Columnaris or Body Fungus?

So I got this new guppy and new platy (I have posted before about them yes). He was in quarantine for a week with no signs of disease while we did some salt baths 3x/day. They were moved into my main tank, but now with the good lighting I feel like this might not be a white coloring on his body... maybe it's a disease? He's had this white "coloring" on him since I got him, I can't say if it's spread I don't really know. He is active and flirtatious and eating. But in the main tank it really looks like a raised area of white.... and it's so hard to take a picture of a fish, but as you can see it's covering a good portion of his body on just one side. The rest of his body is a greyish-blue. He's not even rubbing on anything either. My water parameters are good, 0 0 20 now (WC soon), but since he had this spot since I got him it's not from my water anyway. He was in quarantine with the platy for the week and she has nothing on her body. Should I put him back in quarantine alone? Is it possible for a guppy to have just... white patches on half their body?

 

it's not the first time I have seen this on a guppy just wait and see if it spreads.

 

So I got this new guppy and new platy (I have posted before about them yes). He was in quarantine for a week with no signs of disease while we did some salt baths 3x/day. They were moved into my main tank, but now with the good lighting I feel like this might not be a white coloring on his body... maybe it's a disease? He's had this white "coloring" on him since I got him, I can't say if it's spread I don't really know. He is active and flirtatious and eating. But in the main tank it really looks like a raised area of white.... and it's so hard to take a picture of a fish, but as you can see it's covering a good portion of his body on just one side. The rest of his body is a greyish-blue. He's not even rubbing on anything either. My water parameters are good, 0 0 20 now (WC soon), but since he had this spot since I got him it's not from my water anyway. He was in quarantine with the platy for the week and she has nothing on her body. Should I put him back in quarantine alone? Is it possible for a guppy to have just... white patches on half their body?

I would remove it personally cause the 2nd and 3rd pic looks like its a bit raised with a white fungus look to it . like columnaris. A201 may be able to give a better opinion

 

I would remove it personally cause the 2nd and 3rd pic looks like its a bit raised with a white fungus look to it . like columnaris. A201 may be able to give a better opinion

Columnaris was one of my thoughts too. How do I treat it? I have a lot here.

 

Columnaris was one of my thoughts too. How do I treat it? I have a lot here.

I honestly can't recommend a med for it as i've never dealt with that disease but I believe it has a low recovery chance. I would search it quickly incase you can hopefully save your guppy. But definitely revome him back to quarantine cause I do believe it can spread. Sorry i'm not much help.
Edit: here is a link I found

 

I honestly can't recommend a med for it as i've never dealt with that disease but I believe it has a low recovery chance. I would search it quickly incase you can hopefully save your guppy. But definitely revome him back to quarantine cause I do believe it can spread. Sorry i'm not much help.
Edit: here is a link I found
fish columnaris - Google Search

I have both kanaplex and furan-2, which is what Fishlore says to treat columnaris with. My question is now: should I treat the whole tank since the guppy is in the tank? But with no one else showing symptoms I could remove him and just treat the quarantine.

 

It looks like fungus to me, likely attached to an abrasion. Just to be safe, remove the little guy and put him back in the QT tank. There's an outside chance of Saddleback aka Columnaris.
If you want to medicate, maybe a disinfectant such as Melafix or StressGuard.

 

It looks like fungus to me, likely attached to an abrasion. Just to be safe, remove the little guy and put him back in the QT tank. There's an outside chance of Saddleback aka Columnaris.
If you want to medicate, maybe a disinfectant such as Melafix or StressGuard.

Yes! It is white and fluffy now. He has been moved a lot between the store, quarantine, salt dips and now in a new tank. He was also definitely chased around a bit in the first hour by my old guppy. Since it hasn't spread in a week, I was hoping it wasn't columnaris. I do have Melafix here, no stressguard, but isn't it Pimafix that treats fungus? (I have Pimafix too).

If it was columnaris and I have to treat with Furan-2, I'm not sure how, as my quarantine is 3 gallons and the package is for 10 gallons.

