# Ich and fin rot or Columnaris?



## drpound2 (Jan 10, 2011)

A week ago I began treating 6 guppies for ich. I had never had this in my tank before and so asked a local pet store about it and they recommended a medication to treat them. Now, a week later, only 3 are alive. As the week went on 2 of them got worse then the others and their tails began to disappear. These 2 have died while I still have one guppy that has the white dots on it and her tail fin has begun to disintegrate like the others did. i began to research on my own wondering if the culprit was not ich and in another thread a user suggested they may have also had fin rot. i found a disease called columnaris that seems to fit too because of the females tendency to swim against the current in front of the filter, having white dots on her, and her tail disappearing. Any thoughts?


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## 1077 (Apr 16, 2008)

drpound2 said:


> A week ago I began treating 6 guppies for ich. I had never had this in my tank before and so asked a local pet store about it and they recommended a medication to treat them. Now, a week later, only 3 are alive. As the week went on 2 of them got worse then the others and their tails began to disappear. These 2 have died while I still have one guppy that has the white dots on it and her tail fin has begun to disintegrate like the others did. i began to research on my own wondering if the culprit was not ich and in another thread a user suggested they may have also had fin rot. i found a disease called columnaris that seems to fit too because of the females tendency to swim against the current in front of the filter, having white dots on her, and her tail disappearing. Any thoughts?


Can you provide numbers from test result's for ammonia,nitrites,and nitrates? What is pH of the tank? How long has the tank been running with fish? How often is water changed ?
Answers to these questions can help.


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## jeaninel (Aug 24, 2007)

Visually the difference between ich and columnaris is pretty easy to see. Ich looks like the fish has been sprinkled with grains of salt while Columnaris is more patchy. Ich can cause frayed fins also because the parasite likes to attach to the fins and this allows an entry for bacteria. Bacterial infections will often accompany an ich outbreak. Can you get a photo of your fish?


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