Tetra- Mouth Rot?

[Joefis809]

Hello-
On Saturday I bought a Chinese Algae eater, and two Emperor Tetras. Yesterday morning (sunday) one of the Tetras was dead. This morning I saw the other Tetra sitting in the plants, It looked dead. I got the net in there and it started swimming again, but not very actively, and looked weak, getting stuck to the filter intake but freeing itself. On a closer look its mouth and surrounding area looked almost like "dry skin" (the human equivalent) a white/gray flaky appearance. It's mouth wasn't closed, but wasn't wide open either. It looked stuck and wasn't eating any food. On Saturday they were aggressively eating, and I didn't notice the face thing. I read about Tetra's with their mouth stuck open, and saw posts about mouth rot, which I am thinking this is but don't want to medicate the wrong thing and make problems worse...Now for the tank-

10 Gal freshwater, 1 adult Platy, 3 Platy fry (almost a half inch, aprx 5 weeks old -in net breeder) 1 Chinese Algae Eater, 1 Emperor Tetra. All water tests are good- a little hard but I have a softener pillow to put in tonight. (I am at work now and cant remember exact levels, I can update late tonight) Artificial plants, Tetra EX20 filter- (110 gph 20 gallon max) Tank has been set up for 2 months, all other fish are OK. I change 25% of the water every week. Trying to think of the other standard questions so just ask if I've missed something.

I want to get some kind of medication today to help the situation as soon as I get home tonight, any suggestions? Do you think this will spread to the other fish?

Thank You!

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

All water tests are good- a little hard but I have a softener pillow to put in tonight.

What is "a softener pillow"??

How did you acclimate the new fish?

Please test the water and post the amounts

 

[bluerose]

And is your tank cycled? (again, need water parameters to know.)

In general, clean water is the best thing for sick fish, although it depends on the ailment. Also how hard is 'hard'? It's generally better to acclimate the fish to the water you have than be constantly fiddling with it and subjecting them to changes in water quality.

 

[Joefis809]

Wow- you guys are fast- Thanks!

It's literally a small pillow you put in the filter (temporarily) and it absorbs minerals in the water
As for numbers,
Cycled
Tested last night, off the top of my head I DO know that pH= 7.5
0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, .02 ammonia GH 180, I do know that KH is also high, (above 120, <200 but can't exactly remember.)

New fish from Petco-
I generally keep the hardness lower, over the past two water changes it has risen, but the pH moved from 6-7.5 so I was happy with that. The Platys seem to not mind the slow hardness increase so I only plan to soften the water again if its recommended.

As I said I won't be able to test again until late tonight, I work in NYC and live 2 hours north...

 

[Lager]

That is odd. Slight ammonia and no nitrates. How long has this tank been running? What you describe sounds bacterial but it could be from poor water quality a s well. What kind of test kit do you have have you ever tested positive for nitrates?

 

[Joefis809]

Tank has been running 2 months
Yes- tho I only noticed a slight increase in nitrates, 5ppm max, and only for a few days.
I was using stress-zyme so thought this was the reason for low levels

I am using test strips (I know I know..) API 5 in 1... but do plan on getting an actual kit to make sure the strips aren't missing something and get more accurate readings

 

[Joefis809]

Also, more questions- the other fish, Algae Eater and Platys are ok, I'm sure its possible that the Tetras came like this (or this one because I didn't notice anything wrong with the other), it has been in there since Saturday afternoon, and just today was in bad shape, can this happen to the fish that fast? Can it spread? even if the Tetra came with this condition the bacteria would be in my tank now right? I will try to take a picture tonight, hopefully it's still alive...

 

[Joefis809]

Ok- so I came home from work and the fish was gone. I did take a few pics, if you are interested in taking a look let me know and I'll send them to you. I had to take em out of the tank for focus issues and i didn't want to leave it in the tank any longer than necessary.
It had lost it's color, almost all of the black was gone, upper part of mouth was deteriorated, and cotton like white "fuzz" was over eyes and mouth- consistent with what I read about Mouth Rot all over the internet today. Again, I brought him him Saturday afternoon and Monday night he was gone. From what I read it didn't seem like infected fish died so suddenly, maybe this started inside the mouth? I didn't notice anything Saturday, and the fish was eating and very active/normal.

I am curious as to what you guys think. Also, should I do anything to clean the tank? Maybe an ahead of schedule water change? Other fish are OK (Adult Platy, Chinese Algae Eater, 3 Platy fry)

Took some water readings (test strips, proper test kit tomorrow)

GH 120, KH 120, pH 7.5, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0, Ammonia 0.02, 75/76 deg F
????

 

[Joefis809]

Ok- The results are in:
Got the API master test kit- FW

pH 7.8, NH3 1ppm, NO2 0ppm, NO3 0ppm, 76 deg F

Hardness tests were on strips, I didn't bother, I'm sure it didn't change and may not be accurate anyway.

So any thoughts?

 

[smn723]

First thing I would suggest would be doing large water changes to get rid of that ammonia. 1ppm can be very toxic to your fish. Do large (50%+) water changes a couple times a day until you have that ammonia gone. Do you use a dechlorinator during your water changes such as Prime? If not I would definitely use Prime as most city water companies use chlorine to treat the source water (kills bad bacteria) before it comes to your house. If you don't treat this at the time of adding it to your tank you could be introducing chloramine which could cause ammonia.

 

[Joefis809]

That seems like a lot of water to change, no? The fish in there now seem fine, I'd hate to shock them with basically all new water. I'm also not near my tank all day, I leave at 7am and get home at 10pm so I can change some tonight, some tomorrow. I Use Aquasafe when adding new water which seems to be working. I could be overfeeding too, only twice a day, but I'm sure they would be fine if I cut back. My main concern was my other fish getting what this tetra had, but so far they dont have any ill effects...