 

Fungus on a fish abrasion is normal. Clean water & little time are usually enough to cure it. The Melafix is optional. It works like an anticeptic. StressGuard bonds with wounds to aid in healing.
Not a good idea to nuke the main tank with antibiotics. It has the potental to crash your cycle & destroy the BB.

 

Fungus on a fish abrasion is normal. Clean water & little time are usually enough to cure it. The Melafix is optional. It works like an anticeptic. StressGuard bonds with wounds to aid in healing.
Not a good idea to nuke the main tank with antibiotics. It has the potental to crash your cycle & destroy the BB.

Yes, and the last time I used Kanaplex for a disease two of my platys died from it (I believe it affected their kidneys), so I am very hesitant with medications now. I definitely want the little guy to survive, but I don't want to nuke the tank or for it to kill any of my other fish. I think I will use many water changes and Pimafix, since it's all-natural and not hard on their system. Does anyone know if Pimafix is okay with live plants?

A201, I have no experience with fungus. How long til it should start to go away if it is just fungus on an abrasion?

 

The fungus should noticeably diminish a little each day.

 

How common is columnaris? Is it really likely he has columnaris vs just fungus from an abrasion?

Also if it is just fungus on an abrasion, it's not contagious is it?

 

The fungus is not contagious. Columnaris is a naturally occurring bacteria in the Freshwater aquarium environment. It takes hold in a weakened fish. Healthy fish can usually shake it off. It spreads when tank mates graze on an infected corpse.

 

The fungus is not contagious. Columnaris is a naturally occurring bacteria in the Freshwater aquarium environment. It takes hold in a weakened fish. Healthy fish can usually shake it off. It spreads when tank mates graze on an infected corpse.

Thank you for your help. It's always difficult deciding what is the best way to treat a fish, they die so fast from some diseases and even some meds! My other 5 fish are very healthy, and he has no symptoms so I don't believe he will die any time soon. He would be stressed alone in quarantine, which could cause further problems. I believe my course of action is going to be dosing the main tank with Pimafix and Melafix to help him along and prevent anything from getting to the fish already in there, and 30% wc daily. I had already been doing salt dips this week, and obviously it didn't do anything for him, so I don't know if I should bother with them.

It's really upsetting, because I finally did a quarantine to prevent bringing disease in the main tank, and they both looked and acted completely fine, and the day after in the main tank.... disease. UGH

I lied... he's back in quarantine.... with melafix and pimafix on board....

 

I may be the odd man out but i've never quarantined any fish i'v gotten and have been lucky so far. Hope I didn't just hex myself. Fish go through a lot of stress from their shipping to going into the LFS tank then being netted again sometimes by a less than knowledgable LFS associate then having to be acclimated again to our tank parameters so things can come out of nowhere. if their very new maybe you can return the sick looking fish and see if you can pick out a better one. Sad I know cause we want to save every fish we get but sometimes infecting our tanks can't possibly be worth it.

 

I'd venture to say that most keepers don't QT new fish. Its important to handpick only the most hardy & healthy fish in the vendor's display tank or buy from only the best on line breeders.
Its also important to recognize the most common fish diseases & know how to treat it if an outbreak arises.

 

Completely agree with A201 ...Take a good 10 or more minutes to monitor their behavior all sides of them front back top bottom left and right side and when your ready to decide what ones you want be sure you specifically point out the ones you want to the associate and I honestly think you will have much better luck in the long run... But always remember like all living things everyone is dealt a different card so some can last far beyond their life expectancy or at least around it and some well...they get the short end of the stick... It happens.

 

I’m trying, I picked from a tank with no dead fish, no fish that had fin rot or torn fins, fish that were all active in the tank, and then watched the fish I chose for awhile and they were pecking at the driftwood, chasing other fish, full in tact fins, dorsal fin straight up.. but there’s the stress of being netted, driving home, adjusting to new water.. I was scolded when I first set up my tank that I didn’t qt the fish... I feel like I’m doing all I can but they are so over bred / inbred and I’ve read that livebearers in general these days are just really prone to diseases now

 

It looks like columnaris to me, by location especially. There are different types of it; from a fast-acting type that can wipe out a tank in 24-48 hours with no visible symptoms, to slower types that show up as external lesions and are usually not fatal if treated.

