Female Guppy's Mouth Open- Cotton Mouth?

[Seapotatoe]

I just noticed one of my female guppy's mouth looks weird- it's open and she seems to not be able to close it, although she is moving it. She was also chilling at the bottom of the tank when I found her. This just happened w/i the last hour or so. I have five other females in a heavily planted 10g tank with a mystery snail. None of the other fish seem to be acting weird. I separated her into a quarantine container, and dosed her with a little bit of Stress-Guard.
The tank has been up for about 8 months now, and i do 25% water changes ever week or so, and use prime and stability during them. My nitrates are between 0-10ppm, Nitrites and ammonia at 0, PH at 6.8.

I feed Hikari micro pellets, so I guess it is possible something is stuck in her mouth, although I dont see anything. Could this be cotton mouth? And has anyone has success with any treatments?

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

How long have you had that fish for?

Have you added anything to the tank in the last 2 weeks?

Can you post some more pictures from the front and other side?
Make sure the pictures are clear and in focus.

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It could be the start of mouth fungus (Columnaris) but that normally comes in with new fish and appears as a puffy white lip/s. Within 12-24 hours the white has spread up and over the face and the fish dies.

There is no white on the lip but it needs to be monitored closely.

You can add some salt (2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres/ 5 gallons) of water. Keep the salt in there for 2 weeks.

If it is Columnaris, you will need anti-biotics to treat it so hopefully it isn't.

 

[Seapotatoe]

I've had this fish for two months now. No new fish, but some new plants within the last two weeks. I use prime, stress-guard, and stability during my water changes, and use API leaf zone for plant fertilizer.

Salt for the quarantine tank? Or should I dose my regular tank also?

Thank you!!

 

[Colin_T]

I would add salt to the quarantine tank and the display tank.

Post more pictures if it gets worse.


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Before you add salt, do the following:

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. The water change and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

 

[Colin_T]

INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres 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.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect 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.

 

[connorlindeman]

I use prime, stress-guard, and stability during my water changes, and use API leaf zone for plant fertilizer.

I would just like to say that stress guard is not necessary during water changes