# Best treatment for Columnaris?



## girlon88keys

What is the best treatment for Colunaris?


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## Robin

You can either go with salt BATHS or antibiotics. 
We have an excellant article on treating Columnaris in the library section of this site. The author reports very good results with salt baths and is not too keen on anti-biotics.

On the other hand we've had members report back here that antibiotics worked. 
For antibiotices I usually recommend the following:
Maracyn &Maracyn-two---used together
OR
Kanamycn
There are other antibiotics that will work.

You want to have good water movement in the tank as this will help prevent the bacteria from adhering to the fish's skin. Adding salt, (sodium chloride) at the rate of 1 tablespoon per five gallons will do the same thing. (Note: this is not the same thing as a salt bath.)

Keep in mind that Columnaris is caused by a bacteria that is ubiquitous to your tank and only becomes a problem for your fish when they are stressed so lowering stress, be it aggression, poor water conditions, whatever, should be a part of any Columnaris treatment.

Robin


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## Robin

Just noticed you already had a post concerning Columnaris. Below I've pasted your questions from the earlier post into this post and I will delete the other.

Yes you should do a water change prior to any treatment, 30-40% using a good quality declorinator. Additionally you should lower the heat to 76' when treating for Columnaris. Maracyn is good but you need to use it with Maracyn-two--concurently. One treats the Flexibacter bacteria that is responsible for Columnaris and the other addresses the secondary infections that accompany Columnaris.

What symptoms are you seeing? What size tank, how many and what species of fish? How long has the tank been set up and what are the water parameters?

Robin



> We have what we believe to be a colunaris (spelling) outbreak in our take we have treated with an erythromycin antiobiotic and it doesn't seem to helping as we have lost a couple more fish since treating the tank.....I have read that treating with Macaryn will help.......should be still try to remove out more agressive fish? And should we also do a water change before treating with this new medicine? Will it help save our fish? We have six beautiful frontosa's that we don't want to lose....Thanks


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## girlon88keys

should we use the salt and the Macaryn two?


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## Robin

> should we use the salt and the Macaryn two?


If you're going the antibiotic route, (as opposed to a salt BATH), then yes, treat the tank with 1 tablespoon salt per five gallons along with the antibiotic.

Don't forget: you need to treat the tank with Maracyn and Maracyn-two together--at the same time, in order for the treatment to be most effective
Robin

(Salt baths require large amounts of salt and the fish is only dunked in the solution, usually in a separate container).


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## girlon88keys

How often should be salt the tank?


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## Robin

You add the correct amount of salt and leave it in there until the treatment is over. You don't keep adding it. The salt doesn't stop working or loose it's effectiveness overtime like other meds and treatments. The only way to stop it from working is to remove water from the tank.

If you do a water change during the salt treatment then you add back only the salt that was removed with the water. 
So as an example: say you had a ten gallon tank. You treated with salt at the rate of 2 tablespoons per five gallons so the total amount of salt in the tank would be 4 tablespoons. Now say you decide to do a partial water change and to make the math easy you decide to do a 50% partial water change--you remove half the water. You remove with the water 2 of the 4 tablespoons salt. Now when you add the new water you will also add back those 2 tablespoons bringing the total salt back to 4 tablespoons for the entire tank. 

Robin


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## mcavana

so if you are doing the maracyn and maracy two route, should any water changes be done during treatment?

Sorry i know this thread is OLD but it is the exact info i need.



Robin said:


> You can either go with salt BATHS or antibiotics.
> We have an excellant article on treating Columnaris in the library section of this site. The author reports very good results with salt baths and is not too keen on anti-biotics.
> 
> On the other hand we've had members report back here that antibiotics worked.
> For antibiotices I usually recommend the following:
> Maracyn &Maracyn-two---used together
> OR
> Kanamycn
> There are other antibiotics that will work.
> 
> You want to have good water movement in the tank as this will help prevent the bacteria from adhering to the fish's skin. Adding salt, (sodium chloride) at the rate of 1 tablespoon per five gallons will do the same thing. (Note: this is not the same thing as a salt bath.)
> 
> Keep in mind that Columnaris is caused by a bacteria that is ubiquitous to your tank and only becomes a problem for your fish when they are stressed so lowering stress, be it aggression, poor water conditions, whatever, should be a part of any Columnaris treatment.
> 
> Robin


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## GTZ

Both are 5 day treatments without water changes. A large water change and vacuum prior to beginning dosing would be prudent.
Other medications suggested for columnaris are a combination of Kanamycin (Seachem Kanaplex) and Nitrofurazone (API Furan-2).


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