Bloodfin tetras' mouths rotting away

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Sostratos

Registered Member
Apr 9, 2013
3
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0
Hello! I'm having some difficulties treating a disease on some bloodfin tetras. Details:

1. Tank size: 29 gallon.

2. Parameters: 0 nitrite, 0 ammonia, 10 nitrate, ph 6.8, all tested with an API master test kit.

3. Aquarium is a freshwater quarantine setup with no substrate.

4. It was set up about a month ago. An established Eheim 2211 canister for filtration, as well as a Tetra whisper 40i internal filter.

5. The aquarium currently houses 8 buenos aires tetras and 7 bloodfins, kept separate from each other with a tank divider.

6. The fish are in quarantine and have been since I purchased them.

7. The tank is kept around 78 degrees.

8. There are no live plants.

9. An established Eheim 2211 canister for filtration, as well as a Tetra whisper 40i internal filter. The Eheim was fully cycled and kept that way on another aquarium before it was used here. There is also an air-driven sponge filter that was well cycled previous to being placed in this tank.

10. No other equipment is in use.

11.This tank receives no natural sunlight.

12. I do weekly 30% water changes on this tank at minimum, though I have been doing them more frequently for reasons that will be explained below. The most recent water change was done on November the 5th. The tank bottom was fully vacuumed at that time.

13. I feed sinking pellets from Ken's, as well as Tetra min flakes. I feed twice a day, only sprinkling in enough for the fish to eat within a couple of minutes.

14. The unusual signs I have observed can all be found in some of my bloodfins. Some of them have developed a single bump on their jaws that have no associated fuzz and a generally pale appearance. On two of the bloodfins, the bump progressed and disfigured the lower jaw, to the point that the jaw first became swollen and then seemed to completely deteriorate, leading to the fish being euthanized. At first the fish were treated with jungle labs fungus eliminator tabs. When that didn't work, I did a water change and ran carbon in the tetra whisper filter for 24 hours. After this, I removed the carbon and did a full round of Maracyn 2, at the end of which I did another water change and replaced the carbon. The disease appears to be slowly advancing in spite of this.

The fish were purchased from a chain store that will remain nameless. There were other bloodfins in the tank at the store that had these bumps on their mouths, but I bought some fish that seemed unaffected with the hopes that any diseases could be dealt with in the quarantine tank. During the course of the treatments, the bloodfins and BATs were housed together, but I separated them after seeing a BAT bite an afflicted bloodfin on its face. I was hoping the severe facial damage was the result of BATs bullying the smaller fish, but another bloodfin's face has been eroding steadily since they were divided.

I initially treated them with fungus clear followed by maracyn 2 because I suspected columnaris, but the progression of this disease does not match anything I have read or seen about it. I'm basically looking for treatments I can try on these little fellows because I would hate to lose every one of them. I began with 9 purchased from the store, but one died without showing any facial deterioration, and two more lost so much of their mouths that they could no longer eat and were euthanized.
 

Captain Jim

AC Members
May 12, 2012
209
0
16
Sounds crazy..but I've seen it too. Same specie fish as a matter of fact..I had forgotten. There were a couple with the lower lip disfigurement at box store, I thought they were born messed up, but within 4 days about half of the eight I bought had it, strangely it seemed to all of a sudden appear rather than slowly progress.This was a couple years or so ago,..I'm afraid to buy fish there now, don't know what it is really. Can't remember what I tried to stop it, but lost more than half the fish..did not know why some survived.
 
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