Swelling lips.

Ok not se what’s going on. Water conditions are as usual. Not sure why this is happening or what it is. Lost a fish last week and wrote it off as the result of all the meds earlier in the year with the cross contamination I had. But now a second fish has it. First fish was a whitish fish so all I saw was the large lips. But it kept eating. I moved it to a qt tank and it died before I did anything more. Now this second fish is blue and has gone a grayish black and has swollen lips. Looks bacterial so I’m dosing the main tank with rid-ich as a start. Heres some pics. Attachment 132387 this is the first fish. Pic is from last week before I removed. Attachment 132388 this pic shows both of the sick fish. This pic is from the end of November. You can see the white/pink fish in the middle already has swollen lips. But the blue guy high on the left still looks fine. This is him nowAttachment 132389 Attachment 132390.
Any ideas what I’m looking at?

Hi Tom,
I am sorry you are having issues again.
I know of 3 things that can cause this.
1. Anaphylaxis. (Not likely as more than 1 fish is affected but cant be ruled out completely. Have you recently introduced new foods, plants or wood to the tank?
2. Columnaris can cause swollen lips. In a clean tank you may not see the appearance of fuzz depending on which strain it is. Treatment would be a round of pure antibiotics. Kanamycin, oxytetracycline or similar.
3. Viral. If this is viral there wont be much you can do but let it run its course. You can still treat with antibiotics to avoid secondary infections from setting in and increase food intake with foods high in vitamins.
I hope this helps you some.
All the best,
Tammy

Ok thanks Tammy added 2 discus about 2 weeks ago. But had noticed it on the first discus already. Didn’t think much of it. The new guys were in qt for a month with a hero. All were great. Should I put the fish in qt and treat or treat whole tank? Guess Kanaplex is what I should try?

Only treat those who show symptoms in a QT tank.

Tammy

Seachem Active ingredients: kanamycin sulfate (32%)Inactive ingredients: excipients (68%) and better to have pure kanamycin from Everything Aquatics.

https://everythingaq.wpengine.com/product/kanamycin/

Or

https://aqualiferx.com/advanced-sear...ext=Kanamycin+

Well I messed up big time! I moved this fish yesterday after no results with the rid-ich treatment. Put him in a 5 gal and changed out half the water before I put him in. Unplugged the heater for this. Put him in and was giving him till this morn before I added kanamycin (all I could find). So added meds and put finger in tank. Yep never repluged in heater. Tank is at 66* so plugged it back in and I guess I’ll see what happens. Discus looked fine but will have to see what that temp drop will do.

Well this continues to get worse. The sick blue guy is still alive but doesn’t seem to be getting better. He’s black in color eating and still pooping in a correct color. He survived the water problem with no problem. Been through kanaplex, pizzicato-pro and metro with no change still black. But now my large orange has passed. It stopped eating last week and has now died. Both of the to that have died were Hans discus. The sick one is a store bought. The ones that have died just stopped eating and died. I think it’s some lasting effect of the cross contamination. None of the Hans fish ever looked as good as before the cc. They eat and swim but their color is off. Not as vibrant as before. These are all from the first tank. The second tank seems fine. Going to add this to that other thread.

Sorry Tom. Can your share your QT protocol?

This guy is still eating. I started the rid ich in the main tank. This brought back it’s color somewhat but did nothing about the lips. So I removed from main tank and treated with kanaplex in a 5g med tank. Went through the dosage and after added to a 50g qt I always run. He was in there for a month but not getting better and turning black. So back into 5g and treated with metro. No change. Have another that I noticed Gill flukes so added it to the 5 and treated both. Gill flukes are gone that fish removed and added to the 50 and it seems fine. Black guy looks the same so I’m now after a week treating again with the rid-ich and a small amount of salt. 5g gets the water changed daily. May try something else but not sure what.

Although I do hate to recommend more meds at this point, EM has always been a good med of choice for swollen lips, either bacterial of fungal.

Em is erythromycin right? Yes I was thinking of this next. Where do you get it?

EM can be purchased over the counter. API is pretty easy to find, or at least it used to be... Jut make sure you give them some time off from the meds.

Well the blue guy has passed. No mater what was added nothing helped. Once it stopped eating it died in a week. Before I treated with the EM I noticed another Hans had stopped eating. So I moved it in with the blue and treated with EM. No change to the blue but the Hans has returned to eating. It’s eating fine now but it and the last Hans still are off in color. The other tank is still fine.