Fungus?

One of my 20G growout Malawi hap tanks has come down with some sort of cotton funk. Not all of the fish have it... the super red emps are fine, but a couple of my tetrastigma seem to have a white fuzz growing on their heads and around their shoulders up toward their dorsal fins.


The affected fish are hanging out in the rear of the tank, not eating.

I've been dosing Pimafix since Friday and did a 50% water change yesterday. It doesn't seem like it's working. Any advise? Should I move the affected fish to a hospital tank? I haven't yet as I figured the whole tank needs treated.

How do I tell if this is bacterial or fungal?

JMO,

Kill affected fish. Maybe try salt? I've had better luck with salt than any other treatment.

I wish I had taken a better look at these fish when I was over the other day. I would pull any sponge filters that are in there and disinfect them. Use a new filter and do daily or every other day water changes to prevent any ammonia/nitrite spikes. You may want to use pre-aged water to prevent your dechlor from binding to any meds you're using.

Personally Tony i would bump the temp to 82-84 and add about a tsp of salt per 5 gallons and wait 3 days

API makes some good meds. The box usually tells you what they treat. Since its a 20g, I'd treat the whole tank since there are other fish in there that could be carriers now. I've never used it but here's one. I have used some of these to treat an ulcer and had great results.
http://aquariumpharm.com/Products/Product.aspx?ProductID=60http://aquariumpharm.com/products/Product.aspx?ProductID=58

Tony, it could be [FONT=verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Columnaris infection (mouth fungus/cotton wool disease).
Lowering the temps is the way to go with this. Raising the temp accelerates this infection.
Treat with salt, daily water changes and Maracyn (Maracyn 2 could be used at the same time).

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Hey guys.

Thanks so much for all the awesome responses. As Bill mentioned, I was very concerned about it potentially being the cotton/wool disease (bacterial). I looked it up and this is much worse than the fungal version. Basically... flush the fish and burn the fishroom. (Well, not that bad, but pretty rough)

From a website I looked up, if you can see small hairs on the outbreak areas, it is most likely the fungal version (called saproleginia). If this is in fact the case, then I think this is good news.

I got out of work a bit early and hit the tank with 1 TBSP/5 gal salt and hit it with malechite green (weird, right?).

Anyway, weird enough, all fish are swimming at the front of the tank a few hours later.... even the afflicted ones.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Thanks again, guys. You rock. :sign0092:

Maracyn 2 is good and pretty easy on the bio filter.

Matt