Neon tetra mouth fungus?

[Bubbl3s]

Hi all,
I recently rescued 6 neon tetras from a friends neglected tank. I am keeping them in a 10 gallon with my Betta. I realise that this is not an ideal set up in terms of tank size and I know that keeping Betta with other fish is a contentious issue, however, there has been no aggression between the Betta and the tetras and all has been fine with them in terms of compatibility. I am looking to get a bigger tank soon.
This morning I saw that one of my neons has a growth on its mouth. It looks like a fungus but I'm not quite sure at this point. I have a second filter that has been running in the tank so I can use that to set up a temporary isolation tank if needs be. I also have another heater. Would it be advisable to separate the affected fish and treat them separately or treat the whole tank. In terms of a hospital tank my options are quite limited due to space, however I do have a 7litre bucket or a very small tank that can't be more than a couple of litres.
Are there any medications that would help my fish, I'll try to post some photos as soon as I can.
All the fish are eating well and are active.
My water parameters are:
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 10ppm
Ph: 7.0
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Bubbl3s]

Hi all,
I recently rescued 6 neon tetras from a friends neglected tank. I am keeping them in a 10 gallon with my Betta. I realise that this is not an ideal set up in terms of tank size and I know that keeping Betta with other fish is a contentious issue, however, there has been no aggression between the Betta and the tetras and all has been fine with them in terms of compatibility. I am looking to get a bigger tank soon.
This morning I saw that one of my neons has a growth on its mouth. It looks like a fungus but I'm not quite sure at this point. I have a second filter that has been running in the tank so I can use that to set up a temporary isolation tank if needs be. I also have another heater. Would it be advisable to separate the affected fish and treat them separately or treat the whole tank. In terms of a hospital tank my options are quite limited due to space, however I do have a 7litre bucket or a very small tank that can't be more than a couple of litres.
Are there any medications that would help my fish, I'll try to post some photos as soon as I can.
All the fish are eating well and are active.
My water parameters are:
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 10ppm
Ph: 7.0
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I have moved the neon into a hospital tank I've set up on my desk and have tried to get some decent photos, however for some reason the fungus doesn't really show up on camera partly because its quite fuzzy, partly because its so small and partly because my camera is rubbish quality.
Here are the photos I managed to take where you can sort of see the outline of the fungus.
The fish has lost its colour since being caught and moved to the hospital tank, it's now regaining it's colour and becoming more active.
I have put a few flakes of food in the tank and it ate the up quickly.
Has anyone had a similar thing happen to their tetra and would a salt treatment work.
Should I use anti fungal meds or would clean water and salt be better and less stressful?
Thank you.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

...would a salt treatment work.
Should I use anti fungal meds or would clean water and salt be better and less stressful?

Normal water where fish normally live contains normal amounts of minerals...unlike our cleansed and filtered and treated tapwaters.
For this reason, most successful aquarists advocate the use of Aquarium Salt in their tanks and I am one of these and I believe strongly that my lack of bacterial and fungal infections experienced in the tanks is testimony to this.
(I recently had an obvious small hole is a Dwarf Gourami ventral fin, which completely healed up and disappeared after only a week).

A standard recommended maintenance dose would be 1 tablespoon per 5 imperial gallons, although this can be increased to 1 tablespoon per 3 imp. gal. for therapeutic purposes.
So I would recommend your idea of clean water and salt as your first mode of treatment.
Whilst chemical meds can have a role to play, I'd always suggest that such treatments are reserved for last resort.

Please note also that all of my tanks are very well planted and the maintenance dose does not appear to damage them in any way.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

For your hospital tank and with a view to give your patients a greater sense of security, I suggest you consider leaving just one face of the tank clear and some floating plants, or pond weed, would be helpful. (These can be disposed of, post-treatment).

 

[Bubbl3s]

For your hospital tank and with a view to give your patients a greater sense of security, I suggest you consider leaving just one face of the tank clear and some floating plants, or pond weed, would be helpful. (These can be disposed of, post-treatment).

I have now put black card up around three sides of the hospital tank thanks for the advice. I have put some water lettuce from the main tank into the hospital tank and am about to start the salt treatment. Should use salt in the main tank as well or just use it as treatment at the moment. I have aqua care aquarium salt which has a recommended dose rate of 9g per litre for support alongside treatment, however as I am using this as a main treatment should I follow the tbsp per 3 gallons?
Thanks so much for your help.

 

[Essjay]

I can't tell from the photos but there is a virus which has recently been reported which causes a white growth on the mouths of neon tetras. Meds don't kill viruses, and the tetras seem to be OK, just look a bit odd, unless the growth gets so big the fish can't eat.
Could your tetras have this virus?

 

[Bubbl3s]

I can't tell from the photos but there is a virus which has recently been reported which causes a white growth on the mouths of neon tetras. Meds don't kill viruses, and the tetras seem to be OK, just look a bit odd, unless the growth gets so big the fish can't eat.
Could your tetras have this virus?

I did look into neon tetra disease (which is what I think you are referring to, however the characteristics of a tetra with that disease are different to the signs of illness my fish is displaying.
The growths fish with neon tetra disease get aren't usually fluffy looking or cotton like and they often get broken looking bodies. Also they generally get growths all over their bodies not just on their mouths. However this could be the early stages.
At the moment I am thinking it's a fungal infection due to weakened immune system from being in an uncared for tank prior to when I had them.
None of my other tetras or the Betta are showing signs of illness or fungus so I am currently just keeping the one in isolation.

