"rotten Mouth Disease"?

[BJM]

Is there something like a "Rotten Mouth Disease"? My healthy platy started to get a white rotten mouth yesterday afternoon, in the evening there was no chance for her to move her mouth at all, it looked horrible and then of course she died! I have no idea what this is. It didn't look like mouth fungus to me, it was not hairy at all. And it killed the fish so quickly. I'm concerned about my other fish. I changed 90 % of the water and the filter cartridge. Any ideas? The other fish seem to be fine so far.

 

[WILDER]

Size of tank in gallons or litries.
How many fish and which type.
Water stats in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph.

Your fish have a bad strain of columnaris.
Maracyn one and two.
Once the mouth start to rot away best off distroying the fish.

http/www.articledepot.co.uk/article-29320.htm

 

[BJM]

Size of tank in gallons or litries.
How many fish and which type.
Water stats in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph.

Your fish have a bad strain of columnaris.
Maracyn one and two.
Once the mouth start to rot away best off distroying the fish.

[URL="http/www.articledepot.co.uk/article-29320.htm"]http/www.articledepot.co.uk/article-29320.htm[/URL]

Wow, that sounds horrible! But it seems like what my fish had!

It's a 10 gallon tank
There were 2 platies (well, now only one), a 2 month old platy baby, 4 neon tetras and 2 plecs
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
ph: 7.8
I just did a major water change, because of this (about 90%), usually I change weekly 25%

I had the fish only a week - is it possible she had this disease already, when I got her, she looked fine though.
Thanks for the link, it really sounds like it! Should I treat all of my fish now just for precaution or should I wait until I see symptoms? The petstore sold me E.M. Erythromycin, I would have that to start treatment right away.

 

[WILDER]

What your tap nitrate reading as it rare to have a nitrate reading of 0.
If no other fish are showing signs just daily water changes.
Columnaris outbreak can be caused by stress, unstable temp, over crowding, bad water quality.
Columnaris lives in the back ground in your tank it only takes a stressed fish to break out in columnaris.

The med ok will get you some info.
Antibiotics can wipe all the benefical bacteria out in your filter.

http/www.flippersandfins.net/flexibacter.htm

 

[BJM]

Thanks for the info. I'll watch my fish and treat only with the med if there are more sick ones, I don't want to destroy the bio filter. Or could I run the filter without the bio-filter during the treatment and then put it back in?

 

[WILDER]

Yes you can run the filter in a bucket of tank water and keeping adding flakes daily to the bucket so it keep the bacteria alive.
Do you have a spare heater.
You will need to run an airstone in the main tank as meds reduce 02 in the water.
Ask about the med in tropical discussion to see if some members have used it. To see if it completely wipes benefical bacteria out in the filter.

 

[BJM]

Thanks for all the advise! I hope that no more fish get sick, so I won't even have to use the med. But it's good to know......
I don't have a spare heater - I don't have a heater at all, since I live in Florida and the tank has between 78 - 80 without a heater.

 

[WILDER]

Its always wise to have a heater to keep temp stable.
Unstable temps cause stress and desease.
But if your temp dosn't fall by more than two degrees I suppose its fine.
Good luck.