Cottonmouth in Betta’s

Hello everyone,
I was just wondering, how can you tell it your Betta has cottonmouth disease, what are the symptoms and is it treatable?

I assume by cotton mouth you mean Columnaris. This starts as a cream coloured lip and spreads rapidly over the face and head. Within 24-48 hours of showing the white lip, the fish is normally dead.

Columnaris is extremely rare in Bettas and is most commonly seen on neon tetras, guppies and sometimes barbs.

If you have a single male Betta in a tank by itself, and you haven't added anything from a shop in the last few weeks, it's unlikely the fish will have Columnaris.

If you post pictures we can check it for you.

Colin_T said:

I assume by cotton mouth you mean Columnaris. This starts as a cream coloured lip and spreads rapidly over the face and head. Within 24-48 hours of showing the white lip, the fish is normally dead.

Columnaris is extremely rare in Bettas and is most commonly seen on neon tetras, guppies and sometimes barbs.

If you have a single male Betta in a tank by itself, and you haven't added anything from a shop in the last few weeks, it's unlikely the fish will have Columnaris.

If you post pictures we can check it for you.

Click to expand...

Hey Colin,
here are the photos of my betta. I’ve had him for about a week and only noticed this fluff looking thing on his face today. The last 2 photos are of him laying on the bottom of the tank, is this normal betta behaviour? Otherwise when I walk up to his tank he swims about and seems quite energetic.

Not colummaris, but does have a fungal infection on his face.
I'll leave treatment recs to Colin for that, but this is really important - you've had him for a week, are the tank and filter brand new?
Did you cycle them?
And do you have a testing kit?
Answers to these q's are crucial to help this betta, and urgent.

AdoraBelle Dearheart said:

Not colummaris, but does have a fungal infection on his face.
I'll leave treatment recs to Colin for that, but this is really important - you've had him for a week, are the tank and filter brand new?
Did you cycle them?
And do you have a testing kit?
Answers to these q's are crucial to help this betta, and urgent.

Click to expand...

Hey,
The tank and filter are not new but we cleaned them out thoroughly before setting up the tank. I conditioned the water before adding it and I cycled the tank for a couple hours before introducing the fish ( acclimatising him to the water through the bag for a period of time as recommended by the pet shop )
This fish was given to me as a present so I did not have a lot of time to cycle the tank. Would this have caused the fungal infection?

The fungal infection might have taken hold because the fish is in an uncycled tank, yes.

Please please, read the cycling threads pinned, you cannot cycle a tank in a few hours, that's not cycling, and you need to understand the nitrogen cycle and the processes if you want to keep fish. I find this video useful for beginners:

It might be an idea to pinch some filter media from your molly tank, since that has been set up for months in order to do a seeded cycle, however your mollies also desperately need worming, and doing that will mean ensuring you'd also need to medicate the betta at the same time.

@Colin_T @Essjay @Slaphppy7 if anyone else can help, especially a mod, wondering if it might be worth combining @jellybellyfish 's threads and advice since he has a tank of balloon mollies that are dying from worms, and this betta without a cycled tank. Might be easier to give advice about both tanks at once if @jellybellyfish is willing?

If the Betta and mollies are in different tanks, keep the threads separate.

The Betta has fungus and can be treated with salt. The fish has been damaged on that part of the head and fungus has infected the damaged tissue.

The fish spends a lot of time on the bottom because it is sick or old. As the infection gets treated, and the tank cycles, the fish should spend more time near the surface.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres (5 gallons) of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for 2 weeks.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.

Colin_T said:

If the Betta and mollies are in different tanks, keep the threads separate.

Click to expand...

That makes sense. I only suggest it because the mollies are visually dying from worms, as can be seen in the video OP posted in their other older threads, but sending people to read history from other threads doesn't always work. Since the bettas tank is uncycled but OP has a more established tank (although I don't know how they clean the filter, whether the tank is properly, fully cycled) then it might be worth switching some media from the molly tank to the betta tank. But that comes with being aware that we'd be transferring worm eggs to the betta, but that it might still be worth doing since medicating for worms is best done by treating all tanks at the same time anyway, and the risk to the betta from a completely uncycled tank is higher than the risk of losing him to worms, which should be treated at the same time as the mollies anyway for best practice.

I hope this makes sense. I'm not on my best form today, so may be even less coherent than usual.