Fish turn white then die

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Ixthus

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Sep 11, 2003
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Hi All,

I have something nasty killing my fish. First one of my Sterbai Cories turned almost completely white as though it lost all of the color from it's scales; after a day it died. I thought it was a fluke but then an Angel got it a died and now a second Angel is near-death. I've gotten over Ich before and that usually comes up as white spots. What am I dealing with here?

The tank is 55 gal with 2 ottos, 4 cories, 3 Angels, 1 albino ancistrus. I can take water parameters if that would help.

Thanks for your help.
 
Water parameters and maintenance schedule would help, whatever it is it sounds nasty. If the fish behave differently in any way could you post that as well; stuff like strange swimming patterns, refusing to eat, clamping fins, hiding etc. All these things can help narrow down the cause of death. If you've done anything new with the tank or added any fish recently, that could also potentially have something to do with it.
 
Here's my water parameters:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20
Hardness 25
Alkalinity 180
ph 7.6

Things look fine there. I try to do 20% water changes every week. I miss a few here and there. No new fish lately. I had an algae bloom in May. Unfortunately the tank is located in a place that gets lots of natural light but this is the first time since I got the tank last year that this has happened. To get rid of it I did daily water changes and put a blanket over the tank for a week. I also reduced feeding in this time and that did the trick. Not too long after that was when I discovered the problem with the Cory. The Angels are Zebra Lyretails and I've noticed some seperation in their fins particularly the ones that died. I was going to take a picture of this last one but it was quite disturbing. The fish that die swim like they are disoriented for a while and eventually make there way to the filter head without enough strength to get away.

One more thing that I changed. I upgraded the filter from the one that came with the tank. It was an Aqua-tech that I ran with the new Emperor 400 for a week on the same tank. I even left the media in the water for a few weeks in hopes that I wouldn't lose biofilter. I have since moved the aqua-tech to my son's 10 gal. because the sponge filter was driving us nuts.

I'm still a newbie at all of this and quite open to criticism. In this last year I've encountered ich, swordtails giving birth, swordtail jumping out of the tank, plants getting gobbled up, heaters going berserk and now this. Jeez, I wonder how people who don't have a wonderful resource like aquariacentral keep fish.

Thanks for your help.
 
What a year! You might be new, but it sounds like you're doing great.
The one thing I noticed is that you're seeing separation in their fins. If what you see is that the bony rays of their fins stay while the softer material between is eroding/splitting you could be looking at something bacterial. It's still impossible to identify based on just that one clue, unfortunately.
I've read that www.fishyfarmacy.com is a great site for identifying disease. If you Google 'fin rot' you should be able to find pictures and a description of bacterial fin rot and see if this is what's happening.
In the meantime, you could try adding a little salt to your tank, but be careful, corys don't tolerate it well. Add 1tsp/10g and do a water change if your corys show signs of stress. Salt helps increase the fishes' slime coat, guarding them from parasites, fungus and bacteria. You don't want to keep this level permanently, think of it as a temporary medication. Allow the level of salinity to go down by not replacing salt as you do water changes.
MelaFix is something many of us use as well, it's unproven, but some swear by it. It's a natural substance that's antibacterial. You could try it, it certainly won't hurt.
If any other fish get sick, please post EVERY detail of what their behaviour is and what they look like, and we'll try to get this solved.
 
flexibacter columnaris

Do a search on Flexibacter and Columnaris. I also noted the fish pumping the gills hard, isolating themselves, and doing a frantic spiral near the end.

Be sure to remove dying fish from the main tank. Increase water changes, several treatments are available for most fish. Reduce tank temp if possible. Salt may help, but check the info, it's been a long time and I did not use salt.

I had some cory catfish that had this and they do not tolerate much medication, I changed 50% water daily in a hospital tank and lost 50% of the fish, but losses stopped when I started the melafix.
 
Thanks for the info Blinky and Anonapersona. I think it could be Flexibacter Columnaris. I reduced the temperature and will do daily water changes for a while. I will also meticulously monitor the fish that I have left and note any behaviour changes. I'll convert my sons tank into a hospital tank in case I need it. I'll also look into melafix.

Man does this nastiness work fast. I remember thinking that this last Angel might be sick just a couple of days ago before I turned lights out. The next evening after I got home he was getting white and was probably beyond hope. I'll keep researching as well. It looks like I won't be replacing my lost fish until I'm sure this thing is gone.

Thanks for your help.
 
You're very welcome. That's a very nasty illness, you're probably going to want to use a strong antibacterial medication in a hospital tank (if you use it in the main tank it will kill your filter bacteria). Please keep us posted, and best of luck.
 
Angel on the hit list

Hi All,

Well, bad news. Another Angel is on the hit list. I'm hopefully catching this early enough. Every morning since that last Angel died I've been doing the "follow my finger" test to see if the two remaining angels are OK. Well they were fine this morning. I worked at home today so I glanced at the tank periodically. This afternoon I noticed one of the angels staying near the top of the tank in the corner. I thought he was taking an afternoon nap or something. Silly me. This evening he's lethargic and staying near the bottom. The picture that I'm hoping will be attatched to this is the angel. There is some fraying of the dorsal fin at the very tip. He has a white spot right under his dorsal fin but he's had that since I got him as a youngster a year ago. I put him in a hospital tank with Melafix and I'm dreading what he's going to look like tomorrow. The count is 1 angel, 4 cories, 1 albino ancistrus, 2 ottos in my main tank. Should I be running stronger meds in my main tank? Do I need to remove the carbon filter if I do that? If I lose these last two angels I might as well move everyone to the hospital tank and start the 55 gal. from scratch. <sigh> I'm sounding defeated already...

Thanks,

Ixthus

sickangel.jpg
 
I'd ask your LFS what they recommend for columnaris. Any fish that get/look sick, move them into a hospital tank, and treat with whatever antibiotic your store suggests. If you use an antibiotic in your main tank, you risk killing off the biologically active bacteria in your filter, and having to re-cycle the tank, so avoid it if you can.
What are you medicating with in the hospital tank? If it's just MelaFix, you probably want to switch to a commercial antibiotic, something like Kanamycin, Tetracycline, etc. Adding salt to the tank won't hurt either, and helps to disinfect, as well as increasing the fishes' slime coat.
Do DAILY 50% water changes with gravel vacuuming in the hospital tank, replenishing the medication afterwards. Make sure you're not using carbon in the filter, it will remove the meds. Also, try to have the tank as free of mulm as you can, any dirt in the tank will bind medication. If the fish are eating, you can soak their food in a tiny bit of tank water with some disolved meds, and this will get the medication inside the fish, where it does much more good than if it's just in the water.
Sorry you're going through this, there's nothing worse than watching them get sick and not knowing how to fix it. I hope they get well soon.
 
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