not up to your standards. Usually with a pic before the bag is opened...make sure you show the unopened bag. They won't want you to send them directly back, but rather put them in a tank in hopes they will make it. If they don't reputable sellers will replace them at no charge when available...there is not usually a refund.

Stay away from online sellers that don't insist on overnight shipping and a signed receipt of acceptance...to risky IMHO.


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