# Skin ulcer and mouth rot with skirt tetras.



## AndyH (Oct 21, 2013)

I have a 37g tank that has been setup for 7 months. I used to have 6 black skirt tetras, 6 glofish skirt tetras, 6 bloodfin tetras, 3 peppered cories. Now, slowly, I have lost a few. I am down to 6 black skirts, 3 glofish, 1 bloodfin and 3 peppered cories.

Currently I have a blackskirt with what appears to be a skin ulcer. Also, I have a glofish with some kind of mouth rot or something. Today is day 5 of me dosing with melafix. I originally started the melafix because of the skin ulcer on the black skirt. It looks like it might be getting better. After 3 days of treating with melafix, I noticed the mouth problem on the glofish. Will the melafix heal this problem? What is causing this and what can I do to keep my tank healthy? I do 50-60% water changes every 1 - 2 weeks.

Here are some pics of the black skirt and the glofish.


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## keepsmiling (May 19, 2013)

Welcome to TFK. I am sorry you are having these issues with your lovely fish. We have some memebers that are really good with disease advice. Let me see if I can get someone to help. I would suggest you test the water with liquid API test kits or have your LFS test if they will and you don't have the kits. Please post the results. Also start doing your water changes weekly.


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## Sakura8 (May 12, 2011)

Hi AndyH. I'm sorry to hear your fish aren't well. From the descriptions and pics, it sounds like they may have columnaris, a bacterial infection. Sometimes Melafix will take care of this if it's a very mild infection but since the infection has already begun to eat away at the mouth and fins of your two tetras, you will probably need to try antibiotics.

If it is possible, try to isolate the two affected fish in a hospital tank for treatment so the healthy fish are not receiving antibiotics they don't need and also because cories can be very sensitive to medications. If this can't be done, I understand but monitor both the cories and the tetras (who can also be somewhat sensitive) for signs of distress. If you have any inverts (shrimp, snails), you will want to remove them. 

The medication you will want to try is API Furan-2 or API Triple Sulfa. You can also use Jungle Labs/Tetra Fungus Guard, as this contains the antibiotic nitrafurazone. 

Good luck and keep us updated!


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## AndyH (Oct 21, 2013)

Sorry it took so long to reply. Both fish ended up dying. One during treatment and the other 2 days after treatment. I treated the main tank with maracyn 2 for 5 days. The remaining fish seem to be doing good other than the skirt tetras picking at each other. I think they are a little stressed. I have been doing partial water changes every 3 days and I am running carbon in my filter now. Any follow up treatment I should do to make sure the disease is gone? Also what to do to make the fish happy?

Thank you,
Andy


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## Sakura8 (May 12, 2011)

Hi Andy, I'm sorry to hear you lost the fish.  Probably the best thing you can do to further prevent any disease is to keep up on the water changes and to make sure the fish don't get stressed too much. As for the black skirts, that I'm not sure. You still have 5 or more left, right? That should be enough for them to feel comfortable so I'm not sure why they're nipping at each other. Maybe try switching some decor around or adding new plants (fake or live, doesn't matter) to give them places to hide.


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