Salt baths will usually help with the external-lesion type (which is what that looks like), or you can treat with the Kanaplex/Furan2 combination. I tend to agree that it probably contracted it once the fish was in your tank, since it showed no signs in your quarantine.

If you've already dosed Melafix/Pimafix in your tank or QT (they won't hurt plants, at least have never hurt mine), you can take him out for a bath of salt and methylene blue, if you have some. (Return him to the tank by net or hand, don't pour water with methylene blue into your tank especially with plants.) I don't think I'd subject him to a salt bath more than once a day.

You can also try a dip in water with a peroxide or potassium permanganate solution (one or the other, not both; and be sure you look it up and get the correct ratio, too much can cause gill damage and be fatal.) Using it may be addressed in the stickied thread for columnaris in this forum.

When the lesion is a little farther back on the body you can also try directly swabbing it with 3% peroxide, as long as you can do it without risking it getting into their eyes or gills. Where that one is, I probably wouldn't try it, just making note that it's an option when you can do it safely.

Columnaris is unfortunately pretty common with livebearers, at least in the time I've been keeping them.

 

It looks like columnaris to me, by location especially. There are different types of it; from a fast-acting type that can wipe out a tank in 24-48 hours with no visible symptoms, to slower types that show up as external lesions and are usually not fatal if treated.

Salt baths will usually help with the external-lesion type (which is what that looks like), or you can treat with the Kanaplex/Furan2 combination. I tend to agree that it probably contracted it once the fish was in your tank, since it showed no signs in your quarantine.

If you've already dosed Melafix/Pimafix in your tank or QT (they won't hurt plants, at least have never hurt mine), you can take him out for a bath of salt and methylene blue, if you have some. (Return him to the tank by net or hand, don't pour water with methylene blue into your tank especially with plants.) I don't think I'd subject him to a salt bath more than once a day.

You can also try a dip in water with a peroxide or potassium permanganate solution (one or the other, not both; and be sure you look it up and get the correct ratio, too much can cause gill damage and be fatal.) Using it may be addressed in the stickied thread for columnaris in this forum.

When the lesion is a little farther back on the body you can also try directly swabbing it with 3% peroxide, as long as you can do it without risking it getting into their eyes or gills. Where that one is, I probably wouldn't try it, just making note that it's an option when you can do it safely.

Columnaris is unfortunately pretty common with livebearers, at least in the time I've been keeping them.

Yeah, it does look like the google images for Columnaris... he is in QT, but both the QT and the main tank have Melafix and Pimafix....

You say he got it when he was put in my main tank, which would make sense, but does that mean I should treat my main tank with Kanaplex and Furan 2 because it’s in the main tank even though the other fish don’t have it? I feel so bad, he was healthy before he went into my tank, but my fish don’t have columnaris!

Since he got it from the main tank after my salt dip treatments had ended, I will start the salt dips again. They didn’t stress him out at all and he’s very easy to catch.

So I guess....
should I treat him in QT with furan 2 and kanaplex or see if the salt dips and melafix + pimafix get rid of it?
And... should I treat the main tank?

 

You can treat your main tank, but I wouldn't say you must treat it if no other fish are showing signs of illness.

It's sort of like E. colI with us; it's ever-present in our environment, but doesn't usually cause infection unless we're immuno-compromised or it gets past our normal defenses (cut in the skin, etc.)

It's up to you whether to treat the whole tank; in my experience, the external-lesion type doesn't tend to be that 'catching' unless the other fish are also stressed by poor water quality or other environmental factors. I'd definitely do as you've done and remove him for treatment in QT, and just monitor the others for any signs of illness.

It's up to you whether to go straight to the Kanaplex/Furan with him or try Melafix/Pimafix plus salt baths. It's always a gamble to try milder methods first - I've often had success with just salt/meth blue, but it's not a guarantee. Only you know if you'll feel worse if he doesn't make it and you hadn't pulled out the stronger ammunition first; so I'd say let your own feelings be your guide. (For that matter, Kanaplex/Furan isn't 100% cure rate either, there aren't any completely bulletproof options.)

