# Please help...



## Tylerindelta (Jan 27, 2015)

Hi I believe I have a columnaris infection in my 180 gallon planted tank. My water parameters are good and do frequent water changes. I've noticed a few of my rams and 1 discus have white lips and 2 rams as of this morning have white mucus on there faces. My angel also looks off. What's the best way to combat this? Dose the whole tank or try to remove infected fish and treat separately? I've read the bacteria can be in water column and attach to plants and decor. Please help I don't want to lose my babies I've read alot of mixed things regarding this. I plan on dosing tank with Duran 2 and feeding food mixed with kanaplex and focus. Any help would be greatly appreciated


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

Get in touch with April or try the ex-sponsors at CanadianAquatics.com. They will know.


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## VElderton (Jun 3, 2015)

Last year I had some unexpected die-off in one of my African tanks that was a mystery to me ... my basic treatment was not effective.

I came to the conclusion that Colmunaris was a main pathegen. As suggested above I visited April @ April's Aquarium and their excellent advice in combination with their experience was to check out the Angels Plus web-site ... an excellent resource with great videos too. April's advice led to the cure and saved the tank after a number of losses of some prime breeding stock and kept the infection isolated to one tank.

I combined *Furan 2 + Kanamycin*; Furan 2 acts on _gram-positive_ bacteria (usually the most common) and multiple other infectious microbes and Kanamycin acts on_ gram-negative_ bacteria (less common) which are aerobic and become infectious even in an oxygenated tank. The other advantage is Kanamycin is also absorbed through the skin which means it's a good treatment for eye infections that cause pop-eye.

I found both available at J & L Aquatics in Burnaby at a fair price. These medications cured even badly infected fish using the perscribed treatment over 2 weeks.

They are now my go-to meds. Because of this I continue to access the Angels Plus web-site and bought Kanamycin & Furan 2 in bulk, continue to shop at J & L Aquatics and April's Aquarium is my go-to LFS for advice, fish and supplies.

PS:

As a follow-up to what is posted above. I also found that these medications worked well with my filter systems, which continued to work throughout and are still operating well months later.

I believe that the main cause of the infection was that the fish were stressed because:

1) Generally African tanks are quite well stocked because they like it that way.
2) Stocking and feeding can cause nitrate issues in these tanks even with weekly water changes.
3) A change in water parameters. I believe that our local water parameters last winter were not "normal" and something was a bit off ... it could have been extra chemicals at the water purification plant or chemicals in the natural run-off into the resservoir, not sure what. I have no proof of this it's just a hunch because too many other hobbyists reported tank issues last winter.

I am continuing to focus on Nitrate, it is a constant concern. I know others use Purigen with great results, but I am looking for other more natural solutions, especially since you have to use bleach to re-charge the Purigen. I think I may have found a solution for nitrate control from the pond world that I am going to test out over the next few months due to the posts from Dr. Kevin Novak ... you and others may want to check this out. It is cheap, makes sense to my Aquatic Biology training and is at least worth a try and monitor nitrate levels before and after. I will report my results one way or other.


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