Spot On Neons Mouth And Ragged Fins. Am I Treating The Wrong Thing?

[AngelPen]

I am currently treating my tank for white spot, as some of you may know from my previous posts, as one of my angel fish has white salt grain type spots along its top fin.
I've been treating now for one week and no improvement as of yet.

I noticed tonight however that some of the neons have ragged top fins and tails, and at first thought they may have been attacked, but have never seen any fish bother them at all!

On closer inspection about 3 of the neons have a white spot on their mouth, on the lower jaw part. They are all eating and swimming around normally. One neon looks particulary ill, he is quite thin compared to the others, and the bottom of the fish is flat, rather than the normal rounded shape.

I have tried getting pictures of both the angel and the neons, but have failed its harder than it looks! and now the camera batteries are dead.

Am I treating the wrong disease? Could this be something else besides white spot? I did a google search about spots on the neons mouth and didnt get anything very helpful although one page said about columaris. I looked up pictures of this however and it doesn't look like what I've got!

Other fish in the tank are 6 guppies and 5 lined barbs, all of which are unaffected and 4 Angelfish, only the one has spots. Water stats were fine when last checked at the shop. Currently is no carbon in the filter due to the white spot treatment.

Any suggestions would be great as if I'm treating the wrong thing and the neons need something else I will go to the LFS tomorrow.

 

[WILDER]

Finrot is common on top of whitespot.
The spot on the mouth how big is it, does it have a circling of red around it or a spot in the centre of it, does the spot look fluffy.
The neon that has lost weight is it due to not eating.
Have the neons lost any colour in the red stripe as though it looks bleached out.
Any lumps on the tummy area that go to a point.
And finally any neon hiding in corners on there own.

 

[AngelPen]

Thanks for the quick reply.

The neons are all swimming together still, none are on their own or hiding in corners. They are all behavig quite normally.

There is no loss of colour, and no lumps that I can see on the tummy.

The fish that has lost weight is still eating normally, I made a point of watching this evening when they were fed.

The spot on the mouths is quite small, about half the size of the lower jaw part, (its about the size of the white spot on the angel fish). There is no red around it, or spot in the middle. Its just all white, I'm not sure if its fluffy, quite hard to tell. It doesnt look as smooth as the white spots on the angel, but not as fluffy as fungus pics I've seen. On the one fish (that I got a good look as he came to the front of the tank) it looks like its kinda hanging off its mouth like a skin tag would look on humans, but on another it looks fully attached like a normal spot.

 

[WILDER]

Don't like the sound of him going thin when eating, i know velvet can make fish go thin, just keep an eye on him, make sure he dosnt get a bent spine.
Parasites can cause bacterial infections on top, can't really do anything till the whitespot has gone and the med removed, just hope they make it.
Also never heard a neon get internal parasites but just check the anus of the fish to make sure it not enlarged or red and inflamed with him being thin.

 

[AngelPen]

Anus of fish appears normal. I think he has always been a small fish, but he definatly doesn't look very healthy at the moment!

Could the whitespot medication be making the neons ill? As I'm sure I read somewhere that neons can't take full doseages of some meds, but I asked in the shop and was told it would be ok.

The mouth spots are very strange, they do look slightly fluffy, but is always in the same place on each fish, although some appear fine. I know the fish are constantly open their mouths etc, but the ones with the mouth spots seem to be opening their mouths more, or wider than the others.

Is there any chance that perhaps I haven't got white spot? The pictures I have seen have the whole fish body affected, but the angel only has spots along his top fin. They are close to the fin, and all in a straight line, more on one side than the other. He does have one small spot on his lower side, and one on the tail fin, but these are very small.

Its just if there is some chance of this being another disease and I am treating the wrong thing I want to get it sorted!

 

[WILDER]

Whitespot looks like grains of salt on the body and fins.
Yes neons don't always tolerate full dose of the med, have you really increase aeration in the tank as the med and high temp reduce 02 in the tank.
If the spot on the mouth is bigger than a grain of salt it sounds like they have a bacterial infection on top of the whitespot.
Seen spots on the mouth before and it usually mouth fungus type of thing bacterial.

http/www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/hdcolumn.htm

 

[AngelPen]

I think the tank has enough aeration, as we have an air bubble pump in there, and no fish are gasping at surface or anything. We currently don't have plants, but was advised to wait until treatment is finished before adding any.

