Red phantom with cotton mouth (?) - treating with sera omnipur or.. ?

[Lucy_S]

Phew, a lot of questions. Hopefully someone can help me out

In my tank one of my red phantoms seems to be suffering from white lips ("cotton mouth" or something else?) - See pictures. I was wondering if I can treat this with sera omnipur without ruining my snail, shrimp and plants. And is it better to put him in a quarantine tank - or do I have to treat the whole tank because of contagiousness?

Tank size: 60x30x37 (+- 65L) + 40x25x25 (possible quarantaine tank?)

Big tank has now been running for 2 weeks - but both tanks were collected from local craigslist-like-site (I've kept the filters running and part of the substrate), 60cm tank had been running for a year with (a lot of) cherry shrimps. Current fish stock comes from the 40cm tank - I also picked that up on same site and transferred the fish in steps to the larger tank. The water values ​​of the small tank were depressingly bad when I picked it up, so it's very possible that that's the cause of the stress/illness. I could use that small container as a quarantine container. Both tanks are (now) heavily planted. Small one is now a cherry shrimp tank.

Water values ​​measured with easy 7-in-1 JBL aquatest: No3 - 0 / No2 - 0 / GHd approx 10 - 175 hardness ppm / KHd 6 - 107 alkalinity ppm / PH 7 / CI2 0-0.8
Not sure how good these test strips are, but these values ​​seem to remain fairly stable.

Filter is an old superfish filter (100L, but little flow) + new eheim pickup 160 (pointed at the glass). The latter gives 220l/h according to the box.

At the moment I change about 30% of the water every 3 days because of the abrupt transfer and (over)loading of the filter/bacteria culture.

Affected fish is one red phantom tetra - but he shares his tank with: 3 other phantom salmon / 1x honey gourami / 2x corydoras aeneus / 2x otocinclus + 50 fire shrimp and a nerite zebra snail.
(Fishing stock collected in this way, not yet final or fixed - wanted to look into further changes if all was well for at least 3 weeks)

The red phantom still seems pretty energetic, I've noticed the lips since yesterday, but it could've started a bit earlier.

I haven't treated it yet in anyway, but I have sera omnipur on hand.

My questions are mainly:

1) What do you think it is -> is sera omnipur suitable?
2) Is it better to treat the whole tank or treat only the affected red phantom in a quarantine tank?
3) Can sera omnipur harm the tank inmates/plants?

 

[Aiken Drum]

It looks like a secondary mouth infection. Sort of thing ive successfully treated with plenty of water changes, good water conditions, and time.

Your medication is a broad spectrum treatment. A good place to start. I would always recommend treatment in quarantine to minimise the risk of contamination of other fish.

The product information says it can cause damage to plants with soft leaves, doesnt mention invertebrates so i wouldnt risk it there. The product contains malachite green and this can kill shrimp and effect plants, so that backs up what the product info says.

Your test strips dont measure ammonia, and this is the most likely parameter to be off. You arent seeing any nitrate which is a clear sign you arent cycled and this could be the route cause of your fishes illness. You are doing plenty of water changes so hopefully this will keep you on top of your water parameters until your cycle establishes.

 

[Lucy_S]

Hey Aiken,

Thanks so much for your reply! I have gotten even more confused in the meanwhile though: My red phantom seems to have significantly less white lips just a few hours later? Just one tiny white dot (as it was before) in the middle of it's mouth.

Do you have any more advice? Should I still catch and treat it, or should I wait and keep up proper maintenance?

 

[Aiken Drum]

As said, its the sort of thing ive sorted just with regular water changes and time. If its healing up on its own, just monitor things.

 

[Lucy_S]

Ok, thanks a heap! I guess I'll put some of my cherry shrimp back into their tank then haha.