Cotton mouth?

[GoldeenTrix9898]

I have a relatively new planted 5-gallon tank that houses 9 Lambchop rasboras and one male Betta. I know its a little over stocked but my tank's water parameters are perfect (ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and nitrate 15, pH is 8) and they have been stable for a while now. I perform 15% water changes every other day and vacuum the gravel with a turkey baster while I'm at it. The tank is heated to about 80 degrees and has a filter meant for 20 gallon tanks.

But here's my problem, I was feeding my rasboras today when I noticed one of them had something weird attached to his mouth. Like an extra piece of skin or something. I immediately thought of cotton mouth and checked all my fish for translucent patches, fuzzy growths or rotting fins, but nothing of the sort showed up. The fish that's affected is eating normally, swimming normally, no inflamed gills. He's my largest rasbora and has always been a bit of a loner. He'll school with the other fish if they swim nearby but he prefers staying close to the heater on his own. Do you guys think he has cotton mouth? I'm worried and don't want to risk my other fish getting infected if it is. The last picture is of my other rasboras and you can see their mouths look fine.

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[Delapool]

Can't tell - it's a bad spot though. I'd suspect cotton mouth as well but is it getting smaller / healing? Has tank temp been stable?

 

[GoldeenTrix9898]

Can't tell - it's a bad spot though. I'd suspect cotton mouth as well but is it getting smaller / healing? Has tank temp been stable?

I can't tell if it's changing size, but I looked at the front of the rasbora and noticed that the white spot is smack dab in the centre of his mouth. I think it might just be that he bumped into something and hurt his lip or something. He's acting completely normal, but I'm still kinda scared that it's early stage cotton mouth. The tank temp is pretty stable, at most 1 or 2 degree fluctuations from day to night, so lowest at 78 and highest at 81.


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[Delapool]

Well only one is a good sign. Every time I've had it, I could see it on a few fish all at once from the same school.

Hmmm, tricky. You could watch him for a few days to see if healing, if not try a salt bath in a separate container to see if that cleans him up.

 

[GoldeenTrix9898]

Well only one is a good sign. Every time I've had it, I could see it on a few fish all at once from the same school.

Hmmm, tricky. You could watch him for a few days to see if healing, if not try a salt bath in a separate container to see if that cleans him up.

Hmm, I woke up this morning and checked him again. The white spot hasn't changed much, and none of my other fish have any symptoms. I think I'll just let him heal on his own. If I start seeing symptoms on other fish I will start administrating salt bathes to my rasboras.

I was wondering though, I have a jellyfish tank, and a bag of red sea salt that I use to mix the water in that tank, is marine salt OK for bathing freshwater fish?

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[Delapool]

I've never tried it. Does it say what is in it?

 

[GoldeenTrix9898]

I've never tried it. Does it say what is in it?

It says it's all natural but doesn't have an ingredient list.

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[Delapool]

Outside my knowledge I'm afraid. I'm a little dubious as while the bulk would I assume be sodium chloride, the rest could be changing water chemistry more than you want. Will see if I can find a better link tomorrow. Generally preference is to just use table salt (sodium chloride) for treatments.


http://www.redseafish.com/red-sea-salts/

 

[GoldeenTrix9898]

Outside my knowledge I'm afraid. I'm a little dubious as while the bulk would I assume be sodium chloride, the rest could be changing water chemistry more than you want. Will see if I can find a better link tomorrow. Generally preference is to just use table salt (sodium chloride) for treatments.


http://www.redseafish.com/red-sea-salts/

So regular table salt is good? Like the kind you get at super markets?


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[Delapool]

Yes that's it. Any with no additives is fine. Just straight salt.

 

[GoldeenTrix9898]

I picked up a bag of pure salt from the supermarket today. The white dot doesn't seem to be spreading, so I think its just a random dot on him that I didn't notice before. But the salt I will start adding a little bit to the tank

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