Strange disease on clown killifish

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It looks like a fat lip from swimming into something. Newly caught rainbowfish get it too from swimming into the glass or jumping and hitting the coverglass.

It could also be the start of Columnaris (mouth fungus) but it doesn't look like that to me. Columnaris is a fast growing bacterial infection that starts off as a white lip and spreads over the face and head within 24-48 hours. The fish usually dies at this stage. If the fish has had the same patch for a few days and it hasn't spread, it's unlikely to be Columnaris.

We use salt with rainbowfish that have a fat lip and it seems to help. You can try it for a week and see if it helps. If not we will need to investigate further. But it's not a normal disease as such and looks more like mucous covering a damaged area (fat lip).

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres (5 gallons) of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for 1 to 2 weeks.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water (2 litres or 1/2 gallon) and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt water over a couple of minutes.

Okay. The bumps are internal, and to me the area around it seems bloodshot, where I can see some blood vessels around the mouth area here and there.

Also to my surprise the female killifish with protozoan is responding to metronidazole and has begun to eat! For about 5 days it was floating upside down, but now it's starting to swim again. But there is still some swim bladder issue, it cannot swim down to catch food. I can see that the swim bladder has become very big actually. Because it's so sick that it's translucent. Do you have any idea on how to treat this?
 
There's no treatment for swim bladder problems. If it was caused by the internal protozoan infection it might heal on its own, but there's nothing you can do to fix it if it doesn't get better. See how it is in a few weeks time.
 
There's no treatment for swim bladder problems. If it was caused by the internal protozoan infection it might heal on its own, but there's nothing you can do to fix it if it doesn't get better. See how it is in a few weeks time.

I've kept and bred killies for 35 years, and haven't seen anything that resembled tb in that time. I've stopped keeping rainbows because of tb, and have seen it on livebearers as well. I'm unfortunately no stranger to Myco in tanks. But my killies, including many years of annulatus, have never shown signs of it.

OK. Thank you both for the input so far. I'm glad that the female has escaped from the brink of death, it never acted normal since arrival, and I was really alarmed when it transmitted gill disease/dropsy to its tank mate. I will keep updating if there's anything more from the sick male with the bump on lip.
 
Just watch - dropsy is not a disease, and it can't be transmitted. It's a symptom of kidney failure, which can have many reasons. Gill diseases are generally not diseases either, but parasites. It matters if you go online seeking meds.
 
Just watch - dropsy is not a disease, and it can't be transmitted. It's a symptom of kidney failure, which can have many reasons. Gill diseases are generally not diseases either, but parasites. It matters if you go online seeking meds.
I am just so glad that I tried! Actually the sick female that was on the verge of dying, is swimming completely normal now. Possible the male individual with gill/dropsy symptom had also been suffering protozoan infection for a while going unnoticed. I think it seems less likely now that there is a 2nd pathogen. I think it's not so easy to make a precise diagnosis for the protozoan infection until white poop is apparent. For small fish I think sometimes that is already too late, sometimes not.
 
There's no treatment for swim bladder problems. If it was caused by the internal protozoan infection it might heal on its own, but there's nothing you can do to fix it if it doesn't get better. See how it is in a few weeks time.
So the clown killifish that is recovering from intestinal protozoan after it has started swimming normally again is now having a prolapse.
I started to feed it medicated food after it started eating again thinking that it would help eradicate the pathogen from its system. Could that have been the cause? Should I stop feeding the fish altogether or do you think that would make it worse.
 

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Prolapse intestine (part of the intestine sticking out the butt) is caused by inbreeding and weak fish. Keep feeding the fish a varied diet and hope it goes back in by itself. If it doesn't the fish usually dies within a few days.
 
Prolapse intestine (part of the intestine sticking out the butt) is caused by inbreeding and weak fish. Keep feeding the fish a varied diet and hope it goes back in by itself. If it doesn't the fish usually dies within a few days.
Hmm, from what it sounds like from the pet store employee it definitely seems the fish was inbred but I feel this is still due to the parasite. The poop is still abnormal, with it being sticky and hanging down for a while before falling down.
I can still see a few flagellates here and there so probably the recovery isn't complete.
I'll just leave it as is and see if it goes back in.
 
Went back after some Epsom salt. Thanks!
Definitely less treatable than I thought. Bath is probably not sufficient to treat for short term
 

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