 

[Essjay]

No I don't mean neon tetra disease, what I'm referring to is a what appears to be a virus and all it does is cause a white growth on the neon's mouth. Neons can live normal lives with it, it's only if it prevent them getting food into their mouths that it causes a problem.

Here are some examples of threads where other members' neons have had this virus

Grown on neons mouth

My neon has a growth on his mouth. All 5 other fish have no spots or growths

www.fishforums.net

White lump on Tetras mouth...

So I've moved my fish to a new tank today and in the process noticed one of my tetras has a lump on his mouth (see photos). He seems otherwise fine, is swimming naturally with the others and doesn't seem especially bothered by it. Any ideas what I'm dealing with?

www.fishforums.net

Someone Has To Know What this Is!

This has come up a number of times...white bump on neon tetra mouth. Not fuzzy, not contagious. have one in pic that has had it for going on a year. Tried several meds. People are asking all over Safari and Google about it but no definitive answer. Possibly viral. My vet friend doesn’t...

www.fishforums.net

If the white on your neon's mouth is the same as these fish, there is no medication which will cure it. But if it is bacterial/fungal there may well be a way of treating it.

 

[Colin_T]

The reason your fish went pale is due to it being separated form the other neons and put into a bare glass tanks. Putting the card on the back and sides will help it feel more secure. You should also put a thin layer of dark coloured sand or gravel on the bottom to stop the fish seeing its reflection. nd the floating plants will help too.

Personally I would have left the fish in the main tank and treated that tank with salt. It would be less stressful to the fish.


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Before you treat any fish 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 when using salt or medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.


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Using Salt to Treat Fish Health Issues
For some fish diseases you can use salt (sodium chloride) to treat the ailment rather than using a chemical based medication. Salt is relatively safe and is regularly used in the aquaculture industry to treat food fish for diseases. Salt has been successfully used to treat minor fungal and bacterial infections, as well as a number of external protozoan infections. Salt alone will not treat whitespot (Ichthyophthirius) or Velvet (Oodinium) but will treat most other types of protozoan infections in freshwater fishes.

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 (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.

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.

 

[Bubbl3s]

No I don't mean neon tetra disease, what I'm referring to is a what appears to be a virus and all it does is cause a white growth on the neon's mouth. Neons can live normal lives with it, it's only if it prevent them getting food into their mouths that it causes a problem.

Here are some examples of threads where other members' neons have had this virus

Grown on neons mouth

My neon has a growth on his mouth. All 5 other fish have no spots or growths

www.fishforums.net

White lump on Tetras mouth...

So I've moved my fish to a new tank today and in the process noticed one of my tetras has a lump on his mouth (see photos). He seems otherwise fine, is swimming naturally with the others and doesn't seem especially bothered by it. Any ideas what I'm dealing with?

www.fishforums.net

Someone Has To Know What this Is!

This has come up a number of times...white bump on neon tetra mouth. Not fuzzy, not contagious. have one in pic that has had it for going on a year. Tried several meds. People are asking all over Safari and Google about it but no definitive answer. Possibly viral. My vet friend doesn’t...

www.fishforums.net

If the white on your neon's mouth is the same as these fish, there is no medication which will cure it. But if it is bacterial/fungal there may well be a way of treating it.

Ah okay sorry for the confusion I will check out those threads and see if they match what has happened to my fish

 

[Bubbl3s]

No I don't mean neon tetra disease, what I'm referring to is a what appears to be a virus and all it does is cause a white growth on the neon's mouth. Neons can live normal lives with it, it's only if it prevent them getting food into their mouths that it causes a problem.

Here are some examples of threads where other members' neons have had this virus

Grown on neons mouth

My neon has a growth on his mouth. All 5 other fish have no spots or growths

www.fishforums.net

White lump on Tetras mouth...

So I've moved my fish to a new tank today and in the process noticed one of my tetras has a lump on his mouth (see photos). He seems otherwise fine, is swimming naturally with the others and doesn't seem especially bothered by it. Any ideas what I'm dealing with?

www.fishforums.net

Someone Has To Know What this Is!

This has come up a number of times...white bump on neon tetra mouth. Not fuzzy, not contagious. have one in pic that has had it for going on a year. Tried several meds. People are asking all over Safari and Google about it but no definitive answer. Possibly viral. My vet friend doesn’t...

www.fishforums.net

If the white on your neon's mouth is the same as these fish, there is no medication which will cure it. But if it is bacterial/fungal there may well be a way of treating it.

I have looked at these threads and they definitely resemble the growth on my neons mouth. I will re-introduce the fish into my main tank and monitor all the fish closely.
Thank you so much for your help.

 

[Colin_T]

Add some salt to the main tank too just in case it is fungus. Just use 1 heaped tablespoon of rock salt for every 20 litres of water. Keep the salt in there for 1-2 weeks.

 

[Bubbl3s]

Add some salt to the main tank too just in case it is fungus. Just use 1 heaped tablespoon of rock salt for every 20 litres of water. Keep the salt in there for 1-2 weeks.

Okay I will do that now.