White spot?

[meadoughlark]

Initial tank population: 10 neon tetras, 1 corydoras sterbai, 1 zebra danio - all healthy and no deaths for about 4 months. 13 gal tank.

I returned home from a short holiday just over a week ago the find the corydoras dead. My first instinct was that this was due to my mother in law overfeeding while I was away causing an ammonia spike. Ammonia test showed 0.25 mg/l, slightly too high. All other parameters perfect. Performed 50% water change to dilute ammonia.

Next morning, zebra danio was dead. Noticed white flecks on fins and body scales. Decided it may have been white spot (which had now spread from corydoras to danio) rater than an ammonia issue, or both. Performed another water change and treated with malachite green.

I treated with malachite green for a total of 6 consecutive days. I read that white spot life cycle takes about 4 days so wanted to guarantee that I caught it in its motile form. Within the first 2 days of treatment, 4 neon tetras died, showing white spot symptoms.

The remaining 6 neon tetras are healthy and behaving and feeding normally. BUT on one of them today I noticed a large white/grey patch on its side (see photos) and it is opening and closing its mouth rapidly in a gasping motion. The other affected fish just had subtle flecks of white, not a large skin legion like this. It also seems to have some white spot-looking stuff on its mouth which I couldn't photograph. Could I be dealing with something other than white spot? Some kind of bacteria? Is there anything I might try?

Obviously I'm gutted that my tank population has been halved in just a week and am feeling quite guilty. If the remaining 6 don't survive my time in this hobby may unfortunately be coming to an end, as I feel my ineptitude is becoming unethical!

PS - I know danios and corydoras should be kept in schools - this was a beginner mistake made when I set up the tank a year ago.

 

[FishGuest5123]

I just went through columnaris myself and the faded spot and lesion sound a lot like what my fish symptoms were. I would suggest you look this dreadful disease up. It seems to be going around more recently. To be safe, I. would drop the temp in the tank to below 75F and add some aquarium salt. Columnaris does not like salt and breeds slower in cooler temps. It is very contagious. I don’t know where you are located but if you can, order some Kanaplex and Furan-2 ASAP and treat according to directions. It may be too late but worth a try and these meds are what is recommended for Columnaris. Others may have other ideas but I did just go through this. It goes unrecognized often as people misdiagnose it for fungus infections at first. It must be treated quickly! Be sure to sterilize all nets and equipment with a little bleach or aquarium salt after use too. Good luck! P.S. - Don’t beat yourself up. I’ve been keeping fish on and off for 40 years and lost 3 tanks with this stuff. It happens to the best of us.

 

[Colin_T]

It's a bacterial infection, possibly columnaris and will need anti-biotics to treat it. The anti-biotics will wipe out filter bacteria so you will need to monitor the ammonia and nitrite levels during and after treatment.

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To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "How To Tips" at the top of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating or it will absorb the medication and stop it working.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. 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.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

 

[FishGuest5123]

Colin is spot on! You won’t be able to do water changes every day with the meds but every couple of days you can according to directions on meds. Just do before adding more med. Water changes are important as is vacuuming the substrate to get rid of the bacteria.

 

[meadoughlark]

Thanks a lot guys! I followed your instructions and a week later all 6 neons have survived and are back to their old selves - even the one with the big skin lesion, which is healing up.

I may just leave things as they are now. Or, in a couple of months once I'm sure everything has stabilised, I might top up the neon population to 10-12 and keep it as a neon exclusive tank. Toying with the idea of adding cherry shrimps too.

 

[Colin_T]

Get a quarantine tank and put all new fish in that for a month before adding them to the main display tank. That will stop any diseases getting into the established tank and killing the healthy fish.

You can use a glass aquarium or plastic storage container for a quarantine tank. Put a thin layer of sand or gravel on the bottom. Fill it with tank water, add a heater and spare filter and keep the new fish there until they have shown no signs of disease for 1 month.

If you put a second filter in your current tank, or add a couple of sponges to a power filter, it can become established and when you get new fish, you move the spare filter into the quarantine tank to keep the water clean.

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All tetras do best when kept in large groups and 20 neons will be happier and act more normally than 6. So if you can get more, then it would help the ones you have. But make sure they are free of diseases before adding them to the tank.

 

[meadoughlark]

Reviving old thread to provide context to current issue...

It's now been almost 7 months since this Fishmageddon. But it seems a sequel is in the works.

After waiting 2 months to ensure the 6 neon survivors were disease free, I topped the neon population back up to 10. I also added 3 otos. For about 5 months, all was well. But about a month ago I noticed a white blob on one of the neon's mouth. I hadn't added anything new for months, the fish was swimming and feeding as normal and I didn't want to put the fish through treatment until I was sure I needed to, so I observed for a while. A month later, he is still swimming and feeding normally, but the growth is much bigger and now has a pink colouration as if blood vessels are visible. I don't think it's the same neon who had a white spot on his mouth in my original post. The otos are unaffected and happy as larry, in fact they are breeding. But a couple of the other neons have a cloudy, bulgy eye, not sure if this is related or a separate issue.

Just wondering what I'm dealing with here and how to proceed. The slow onset of the problem makes me doubt that it's columnaris again, although I've just noticed the skin lesion in the second picture which is similar to the symptom in my orginal post.

 

[Colin_T]

Looks like a tumour on the mouth. You can't really treat tumours on small fish so I would euthanise it.

 

[FishGuest5123]

I have to agree with Colin_T. I have had neons with the same thing and nothing helped. They grow until fish can’t eat. I would euthanize. I’m sorry. Good new is it is not contagious.