 

You can treat your main tank, but I wouldn't say you must treat it if no other fish are showing signs of illness.

It's sort of like E. colI with us; it's ever-present in our environment, but doesn't usually cause infection unless we're immuno-compromised or it gets past our normal defenses (cut in the skin, etc.)

It's up to you whether to treat the whole tank; in my experience, the external-lesion type doesn't tend to be that 'catching' unless the other fish are also stressed by poor water quality or other environmental factors. I'd definitely do as you've done and remove him for treatment in QT, and just monitor the others for any signs of illness.

It's up to you whether to go straight to the Kanaplex/Furan with him or try Melafix/Pimafix plus salt baths. It's always a gamble to try milder methods first - I've often had success with just salt/meth blue, but it's not a guarantee. Only you know if you'll feel worse if he doesn't make it and you hadn't pulled out the stronger ammunition first; so I'd say let your own feelings be your guide. (For that matter, Kanaplex/Furan isn't 100% cure rate either, there aren't any completely bulletproof options.)

The only reason I’m hesitant to use the kanaplex and furan 2 is because the qt is 3 gallons and the dosing is for 10 gallons, I don’t want to OD him on accident

 

You can take the dose for 10 gallons, pour out the powders onto a piece of paper or something, then divide the powders into thirds and just twist the remaining two into pieces of paper or something until it's time to use them.

The doses don't have to be perfectly measured. I'm pretty sure I've never killed a fish with medication; they've died of their illnesses. Either because it was resistant, or was too far gone already, or else I wasn't treating for the right thing or with the right medication.

 

The only reason I’m hesitant to use the kanaplex and furan 2 is because the qt is 3 gallons and the dosing is for 10 gallons, I don’t want to OD him on accident

Overdosing on kana is easy. And like melafix there’s a lot of stories on doing so. Might try a couple sprinkles. Or putting a scoop in a cup of water, mixing it and dosing small amounts of that water...

So I got this new guppy and new platy (I have posted before about them yes). He was in quarantine for a week with no signs of disease while we did some salt baths 3x/day. They were moved into my main tank, but now with the good lighting I feel like this might not be a white coloring on his body... maybe it's a disease? He's had this white "coloring" on him since I got him, I can't say if it's spread I don't really know. He is active and flirtatious and eating. But in the main tank it really looks like a raised area of white.... and it's so hard to take a picture of a fish, but as you can see it's covering a good portion of his body on just one side. The rest of his body is a greyish-blue. He's not even rubbing on anything either. My water parameters are good, 0 0 20 now (WC soon), but since he had this spot since I got him it's not from my water anyway. He was in quarantine with the platy for the week and she has nothing on her body. Should I put him back in quarantine alone? Is it possible for a guppy to have just... white patches on half their body?

That’s almost exactly what I saw on my endler and I thought it was Columnaris. Until I got a closer inspection and say there was a serious injury and damage to his flesh which is what was causing his flesh to go white.
Could be additional something like Columnaris that’s for sure. But I’m gently treating.

 

Overdosing on kana is easy. And like melafix there’s a lot of stories on doing so. Might try a couple sprinkles. Or putting a scoop in a cup of water, mixing it and dosing small amounts of that water...

Don't know if it's allowed to link to the Seachem forums (so I won't), but from everything they say, the danger with Kanaplex is from too prolonged use vs too large dosage amounts.

I found a thread where someone is talking about having used 2x dosage for a full course (3 doses over 6 days). The Seachem rep only cautions them against using it for too long without taking a break, but they don't say anything about having intentionally doubled the doses. (The fish was still alive and had improved, the poster was asking whether they should continue treatment and for how long.)

I'm not sure how we'd know whether the illness killed the fish, or the medication (presuming that people aren't routinely using Kanaplex on healthy fish as a way to rule out illness.) I've used it pretty frequently for columnaris; and in those cases, fish who died after kana/furan treatment looked the same (and died within the same time period) as fish that died after being treated only with salt/MB, and also the same as ones that died before they'd been treated with anything at all.

