Dwarf Rainbow with foot and mouth disease???

[fabiobruno]

Hi guys,

Can you please have a look at this picture and tell me if you know what could this be?

The little guy started to have a swollen mouth or tongue a couple of weeks ago, no redness nor strange behavior.

All parameters in the tank are fine (details in my profile) but a couple of weeks ago I realized my filter was a bit clogged and incidentally instead of performing the usual weekly 25% water change I had skipped a week, I realized this because a couple of my rainbow looked a bit off color.
Now I'm back with a clean filter and weekly water changes, the rainbows are back to the usual color but the male dwarf rainbow has got this strange problem.

Your help is really appreciated.

 

[JasonO]

I have a great deal of certainly that what you with dealing with is actually called Cotton-wool disease also known as Mouth fungus.

Bacteria that causes it (usually in most cases) is called by Flavobacterium. used to be called flexibacter

It can be treated through antibiotics that are available for fish diseases. I would isolate and treat it, because it can infect other fish, and also cause fin rot. If it continues to progress the fish will stop eating, and it can eventually be fatal. I would make sure your water conditions are in balance as you said you have doing water changes again.

 

[ddlbrooks]

I had a Yellow Rainbow that looked the same and it was mouth fungus which is bacterial infection. I ended up after three weeks of treating with Maracyn and Maracyn II, as well as other gram negative/positive medication to no avail. A scraping was taken to make sure it wasn't a parasite, which it wasn't. Mine was a new purchase and was in QT tank, but ended up not eating and I still lost him. I would start treating right away.

 

[JasonO]

I forgot to mention that the disease can infect the internal organs if not treated immediately, so I would treat him while there is still hope.

 

[fabiobruno]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the super fast feedback!
Well maybe that picture was a bit misleading, let's try with this one.

As you can see is not cotton-wool, it is like an hard bump, a callus...

 

[JasonO]

It could be wasting disease or fish tuberculosis
Infection often by Mycobacterium or Nocardia

This disease is usually caused by the fish cannibalizing other fish with the disease, this could have happened in the dealers tank before you got it, and the poor water quality could have set the disease off.

However, if it is this then it is really bad because their is not really a good cure for it, their are some ways to treat it but most of the drugs require a vet license. So, most people end up euthanizeing fish with this disease unless they are super expensive fish.

_____________________________Ok well it typed that all out so I don't feel like deleting it______________________

But I just thought of a better theory, I don't know why it didn't pop into my head when you said callous, but anyway it may actually be a callous. How big is the tank it is in? Fish will sometimes rub up against the glass, and get a callous from doing this in a tank that is to small for them. I haven't actually observed this in rainbowfish, you mostly see it in larger predatory fish like piranhas, ( I went to a lecture recently where a piranhas mouth callous was because of this). If you are positive that the tank size is ok, then maybe the fish was doing this because of poor water quality or something..

____
However, just because the spot does not look white and fluffy I would not rule out Cotton-wool disease it can be pretty common in rainbow fish, and the other theories i put out there would be kinda rare for a rainbowfish. (fish tuberculosis around the mouth would be unusual, along with a callous in a rainbowfish) Most rainbow fish have that little hook on their mouth that can get caught in the net when being caught (maybe by the dealer, they often are more careless when catching fish because they do it faster) this hook on their mouth can then get infected and present symptoms. I have heard of cases that do not look like the stereotypical infection, in fact it can come in white or black.

I would treat the fish with a short salt bath to help. I also found a link that might help you.

http://www.rainbowfish.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1921

Once again good luck, I still have the suspicion that it is just a case of mouth-fungus, but I am only looking at pictures so you can really tell better than I can.

Always happy to help in diagnosing fish problems, feel free to message me anytime. (this is where I would normally put a smiley but I don't know how to on this forum)

 

[fabiobruno]

Hi JasonO, Thanks a lot again, all very interesting theories!

I would rule out the first one because I had the rainbow for almost 4 months now and the tank has been fine very stable in the last 6 months.

The tank is not very big (95 lt. 80 cm long) but the dwarf rainbow are quite small for it (I hope), the problem can be the boseman's later on (but I plan to upgrade the tank as soon as it is needed.

What I find enlightening is the story about the hook in rainbowfish's mouth.... it is true, since I had them some always had a bit of pealing skin on the mouth (mainly bosemans on the top lip, but even this one on the lower lip), straight after the dealer neated them (even if she was very careful), then after I moved them from the QT to the main tank and even later on.
By looking at some pictures from 2 weeks ago it was just a small white spot on its lower lip, just at that time in which I believe the water quality wasn't spot on.....

A small spot is turning in a big problem... either an infection or a parasite?

Look at the 2 pictures from Jan 31st and April 17th.

 

[Cerianthus]

Wondering if still eating,

Comparing 2 pics above, the color seems to be still vivid as was in Jan.

As long as no further developments take place, eating, swimming normally and water in check, I would just monitor.
Ususally such metallic luminescent coloration will fade if fish were suffering from diseases, TB, Columnaris, etc.....

If LIPS are turning pale or white, try treating infected/affected fish with Ampicillin in Q/T.

If not, would wait for further developments/changes!

Hope all goes well.

 

[fabiobruno]

Yep, still eating, I'm wondering for how long more, see how bent is the top lip?

I can't get antibiotics in UK, but I've successfully used Interpet "Anti Internal Bacteria" in the past to cure my dwarf gourami apparently affected by DGD or some other bacterial infection... I'm tempted to give it a go tomorrow together with a dose of the Aqualibrim salt, what do you think?

 

[JasonO]

hmm, I have never heard that you can't get antibiotics in the Uk. That's certainly a lot different from America, most pet stores here will whole little sections in an aisle with all kinds of fish medications. You can even by medicated fish food for treating fish.

Personally I wouldn't think salt treatment would be a bad idea, it is better than inaction because if the disease progresses a whole ton further than the fish will probably die from it. So if I were you I would proceed to try to treat it with the salt tomorrow.

Rainbows aren't super salt-sensitive like some fish so it really shouldn't be that stressful for it. (The rainbow species I have treated anyway).

I'm actually kinda curious on this whole anti-biotics not be available in the UK thing, can you even buy Methylene blue and Malachite green?