Help! White Mark And Swollen Mouth On Dwarf Neon Rainbow

[alexpb22]

Anyone who has seen my other posts will know that I'm not having much luck at the moment.
Now, almost overnight my biggest Dwarf Neon Rainbow has developed a swollen mouth and it's slightly white on one side. I literally didn't notice this yesterday but I suscept it's a fugus/bacterial infection but I'm not sure.

Can anyone advise what it may be and what treatment would be best? I was going to buy some Sera Nematol tomorrow to treat some platys who have been wasting away with suspected worms but it looks like I need to tackle this rainbow as well.

I tried to take a pic and this is the best I could do, if nothing else you can see that the mouth isn't the usual pointy tapered way it usually is.

Unfortunately I'm not sure if he will last the night as with any sick fish the other start getting involved.

 

[alexpb22]

Well that was the fastest death ever, within a few hours!

 

[alexpb22]

Ahhhh does anyone have any ideas? I went to bed with fine fish and have woken this morning to find three more dead neons!!!!

 

[the_lock_man]

Without having seen your other posts
 
Water test results, please - ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH (and KH if poss)
How old is the tank?
How was it cycled - please give as much detail as possible.
How big is the tank, what filter are you running?
What are the other tankmates?
Have you added anything new to the tank recently (other fish, decor, plants, anything)?
 
EDIT
 
Just read your thread about your platies, and still need the test results, but again, water hardness might be the key. Rainbowfish are hard water fish too.

 

[alexpb22]

Hi thanks for your reply. All the water testing has come out fins. Basically it would have come in with the new fish I added at the weekend. My tank has been set up for a year and these neons I have had since the beginning. They have been doing really well and flourishing.
I bought a new fish on the weekend which died that very night and I noticed the neons were having a go on him. The following day I noticed the first neon as per the pic. He died within hours and this morning I fished out four more.

It definitely came in with the fish I bought on the weekend. Just not sure how to treat it. Thought I would buy some Melafix tonight and hope its to so with that.
I also live in a hardwater area

 

[the_lock_man]

Hi Alex,
 
Just to be clear, when you say "fine" (I assume fins was a typo!), do you mean 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite and around 20-40ppm nitrate? It's just that if people have had water tested by an LFS, they might say "fine" when actually there's a reading of ammonia or nitrite, which I and most others on here reckon is "not fine".
 
Bacterial and fungal infections can often be a sign of poor water, hence me asking those questions. I generally recommend against buying a medication and hoping for the best, because if it's the wrong medication, it will do more bad than good.
 
Don't get me wrong, it may well be something that was introduced with this new fish, but it's always best to cover all the bases.

 

[alexpb22]

Hi Alex,
 
Just to be clear, when you say "fine" (I assume fins was a typo!), do you mean 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite and around 20-40ppm nitrate? It's just that if people have had water tested by an LFS, they might say "fine" when actually there's a reading of ammonia or nitrite, which I and most others on here reckon is "not fine".
 
Bacterial and fungal infections can often be a sign of poor water, hence me asking those questions. I generally recommend against buying a medication and hoping for the best, because if it's the wrong medication, it will do more bad than good.
 
Don't get me wrong, it may well be something that was introduced with this new fish, but it's always best to cover all the bases.

Hey,

Yes, Ammonia is 0, Nitrite is 0 and Nitrate is about 30ppm. I have the master kit so tested it myself and all was as normal. It's definitely the fish I bought because the current set up has been up and running for a few months now without any problems. I added the fish on Friday evening after a water change the day before and by Saturday the Gudgeon was dead, Sunday my Dwarf Neon died and then today another Gudgeon died plus three other neons and a platy. I've never had any deaths like this before other than the odd one but never multiple one after another I have just treated it with melafix and pimafix as I didn't know what to do and clearly the linger I leave it the worse it will be.

 

[andyG44]

You have a disease. I had something similar where it killed fish, every day, until it stopped killing fish. In the meantime I was doing daily water changes, to no avail however because there was nothing wrong wth the water. I treated with Waterlife Velvet/Fungus treatment, a 6 day course, and you need to account for the water changes too (ie add more medicine right after a large water change). I also got hold of a smaller tub, and put the sick fish in there, they almost all died soon after, a proof they were sick. I also used another tub to isolate some aggressive ones that were picking on others. After disease gone, no more deaths. But it took a while t clear, and in the meantime fish did die within 18-24 hours of displaying symptoms (lethargy mainly).
 
