Mouth Fungus????????

[Waterloo Kid]

I bought 4 neon rainbow fish (M. Praecox) on Saturday and they now all appear to have growths around their mouths. My first reaction is that they have mouth fungus which is highly contagious and fatal. But is this actually what they have? The reason I'm wondering about this is that I have two of these fish already and when I first bought them one of them had a small growth on its lip which looked the same as the growths on the new fish (only smaller). The original fish had this growth for about a month after which time it disappeared. That fish is now healthy and fit.
I think that the fish have damaged their mouths by swimming into the side of the tank while they were being caught. When I got them home they were all darting about in the transporter bag quite viciously. None of the other fish in the tank are showing signs of mouth fungus and I'm keeping a sharp eye on them!
Do I need to worry? Are these species of fish prone to mouth damage? If it is mouth fungus what should I be doing?

Cheers

WK

 

[bmiranda]

Sounds all too familiar.

Same thing happened to me with bosemani rainbows. Seems like a small lower lip groth, almost un-noticable. I've never recieved a straight answer as to what the heck it was, and my water params are perfect (as said by 3 different fish stores and myself after testing) I have repeatedly tried to raise bosemani's, from 4 different fish stores and dr. foster and smith (don't buy from them, one had body fungus, one had lip fungus and the other had velvet, go figure)

I do know that i had 2 healthy rainbows for almost a year, and after we moved to a new house, i guess the stress may have done it, about 2 months in they started acting very erratic, along with the growth on the lip. they soon dies afterward, along with 90 percent of my tank. I didn't learn from ths mistake. 3 months later after the aquarium was cycled and re-stocked and healthy, i added 2 bosemani's, they soon developed the same lip symptoms, so i euthenized them instantly and only lost a few fish in the following days. I wish someone had more info on why it seems rainbows are so suseptable to this and how it can be avoided. But if I were you, i would quarentine them right now, or if your other tank inhabitants are very valuable and you have no means to quarentine them, i'd bring them back to the fish store or euthenize them. sorry for the bad news, can anyone out there enlighten me as to why rainbows seem pre-disposed to this?

Best of luck