Ember Tetra Missing Top Lip

[Fishcake1]

Hello Everyone,
Just recently I noticed on of my ember tetras that her top lip was completely gone. I have no idea how this could've happened! She’s in a 55 gal heavily planted community tank with other peaceful smaller fish. There’s never been any fighting between the different groups of fish nor any fighting within each group. I do weekly water changes of 10-15% and gravel vac every single time.

Here are the water parameters:
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm - 5 ppm
pH: 7.2-7.4
Temp: 78 F -80 F

None of the other fish seem to be afflicted with anything and this tank has been set up since last September and has had not issues up until now. I’m super worried because I can see she wants to eat but she keeps spitting the food out even though they are super small pellets for nano fish. If I could receive some guidance that would be great!

Side note: the water in these pictures is a tad cloudy because I just fed the tank some nano pellets and crushed some up for my Cherry Shrimp to eat from the water column.

 

[CherryBerry670]

When you got her, was her top lip missing? It might be bad genetics, not a fish attack. If it’s genetics…well, not good, but at least not a infection/attack thing. If it is a fish attack…well, honestly, they’re so small she probably won’t survive anyways. You could try medicines for infection, but unless you’re willing to isolate her in her own tank or attempt to tweezer the food directly into her mouth…it may be time to simply give up, since her quality of life wouldn’t be good either way.

As for why…maybe a bottomfeeder? It’s not common by any means, but once I had a extremely aggressive Cory cat, and a fish that big could actually do damage. Maybe a pleco could have caught her and tried to smash her against the substrate for a quick meal. If you don’t have any…maybe a bad mating attempt.

 

[GaryE]

The surviving lower jaw is white, and infected. She has some sort of flesh destroying bacteria, I suspect. If she dies in the tank and her buddies eat her, they'll have it too. Sadly, you should euthanize her as she won't be able to eat, and there is a danger to the other fish.