Cotton Mouth? Rot? Ideas And Treatments

[Zyden]

Ammonia: Less then 0.25
Nitrite: O
Daily water changes and gravel clean as preganant platy makes a lot of mess.
Tank age: 2 months
Tempt around 24C +/-1C
Hardwater area
Fish: 5 danio, 1 Rosy Barb, 2 platy (1 ready to drop fry, other male).

I have two problems in my tank at the moment. The rosy barb and the female platy.

Both have developed oddly shaped mouths, like white obstructions/swellings. The platy has a white smudge on her outter lip that looks a little fluffy, and possibly some greyish patch under her throat. The barb appears to be struggling to breath and gilling hard, is inactive and not feeding successfully. Looking a little gaunt! He has a go but I think his mouth problem is causing him to starve! His obstruction appears to be inside is mouth more then outside, and I notice some red veins around the area that's most distorted.


What can this be? Has new tank syndrome caused this even though Ive not detected any high nitrite or ammonia?


I'm thinking some sort of rot or cotton mouth. I'm trying phenoxyethanol as it shouldn't disrupt the filter bacteria.

Any other ideas? Is there something I can do to help them with feeding in the meantime. I do have some crushed fry food, is it worth trying or will the tiny bits be ignored and get wasted, causing a Ammo/nitrite spike?

 

[ProjectMayhem]

Ammonia should be 0, it doesn't take much ammonia to poison fish and if they're gasping it sounds like that could be the case.

 

[This Old Spouse]

It's called mouth fungus, and it's not actually a fungus but a bacterial infection. Causes can be poor water quality, overfeeding, etc. You need to treat with an antibacterial medication, such as Myxazin.

We can't get that in my area, so I had to beg my vet for some antibiotics!