If the neons were affected by the med would these symptoms fit with that? Or would they display something different?

It sounds like it might be a bacterial infection on top, which is a shame for the poor neons as they were not affected by the white spot!

So I will have to keep treating the white spot until it goes before I can treat the neons? And will they need a different treatment once I've stopped the whitespot med? Will they be ok until I can start treating them? Or can this kill them?

Edit : My partner has just told me that he thinks one or two neons had this mouth spot before the angel got whitespot, although their fins were fine. He thought it was something they were trying to eat so didn't mention anything. Does this change anything? Could this have perhaps caused the white spot, (if thats what it is! it does look like salt grains though)?

 

[WILDER]

If they were stressed with the med things to look for are being pale in colour, fin clamping, and hard or laboured breathing, wouldnt worry about opening and shutting there mouth for now.
They would dart about as well if they wasnt coping with the med.
As for the bacterial infection hard to say really, the high temp won't be helping, but whitepot has antiseptic stuff in it just hope the whitespsot clears fast.
There is a med called esha you can use a whitespot med in there with a bacterial med get you the info.

Look at the whitespot med first.

http/www.aquatics-online.co.uk/listsecti...00&rets=243

Don't believe the neon tetra desease bit wish they wouldn't say things like that as there no cure for it.

If it looks like grains of salt yes it whitespot.
Have you introduced any new fish as thats how you fetch it in.
Also bad water quality and stress can cause whitespot.

 

[AngelPen]

Yeah it doesn't seem like they are reacting to the whitespot med at all, which is good.

So if I change the whitespot med to the esha one I could treat the bacterial probs at the same time? Are the meds effective?

The med I'm using at the mo has the mehalite green in it, although the name of the treatment has been torn off where there was tape on sealing the bottle! Which by reading other topics on here seems to be good at treating whitespot, but as of yet I've seen no improvement.

Also would I be able to get the esha meds at my lfs, or will I need to order online? I'd like to help the neons ASAP!

If I do change meds, will I need to allow time for the current med to go away?

 

[WILDER]

Lfs should sell it just phone before you go and ask so its not a wasted journey.
If you change meds do a 30% water change and run some carbon for a few hours to get the med out, good luck.

Used the esha bacterial med, but couldn't comment on the whitespot med.
You could ask about it in tropical chit chat to see if anyone used it.

 

[AngelPen]

The neon that looked very poorly sadly died yesterday, though the morning after my comments on this post his red was faded and he had left the group, so I guessed he might not make it much longer.

The lfs asked me to take a couple of the worst neons in a bag so they could look at them, and they think its a mouth fungus, so have started treating with melafix hopefully will see some improvement. All the others seem healthy apart from the spots on some of their chins anyway! So hopefully won't lose anymore.

 

[WILDER]

That neon wasnt right at all, i would also look into ntd, as he was a very ill fish.
R.I.P.
Hows the othr neons doing?

 

[AngelPen]

What's ntd? Never come across that term before, sorry if I'm sounding silly!

The other neons are all still acting normally, I think the mouth spots are shrinking/going, as they are definatly not as pronounced as they were at the weekend.

The angels "whitespot" is looking more like a fungus thing now, which is quite strange, as it definatly looked lik salt grains before! The spots have all seemed to have joined up and definatly look more fluffy, though those too seem to be improving a tiny bit, i think.

 

[WILDER]

What whitespot med are you using, whitespot can go like that when it gets worse the spots join up.
How long have you been using the med now.
Ntd he could of been stressed but when they lose there red stripe that look bleached out just best to watch out for signs of ntd.
Will get you a link, something not right by the sounds of it.
http/freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/neondisease.htm

 

[AngelPen]

Well we were using a whitespot treatment containing the melachite green stuff, don't know the exact name as it got ripped off the bottle! We used for just over a week, with no improvement at all, and so the shop said to stop treating with it, and use melafix for a week to see if that improves anything.

If not then I guess go back to the whitespot treatment? If it is a fungus thing instead of whitespot the melafix should help shouldn't it?