I'm actually curious, wondering how we'd know without doing some kind of postmortem dissection (and also knowing what we needed to be looking for), to be certain it was the medication vs whatever illness we had been treating them for.

 

Tough call either way for sure. It feels like a 50/50 on this forum whether people are okay using medication or avoid it.

This morning the guppy still looks the same. Swimming around, obviously hating being in quarantine when he was just in a big pretty tank! But in quarantine the white is VERY hard to see as there is no lighting on it. It’s definitely still there though. He’s still eating, swimming, not scratching or lethargic. Because it LOOKS like columnaris I’m tempted to treat for it, but he’s just not presenting like columnaris at all. For today I’m going to do a salt dip, wc, keep melafix and pimafix on board, and watch closely. If he looks like he’s getting lethargic I’ll switch over to columnaris treatment.

Update: sad news. He got his wc and salt dip and now 30 mins later he is just laying at the bottom, only swims when startled. Starting treatment for columnaris now.

 

Idk if this will help anyone, but there’s roughly 10 scoops of furan 2 if you use the kanaplex scoop that comes with the bottle. Which would mean 1 kanaplex scoop per gallon for treatment.

Please tell me this isn’t columnaris on the mouth of a fish in my main tank!!

 

Please tell me this isn’t columnaris on the mouth of a fish in my main tank!!

Hard to tell from the pic, but if it has white on the mouth and there's nothing they might have eaten that would do that (such as: when my corys spawned, the swordtails would all have white on their mouths from eating the cory eggs.)

If you think it's columnaris, I think it's time to treat the tank. It's a little alarming that your other guppy has gone downhill that quickly as well, normally external lesions don't bring a fish down in just a day or two. It's when it goes internal, or gets down into flesh externally, that it starts bringing them down more quickly.

I would recommend getting some methylene blue if you don't have it. It's old-school, but it endures because it's good for multiple things while also being supportive to the fish under stress (it helps blood-oxygenation as well as being antiparisitical and antibacterial (toward some bacteria, not all.))

It's probably too late for it to help your current fish (you wouldn't want to combine it with meds, though it is okay to combine it with salt), but it's good to have onhand as a first-line treatment for things like this, or preventatively as a dip with new fish.

 

Here’s a better picture. I don’t have Methylene Blue and I’d have to order it which it won’t be here on time to treat anything. I have Rapid-Cure ich treatment which has Malachite Green in it?

I’ll have to remove the plants I just got...

Corys will be okay with the Furan 2 and kanaplex right?

 

No, malachite green doesn't have the same properties as methylene blue. And like I said, it probably wouldn't make much difference right now anyway, where you're moving on to medication; it's just a recommendation for the future.

No need to remove plants, Kanaplex and Furan2 won't hurt them and you don't want to use anything else with the medicine. (Do remove activated charcoal, of course.)

If there are corys, are you sure there aren't eggs that the fish might have eaten? Edit to add, this is what the swordtails looked like when they'd been eating cory eggs: Caught Red Handed Funny - | Freshwater Fish and Tank Photos 416997

None of my corys have ever been bothered by Kanaplex/Furan2 at recommended doses.

 

No, malachite green doesn't have the same properties as methylene blue. And like I said, it probably wouldn't make much difference right now anyway, where you're moving on to medication; it's just a recommendation for the future.

No need to remove plants, Kanaplex and Furan2 won't hurt them and you don't want to use anything else with the medicine. (Do remove activated charcoal, of course.)

If there are corys, are you sure there aren't eggs that the fish might have eaten?

None of my corys have ever been bothered by Kanaplex/Furan2 at recommended doses.

I never saw eggs, but I really have no idea what to look for or what gender my two corys are. Yes, I know I need more than 2. I was supposed to get pymgy corys and the LFS gave me the wrong ones, but they've been fine. But yeah, I don't know their gender. I have never seen eggs.




This, actually, these little white dots -- I have definitely seen these in my tank. I posted a pic of them awhile ago. It was like 5 little white dots on the substrate. But they were TINY. Are these eggs really tiny?