By the way I also had a fish with swollen lips and I thought he was dieing too, however he is fine so far, he must have kissed the water heaters (now water heaters are covered).

 

[RobRocksFishTank]

I'm still not convinced it's not a water quality issue. The fish that have been in there have been able to slowly adjust to any changes that might have been happening. While it is likely that a disease is running rampant, it could have been brought about by the new fish getting sick from the sudden change from the water that they were in. The existing fish could have been stressed enough to make them susceptible to the disease that the new fish got. The sudden change made the new ones get sick and the presence of the disease was the straw that broke the camel's back for your existing ones.
 
It's a common misconception that an up and running tank is healthy because the fish are living. When apparently healthy new fish die, it's usually due to a disease coming about from the shock of having to adjust quickly to dramatically different water conditions. That disease can quickly spread to the existing fish because of their weakened state from having to live in not so ideal conditions. It wouldn't hurt to check the pH and hardness and then compare to the conditions of the water where the new fish came from.
 
Of course, the opposite can be true, your water can be fine and the water at the fish store might be different enough to stress out the new arrivals.
 
Yes, you do still have to treat for the disease. You just have to realize that the disease could be a symptom of something else.

 

[alexpb22]

You have a disease. I had something similar where it killed fish, every day, until it stopped killing fish. In the meantime I was doing daily water changes, to no avail however because there was nothing wrong wth the water. I treated with Waterlife Velvet/Fungus treatment, a 6 day course, and you need to account for the water changes too (ie add more medicine right after a large water change). I also got hold of a smaller tub, and put the sick fish in there, they almost all died soon after, a proof they were sick. I also used another tub to isolate some aggressive ones that were picking on others. After disease gone, no more deaths. But it took a while t clear, and in the meantime fish did die within 18-24 hours of displaying symptoms (lethargy mainly).
 
By the way I also had a fish with swollen lips and I thought he was dieing too, however he is fine so far, he must have kissed the water heaters (now water heaters are covered).

  

I'm still not convinced it's not a water quality issue. The fish that have been in there have been able to slowly adjust to any changes that might have been happening. While it is likely that a disease is running rampant, it could have been brought about by the new fish getting sick from the sudden change from the water that they were in. The existing fish could have been stressed enough to make them susceptible to the disease that the new fish got. The sudden change made the new ones get sick and the presence of the disease was the straw that broke the camel's back for your existing ones.
 
It's a common misconception that an up and running tank is healthy because the fish are living. When apparently healthy new fish die, it's usually due to a disease coming about from the shock of having to adjust quickly to dramatically different water conditions. That disease can quickly spread to the existing fish because of their weakened state from having to live in not so ideal conditions. It wouldn't hurt to check the pH and hardness and then compare to the conditions of the water where the new fish came from.
 
Of course, the opposite can be true, your water can be fine and the water at the fish store might be different enough to stress out the new arrivals.
 
Yes, you do still have to treat for the disease. You just have to realize that the disease could be a symptom of something else.

All good points and thanks for sharing.

To be honest I have no idea what it is that has caused this. I can only assume it was the new fish because I have added fish several times in the past to this tank and these particular dwarf neons have been present every time and I've never had a problem. It was this time though that chaos seemed to follow after the additions.

I also think it was the fish because when I was floating the bag, I did think that one of them didn't look great and was very still and often pointing downwards, I can't say why but I can often spot quite quickly when a fish doesn't seem right and it was this one that died first. Incidentally the two smallest gudgeons are still alive in the tank and now the other numbers are down seem quite happy.

If it is a water quality issue, I'm not sure what I can do about it really. I religiously water change about 30/35% every week along with hoovering and have had consistent readings with my test kit for 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites and around 30ppm Nitrates.

The PH and hardness may not be the same as the shop but I get all my fish from there and haven't had a problem before plus they have the same water supply that I do.

Incidentally, I started treating with Melafix and Pimafix a few days ago. I wasn't sure what to do and as fish were dying so quickly I had to just get on a try anything. I am still dosing it as they say for 7 days on the bottle and since I started it I haven't had any more deaths so it seems to have stabilised the situation for now. I am worried about adding fish in the future though because if it is due to stress then unless I don't add any more fish (which I def need to do now) how can I prevent it happening again.

I do intend to quarantine all fish now before adding to my display tank but from my research it seems that even that doesn't necessarily prevent the stress associated with new fish in a tank.