Help! Leopard Ctenopoma Mouth Problem!

Hi

I'm new here and having an emergency so sorry if I get some stuff wrong!

I have a fairly large Leopard bush fish and about a year ago I noticed it looked like he had cut his top lip. I watched him and it seemed to heal up ok, even though his top lip looked as though it had separated from his body a bit. It was no problem to him and he has been feeding no problem since.He grew fairly rapidly and is now pretty much full grown, about 5 or 6 inches. He is my favourite fish in my tank. I have 4 clown loaches, a couple of red eye tetras, couple of corys, royal pleco and 2 singapore gouramis ina 180L tank.
Today I have noticed he isn't closing his mouth. He seems ok it just doesn't look right. On closer inspection, he has this pinky coloured growth in his upper mouth, off to one side. It doesn't look good. I've searched the internets and can't find any reference to anyone having this problem before. He fed tonight no problem on blood worms. He also will eat my tetra pro crisps no problem. I am very worried that I might los him. Does anyone have any ideas as to what it could be please? Or if there is any way I can help him? I don't have a separate tank to isolate him in but the other fish have no signs of illness at all and the water has been tested over and over again the last couple of weeks and all of the levels are correct. (nitrite, nitrate, amonia, ph) and the temp is set at 26.5 celsius and there is good flow in there too.

The pictures are the best I could do, sorry for poor quality.

I hope someone may be able to help! And thank you in advance

Lucy

EDIT:

Request Help

Tank size: 180L with inbuilt jewel compact H bio filter
pH:
ammonia: will post these asap but last test 4 days ago was all within correct ranges.
nitrite:
nitrate:
kH:
gH:
tank temp: 26.5c


Volume and Frequency of water changes: 25% every 2 weeks

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: only tap safe

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): bog wood with plant on, 2 singapore gouramis, royal pleco

Exposure to chemicals: none (added a ceramic filter bit to my jewel inbuilt filter)

Hello Lucy. The jaw looks dislocated and somewhat inflamed. There's not much you can do about dislocated jaws in small fish -- with luck it'll click back on its own accord, but forcing the bones manually is likely to stress or damage the fish. As for the inflammation, if its internal, as seems to be the case from the photo, it should clean up in a week or so. If the inflammation is external, there's a risk of infection, and an anti-Finrot medication might be worth using prophylactically.

The real question is *why* this happened. It's commonest when fish fight, though jumping into hoods or trying to tackle over-large prey can cause jaws to become damaged too.

Cheers, Neale

Thanks for your reply Neale.
I know he ate all my cardinal tetras that were in there a while back and I know he has had a few problems now and then with a clown loach that keeps trying to get in his house, maybe that was what caused it? The lump has been there a while though. The good thing is he can still eat so hopefully he can hang on and it may go back to normal. I'll keep an eye on the inflammation for now. Thanks again, Lucy

Don't let your fish eat one another. Putting aside the ethics, fish reared as pets are not necessarily safe to use as food, and there are various ways fish can become sick from eating farmed fish. Several different parasites and infections are transmitted this way. I don't think that's the issue here, but don't let it happen again!

Leopard bushfish are quite easy to feed on wet-frozen foods, and they love live bloodworms. Earthworms are also good, and you can use forceps to feed them if they have trouble competing with their tankmates. Some specimens take to pellets, but I admit that mine never did, so don't bank on that.

It is possible there was some fighting going on, but we'll probably never know for sure. All you can do is hope for the best. There's no "cure" for dislocated jaws as such. A vet, or a very, VERY experienced fishkeeper at a local fish club may be able to manipulate the bones back, but the problem with small fish is that the bones are literally hair-thin and easily snapped. If the fish can still feed itself, it's best to just let nature take its course for now.

Cheers, Neale

nmonks said:

Some specimens take to pellets, but I admit that mine never did, so don't bank on that.

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Mine love Hikari Cichlid gold pellets (medium size)
but as Neale says dont bank on the fact that yours will.

Neales advise, as always is solid

Thanks for the kind words, Wolf.

Funny thing is that I like to use Hikari Cichlid Gold for all sorts of fish -- in my experience some of the best pellets on the market -- but my Ctenopoma never went for them. So it may well vary from fish to fish. As it happened, I had one South American puffer that would eat them, while the other two in the tank refused them point-blank.

Cheers, Neale

nmonks said:

Don't let your fish eat one another. Putting aside the ethics, fish reared as pets are not necessarily safe to use as food, and there are various ways fish can become sick from eating farmed fish. Several different parasites and infections are transmitted this way. I don't think that's the issue here, but don't let it happen again!

Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply again- I didn't know he had eaten any fish at first. I was surprised as his mouth wasn't that big. Unfortunately, I was sold it at a local fish store without being told much about it- I even told them what I had in my tank already. I was naive to buy a fish without researching it first, but it was quite small and inconspicuous to be honest. It was only after I passed on my cynondontis cat fish that I realised it wasn't the cat that had eaten the cardinals! I researched the ctenopoma a lot after I put in a couple of large red eye tetras and he started stalking them like he was going to eat them. Fortunately, he has decided against going for them as they are a little too large I think. I hope he didn't try and that has caused his jaw problem. The tetras don't look like they've been munched on. I saw a post on here where a ctenopoma tried to eat an Oto and it got stuck and it scared the life out of me!

Like I said, I have no problem feeding him, he takes what I put in, I make sure to drop a little in for the others first then put him some right outside his door. He feeds fine to be honest, I'll just have to wait and see. Thanks for the advice about the pellets, I'll see if I can get some. By the way, I don't use that fish store anymore! I have been recommended an excellent shop near me called Tropical Paradise and the guts in there were so helpful and (apparently) knowledgable. I had my eye on something and he told me it would upset the ctenopoma so I took his advice.

Thanks again guys for your help, I really do appreciate you taking time out to talk to me!

Regards, Lucy

Just an update- his mouth seems to be closing fine now but I'm still concerned about the growth in his mouth. It looks like it is getting worse and now he's showing marks on the outside of his mouth. Not looking good!

I would isolate him and use a bacterial med.

WILDER said:

I would isolate him and use a bacterial med.

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yeah well you would.

personally
I'd like to see a picture of the fish now before making snap judgments.

I havent's made a snap judgement.
If the marks are getting worse I would treat them. There a risk of infection like neale has said.