uh-oh! - ich? wierd?

[Mr Paul Goodhew]

I think after 2 years of sucessful fish keeping I ~may~ have my first case
of ich. I bought 4 3 inch australian rainbows yesterday (Melanotaeniidae
fluviatilis) and all of a sudden they have simultaniously developed a white
bit of "fluff" on the foremost tip of their lower jaw. it's in exactly the
same place on all 4 fish. on one of the fish, the fluff looks like a 2mm
thread. could this be ich? it seems wierd that 4 fish would get exactly the
same thing in exactly the same spot. no spots anywhere else on the fish.
another possibility is that it is from rubbing their snout on the glass
which they have been doing quite a bit?

the tank is cycling at the moment (these are my ammonia source which will
eventually be dither fish for africans). ammonia is about 0.5ppm, nitrite
only just registering on my hagen test kit, ph 8, gh around 160ppm, and kh80
ppm.

I noticed this about an hour after adding some rift lake salt, only a bit of
the salt, that did not raise the ph, kh or gh at all so far.

any help appreciated, I don't want an outbreak of ich just before I add my
africans!!

worried, paul.

the other thing is that their are 5 gold fish in there and they have no
white spots or anything..

[Mr Paul Goodhew]

"Mr Paul Goodhew" > wrote in message
...
> I think after 2 years of sucessful fish keeping I ~may~ have my first case
> of ich. I bought 4 3 inch australian rainbows yesterday (Melanotaeniidae
> fluviatilis) and all of a sudden they have simultaniously developed a
white
> bit of "fluff" on the foremost tip of their lower jaw. it's in exactly
the
> same place on all 4 fish. on one of the fish, the fluff looks like a 2mm
> thread. could this be ich? it seems wierd that 4 fish would get exactly
the
> same thing in exactly the same spot. no spots anywhere else on the fish.
> another possibility is that it is from rubbing their snout on the glass
> which they have been doing quite a bit?
>
> the tank is cycling at the moment (these are my ammonia source which will
> eventually be dither fish for africans). ammonia is about 0.5ppm, nitrite
> only just registering on my hagen test kit, ph 8, gh around 160ppm, and
kh80
> ppm.
>
> I noticed this about an hour after adding some rift lake salt, only a bit
of
> the salt, that did not raise the ph, kh or gh at all so far.
>
> any help appreciated, I don't want an outbreak of ich just before I add my
> africans!!
>
> worried, paul.
>
> the other thing is that their are 5 gold fish in there and they have no
> white spots or anything..
>

OK, I think the problem might be "cotton mouth" or "mouth fungus"

some questions:

if this is the case, should I just get these fish out straight away to
prevent any chance that when I add my malawi cichlids they might get
infected? if I remove the diseased fish, and then add some new fish in 2
weeks, will the disease be gone?

if I treat these fish, will the treatment destroy the bacteria in my
filter??

[Flash Wilson]

On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 11:05:43 GMT, Mr Paul Goodhew
> wrote:
>
>> bit of "fluff" on the foremost tip of their lower jaw. it's in exactly

That's mouth fungus.

>OK, I think the problem might be "cotton mouth" or "mouth fungus"

Yes :)

>if this is the case, should I just get these fish out straight away to
>prevent any chance that when I add my malawi cichlids they might get
>infected? if I remove the diseased fish, and then add some new fish in 2
>weeks, will the disease be gone?

When I've treated it it has been gone fairly quickly. The cause was
stress and bad water conditions (I didn't realised my filter was
below par at the time) - test the water for ammonia and nitrites,
might as well check the pH too - and if you have any underlying
problem, address it asap!

I would keep all fish together and address the problems/treat
the tank in this instance, but others may disagree so if they
do feel free to listen to them.

>if I treat these fish, will the treatment destroy the bacteria in my
>filter??

It depends how you treat it. In the UK you can get a treatment
called Esha2000 which cleared it up for me (once I'd also addressed
the filter issues) and that is kind to fish and filter. If you
use something like meth blue you will certainly hurt the filter
bacteria, don't do it! Ask at your LFS for a specific treatment
for mouth fungus and look for one which claims not to damage filter
colonies. Outside of the UK I'm not sure of the exact names.



--
Flash Wilson
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