# Problems whit neon tetra (cotton mouth)



## OtyTzutzu (2 Jun 2020)

My neon tetras have a funny growth on the bottom lips fuzzy cotton looking like , i looked it up and it’s cotton mouth as far as i can tel.i looked for some sort of a cure and i came across esha 2000 and i purchased it , came yesterday , now my dilemma starts as i read the liflet   it said  it’s safe for plants shrimp filter but not snail. Anyone has any eperience whit it? Does it affect snail as i have 15 horned nerite snail plus loads of cherries 10 amanos !?! Any advice ? I have purigen in the canister but will remove when i treat as i want to treat the whole tank ! Just in case ! I will attache some pics of the tank.


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## MirandaB (2 Jun 2020)

Esha won't affect the shrimp or snails but I doubt it will have much effect on the cottonmouth unfortunately.
Waterlife Myxazin seems to work better although it's not supposed to be invert safe.....I have used it with shrimp and snails in the past with no losses but that's not to say that's the norm.


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## OtyTzutzu (2 Jun 2020)

Thank you , well i have put esha in i do the 3 day treatment if it dont work i will try the one you mentioned , thank you , i was worried bout the snails lol !


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## Simon Cole (3 Jun 2020)

It's columnaris. They are common vectors. It is fairly untreatable in this species, and will jump onto species like bettas.


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## Nick72 (3 Jun 2020)

Simon Cole said:


> It's columnaris. They are common vectors. It is fairly untreatable in this species, and will jump onto species like bettas.




Agreed.

I would immediately quarantine all effected fish.

If quarantine is not possible, then I would euthanize effected fish before it spreads.

I had this with a batch of 16 Red Eye Tetra in April 2019.  Only one or two had it, but they got progressively worse for a couple of weeks until I had to put them down.   By then one or two more had it.  This went on for a month, until I euthanized the last two showing early signs.

The remaining eight  Red Eye Tetra have been healthy ever since and are still with me today.


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## Simon Cole (3 Jun 2020)

And also most EHSA treatments contain enough copper to kill snails, and it will certainly harm beneficial bacteria and probably shrimp. Change your water to remove the EHSA immediately, then remove all of the neons (some are asymptomatic), then bath your remaining fish only in a KMnO4 solution at about 2ppm (check this concentration, as I seem to remember you can safely go a little bit higher) for half an hour. That will reduce the risk of it spreading if it started to establish on the epidermal tissue of other fish. Dropping the temperature will also help.


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## MirandaB (3 Jun 2020)

Esha 2000 is invert safe and filter safe......potassium permanganate is a much nastier chemical and personally not something I'd be bathing a fish in despite how loved it is by Koi and Discus owners.


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## Ray (3 Jun 2020)

Off topic but the tank is looking lovely and will be really beautiful when it grows in.

Good luck with the ESHA treatment and let us know how it goes. 

If they are brand new fish it may be worth letting your LFS know so if the treatment doesn’t work you can take them back.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Simon Cole (3 Jun 2020)

EHSA is designed to kill microbes. It does exactly that to your filter. Invertebrates are adversely affected by copper. And it will have no effect upon columnaris.


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## OtyTzutzu (3 Jun 2020)

I will defo keep you up to date whit what is going on @Ray and i had the fish over a year and if i remember right one of them had that thing for a long time so dno what it is , they all seem fine still swimming togheder eating fine colours as you can see , so they had that thing over a week now i’m guessing after all the research i done  if it would of been columnaris they would of been dead by now or there abouts no? The tank looked different about a month and a bit ago @Ray  but didnt like it , i’ll post a pic ! And thanks again everyone for your comments all taken into account ! As for the life stock all alive including snail , i’m guessing some would off passed away if that would of been the case ? Sorry i didnt have pics whit al the stems gown in ( pogostemon stellatus and ludwigia palustrius ) dno if i spelt them right @Ray


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## JBFUK (5 Jun 2020)

I noticed the same issue and also thought that it was columnaris based on the symptoms.  They lived too long for that to be correct, based on what I read about columnaris,  but it was definitely something.  The problem didn't spread to other fish in the tank (just slowly amongst the neons) but I noticed over time their fins became very tatty and they became quite inactive.  I also noticed that over time the growth turned black on some of them.

For the benefit of the overall health of the tank I also suggest you euthanise them and avoid in future.  A member here told me they are sickly little fish and to avoid them, I think he was correct.  Apparently cardinals are not so bad.


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## sparkyweasel (5 Jun 2020)

JBFUK said:


> A member here told me they are sickly little fish and to avoid them, I think he was correct. Apparently cardinals are not so bad.


Green Neons are also more likely to be healthy than Neons.


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## OtyTzutzu (5 Jun 2020)

Well i done the 3 day course whit esha 2000 and nothing has changed , stock is still the same has no effect on inverts at all not that i can tell the snails are fine , the fish and shrimp are fine , i dno what to think they suffer of ! Thank you for your input guys and i will see how it goes but atm they seem happy all swimming and eating fine colours fine no fin rot or anything ! I will keep you up to date if anything goes wrong . I am tempted to put all of them in a separate tank and try waterlife Myxazin  like suggested by MirandaB . You think is it worth it putting them through the stress?


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## OtyTzutzu (18 Jun 2020)

Just a quick update on the Esha 2000 guys , to b honest i dno if it helped the fish in any way , but after about a week or so after treatment whit esha i noticed that some of the neons have lost the white fluffy bit and as i look through the tank i can see the last 2 that have it one quite about the same and the other one is disappearing as far as i can see slowly but sorely  going away as far as i can tell , so dno
if esha helped or not but i can see some improvement , plus i treated the whole tank for 3 days as instructed by the leaflet whit the quantity specified , and happy to say all is good! Snails still here , shrimp still here they even had babies so deffo a safe product to use!only thing if you have any carbon or resins to clean the water (purigen) remove before treatment !


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