Help with disease ID and treatment on Gourami

[ElectricPurple]

I have a 3 year old dwarf gourami with a white growth on its mouth. Please help with ID and cure!

1~What type of fish is afflicted? In addition, please describe what is wrong with the fish to the best of your ability (i.e. cotton like growth, bloated, etc.).See above
I have a 3 year old male dwarf gourami with a white growth on its mouth. Please help with ID and cure!

2~What are your tank parameters (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, temp, pH)? Please give exact values.
PH 7.4, Ammonia 0, chlorine 0, Nitrite 0, nitrate 0, KH ?, GH ?(I need help checking these because I cant see the test kit water color changes)

4~What type of filtration are you using? Please give the name and number (i.e. Fluval 304) and amount of gph if known.
Large Marineland, 2 medium size sponge. In a 75 gal tank, Good mix of wood, gravel, artificial plants, a few live plants and large rocks for hiding spaces.

5~How many fish are in the tank? What kinds of fish are they and what are their current sizes?
Many, overcrowded, but all have been very healthy for at least a year.

6~When is the last time you did a water change and vacuum the gravel? How often do you do this? How much water do you remove at a time?
Bi weekly vacuum with 30% water change.

7~How long have you had the fish? If the fish is new, how did you acclimate it/them?
2 years for these fish and the whole tank setup for the same time.

8~Have you added anything new to the tank--decor, new dechlorinator, new substrate, etc.?
Added 6 Columbian tetras a month ago after keeping them isolated for 2 weeks and they looked healthy when I added them.

9~What kind of food have you been feeding your fish, have you changed their diet recently?
Very light flakes and pleco pellets daily, Frozen and smaller pellets every other day.

He is eating well. So far I have treated entire tank with Melafix for about a week. when that did not work, I did a 40% water change and added 25 tablespoons of aquarium salt that has been in there about a week. The rest of the tank looks great.

Any help would be very much appreciated
John

 

[Andy Sager]

This looks more like a a wound inflicted by the fish scraping a surface for something, probably food. It doesn't look infected at this point so that's a good thing. The salt is probably helping with that. At this point, it will probably just take time to heal. If you have a separate tank you can use as a hospital tank or even a separate quarantine tank, all the better so that whatever he scraped it on isn't there or can reinjure the wound. I'd keep the water "medicated" with the salt for now until you see some regrowth of the skin which will be a different color than the wound. Using a smaller tank for this will help reduce the amount of salt you'll need to use vs keeping the big tank at a therapeutic level.
If it should start to have a cotton like growth on it or starts to bleed or look bloody, you'll need to use an antibiotic to treat for the bloody or an antifungal for the cotton ( fungus). With your pH, I'd use Kanaplex or Triple Sulfa as the antibiotic or Fritz Expel-F for the fungus.
Hope this helps.

 

[Big Dog is cool]

T looks like cotton mouth.

This is what I would treat the fish for right away.

 

[Andy Sager]

T looks like cotton mouth.

This is what I would treat the fish for right away.

Blow up the picture larger, there is no fuzz so no cotton mouth.

 

[Big Dog is cool]

I blew up the picture. It was to fuzzy for me to see what is wrong with the fish mouth.

Like Andy Sager stated its most likely he scraped his mouth on something.

 

[Andy Sager]

I blew up the picture. It was to fuzzy for me to see what is wrong with the fish mouth.

Like Andy Sager stated its most likely he scraped his mouth on something.

I had the same issue so I blew it up slightly then used my trust magnifying glass to see no actual fuzz on the lip. I can't suggest enough the importance of a good magnifying glass.

 

[ElectricPurple]

I don't really see any fuzz first hand. He is eating well and active. Since I only have a really low dose of salt going on right now I think I will take to the next level and see how that goes. Unless anyone thinks that would harm other fish. Thanks for everyone’s input. I’ll keep you posted.

 

[Big Dog is cool]

Good luck with your fish.

I hope he gets better.

 

[Andy Sager]

I don't really see any fuzz first hand. He is eating well and active. Since I only have a really low dose of salt going on right now I think I will take to the next level and see how that goes. Unless anyone thinks that would harm other fish. Thanks for everyone’s input. I’ll keep you posted.

Hard to say if raising the salt level will hurt the other fish without knowing what all the other fish are. If you put the fish in a separate tank until he heals, it won't matter about the other fish or plants or inverts.

 

[ElectricPurple]

From what I have read about dosing salt I don't have anything other than a couple snails that might be affected. Thanks Andy and Big Dog for all your help? Great forum to be a part of!
John

 

[Andy Sager]

From what I have read about dosing salt I don't have anything other than a couple snails that might be affected. Thanks Andy and Big Dog for all your help? Great forum to be a part of!
John

You can place the snails in a separate container during the salt treatment to keep them safe. Just make sure you aerate the container or change some water daily to help keep them alive.

Glad to help.