I found the piece of substrate with the little tiny white dots. This is what it looks like.

 

I just added a link to an old post of mine about it, to my previous post.

Cory eggs will usually be low on the glass, nearer to the substrate than the top of the tank.

But, once some fish figure out what's going on, there might not be any eggs to see. Mine would follow the female cory around and eat them as soon as she placed them. Often the white on their lips was the only way I even knew the corys had spawned overnight.

Given that you suspect having a case of columnaris already, though - myself, I would probably go ahead and treat the main tank with the Kanaplex and Furan2. I'm still confident that I haven't killed any fish with medication, unless it was because it also crashed the biofilter and I didn't stay on top of the water parameters.

I found the piece of substrate with the little tiny white dots. This is what it looks like.

No, don't think those are cory eggs; they look too small unless they're from pygmy varieties or something (assuming, I haven't seen pygmy eggs yet.) And they don't usually place them on substrate; they'll be stuck to the glass, or heater, or the underside of plant leaves.

 

Actually, I was just looking at videos of my corydoras eating to try to sex them, and I see that the white line on her upper lip was there even in this video, which was taken before I put the new guppy/platy in the tank. It was actually taken on Friday 2/10. Sadly, youtube videos always make my videos super grainy and hard to see, so you can't really see it in the video I uploaded. But, what sex do you think the corys are? At :18 seconds in you can clearly see the white line on her mouth.

 

I had one of those in my egg-eating brigade as well, caught in the act:




I can't tell on your corys, it's easier when you look at them from above. For example these are the mystery corys that I recently got (best guess is delphax).


This looks to be 2 males and 1 female. Focus on the area of their pectoral fins: the widest part on a male is generally their head - in front of the pectoral fins. The widest part on a female is generally just behind the pectoral fins.

So, left to right in the pic would be M, M, F.

Another way is to look at them head-on. A male, you won't see body past the head if you're eye level and straight on. A female you will see her body bulge out at the sides when looking at her head-on. Generally.

Yours may be a bit young yet to be sure.

 

They are young, although they’ve doubled in size already, they’re still smaller than my platy and guppy. This is from above when I first got them, though they’re probably wayyy too young in this picture. It’s really hard to see them head-on since they move so darn much, but they both look the same to me now so I either have 2 females or 2 males (which makes it even harder for me!) in this picture I was sure I had a male and a female, but one could’ve just been growing faster too.


On the main thread though, since I saw the white line in a video from weeks ago, I don’t think I should treat the main tank, do you? As for the guppy in QT, he hasn't laid on the bottom of the tank since I started the treatment. Who knows, maybe he'll pull through!


EDIT: Now that I'm hard core staring at them, I think one is bigger than the other one still. I probably will never see any eggs to know though since my platy eats EVERYTHING!

 

I would probably continue as you are, treating the guppy in QT and just monitor the main tank.

I'll also say that my rainbow wag platy never developed columnaris even when two of the blue swordtails in the same tank with her had it (externally).

On the corys, it'll be clearer as they get bigger.

 

I would probably continue as you are, treating the guppy in QT and just monitor the main tank.

I'll also say that my rainbow wag platy never developed columnaris even when two of the blue swordtails in the same tank with her had it (externally).

On the corys, it'll be clearer as they get bigger.

She does seem like a tough fish. She never takes from anyone. Everyone knows who's boss!

He’s got what looks like pineconing down the affected side of his body. Is that normal for columnaris?

 

No, at least not in my experience. Is he bloated?

 

No, at least not in my experience. Is he bloated?

Not at all, but there’s definitely raised scales.

The only thing on the internet about scales sticking out is dropsy, but he isn’t swollen at all.

 

I'm at a loss on that one, I haven't seen pineconing without bloating, or only on one side.

I'm still wondering about his reaction to the salt bath as well. You are using aquarium salt? What kind of ratio?

I'd suspend further treatment at this point, just concentrate on keeping good water quality. Hopefully someone who has seen one-sided pineconing w/out bloating will have better advice to offer.