Weird comet goldfish mouth problem - Fish for the Planted Aquarium

Qwertus · 09-29-2009, 05:37 PM

I keep 2 comets in a 29 gal for about 1 year now, its a planted tank. Recently one of my comet's mouth started too turn red im not sure if its an infection or some disease. I took 2 pics with my cell after taking it out into a specimen container. The pictures arent that good but its easy to tell the redness on the mouth. Let me know if you have an idea what it is and if it can be cured. Thanks. The other goldfish looks normal, no symtoms yet.

Philosophos · 09-29-2009, 06:27 PM

oops double post.

Philosophos · 09-29-2009, 06:28 PM

My experience with herps (no, not herpes) makes me want to say mouth rot. Looks like there's some cold water fish prone to a similar condition, and the pictures do cause reddening along the mouth before severe degeneration occurs. I'd treat now with some strong antifungals and antibiotics in a quarantine tank. Skip all the gram positive crap like tetracycline; people push it, but there's a very good study out of the University of Victoria, BC showing that things like tetracycline have pretty much no impact on diseases in ornamental fish. Try something more along the lines of amoxicillin.

I'm pretty sure this is the paper on the subject:
http://aac.asm.org/cgi/reprint/10/4/598.pdf

-Philosophos

*edit* I did some looking around; order some gentamicin cheap here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Gentamycin-Sulfa...QQcmdZViewItem

Qwertus · 09-29-2009, 06:51 PM

So there is no chance that it will recover over time if left untreated right? I try to advoid using meds if possible since I have it in a container with no filtration.

Philosophos · 09-29-2009, 06:53 PM

My familiarity with it is from geckos, but looking at how it effects fish, I'd say that you'd want to treat it.

Get some filtration in there; air pumps are cheap. Why do you have it in a small plastic container?

-Philosophos

Qwertus · 09-29-2009, 07:23 PM

I dont want the other fish to be some how infected with it as well thats why. The container is big enough for it to swim around and turn so it'll be good for a few days at least. The rotting seems to start at the tail too now. I'll get some antibiotics and antifungals tomorrow.