cotton mouth help please

[izzycomosy]

I have just pulled my sailfin mollie from the main tank to the quarantine tank I think he has cotton mouth as inside his mouth looks like it its full of white stuff what can I do for him please.
will I have to treat the whole of my tank?is it a disease that spreads through the tank?

 

[dskidmore]

Cotton mouth can be infectious, at the very least keep a sharp eye on all the other fish for signs.

There are medications at the pet store specifically for this problem, you could try those. Ask a salesperson to help you if you don't know which one to get. The medications can interfere with the biological cycle, test for ammonia a couple times a day after adding the medication. If ammonia stays at 0 for several days, you're out of the woods, but it is likely to go up, and require frequent water changes. (Don't forget to medicate the replacement water, based on the volume of the replacement water.)

Salt is often an effective cure for many types of diseases, I would recomend supplimeting the medication with salt. Use non-iodized (aquarium, kosher, or sea) salt. Add 1 teaspoon per gallon every 12 hours for a total of 3 treatments. (Note, this level can be damaging to plants, but is benificial to fish. This is a safe, cheap way to treat an unplanted tank.) Keep the salt treatment up for a couple weeks after the cure is effective, adding 3 teaspoons per gallon to your replacement water when you do water changes. After that time, the salt level will go slowly down with normal water changes. (If you only treated the QT, besure to acclimate the sick fish slowly to his normal tank water and not just dump him straight back.)

Good luck!

Could you post your water parameters?

 

[izzycomosy]

Hi, yes the water parameters are all ideal conditions ammonia 0.0mg /nitrite 0.0mg
Nitrate 0mg / pH7.0 I clean out my tanks,every sunday,by that I mean hoover the bottom and do a 20% water change every week on all my tanks,check my fish every day and didnt spot this one fishes mouth until tonight it was inside his mouth,he has since died.... a few minutes ago, I treated him with cotton mouth Anti fungus treatment in the QT tank and I was hoping he would recover , I will keep and eye on my other fish so if it rears its ugly head again I have to treat the whole tank..yes?
Thanks for the help

 

[Zagz]

You should have some nitrates in the tank. I use Maracyn II for cotton mouth. It can affect the biological system to as noted keep an eye on your parameters. Sorry to hear about the molly. I had the same problem with mollies not that long ago. And yes if any of the other fish come down with it you will need to treat the entire tank.

 

[greenmaji]

Im a little conserned bout how you got so "perfect" numbers myself.. how did you get a NO3 reading of zero and a PH of exactly 7.0? you didnt use any PH buffers did you?

 

[izzycomosy]

re water parameter

Hi,
I don't add anything to the water,I have a jewel internal filter and also a 404 fluval external filter,I am going to dispense with one as I have only added the fluval 4 weeks ago I do a 20% water change every week and hoover the tank and that's it and my readings are nearly always the same
on both my tanks,I did have a spike of nitrite on my QT tank last week went up to 0.25mg but commenced with the water changes and it soon went back to normal,I added more plants to the QT tank maybe that was made it spike? but that is now OK also the nitrite on my big tank is between 0.0mg
and 0.1mg,is that OK or could there be something wrong?

 

[izzycomosy]

re medication

I thought I spotted a tell tail sign of cotton mouth on one of my dalmatian mollies and the main colour is black with a few white spots so I went out and bought Prima Fix you add to the water for 7 days,but on closer examination ie: magnifing glass..lol
found that it was in fact his markings ..not cotton mouth but because the one in the QT tank died so quickly and he was in the main tank should I treat the tank anyway...just in case as I have a lot of white mollies and it would be hard to detect if they had it,the only reason I spotted the sailfin mollie was that he was bright orange and the white in his mouth was very noticable