Flowerhorn lips swollen

pics if possible

sounds like duck lip, seperate from all fish, add aquarium salt, add pimafix,raise temp to 85 F for two weeks, and you could turn off lights for this period for extra rest for the fish....

Ducklips is basically uncureable if the lips are already messed up. Might as well seperate it from everything else and wait for it to die. Lost one of my most expensive flowerhorns this week from it.

I had one a red dragon get duck lips once, he was placed in a quarentine tank with a temp of 89 degrees and salted. I put him on the back burner and didn't pay much attention to him and he recovered in 2-3 weeks. I don't know what caused the duck lips or the cure but it is possible for them to come out of it. It is definitely curable, I know other people have had success with metronidazole.

From what I have been able to gather what is commonly referred to as "Duck Lips" is a bacterial infection. The info below was copied from an old post on a FH forum. (I don't recall which one?) It makes more sense to me than anything else I have ever read on the subject. In some cases it can act very swiftly, so I suggest that you treat ASAP and DO NOT RAISE THE TEMP of your tank, flexibacter bacteria thrives at higher temps.

And as Cam stated once it hits a certain stage, your fishes days are probably numbered.

The cause of your fish's "duck-lips" or more commonly called "mouth rot" is because of the pathogen Flexibacter columnaris (Flavobacterium columnare) that is very common with imported FH, Bettas, and Livebearers.

This is a disease that acts quickly in the acute form & slower in the chronic form.

You do NOT want to raise the temp at all!!! nonono

The reason is because Flavobacterium columnare thrives and reproduces faster in warm water especially at 84-86 degrees!

Keep the water between 75-76 degrees.

Treat the fish with Maracyn AND Maracyn 2. This is a safety caution to wipe out this nasty bug. It is completely safe and as a bonus it will kill off any Aeromonas which is very often apart of a Flex infected FH.

Because you treat with antibiotics you must have the medication at the proper level or it will not work at all, thus dose at FULL strength.

With FHs having the tendency to get this bug in virulent forms I advise to have the treatment continued to 15 days for serious infections/10 days for less serious infections even if all looks fine during the early stages of treatment.


Here is a slide show showing treatment of Flex on a small Betta fish:

http://www.flippersandfins.net/Flexshow.htm


Here is an article that goes into further detail about this bacterial horror.

http://www.flippersandfins.net/flexibacter.htm

Click to expand...

Here's more info on the same disease, and another plan of action with meds that should be effective.

http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Columnaris.html

Treatment - Furan 2 (60 mg Nitrofurazone and 25 mg Furazolidone per packet) & Kanaplex (Kanamycin Sulfate) combination.


HTH

RD.;4913249; said:

And as Cam stated once it hits a certain stage, your fishes days are probably numbered.

Click to expand...

RD remember that can be said with just about any disease. He did not mention how bad it was.

I have read that article before too.
Here is your source RD.
http://flowerhornrusforum.com/topic/106182/1/

I am surprised that my male pulled through with the high temp which leads me to believe that it is not mouth rot. There is too little actual info out there to make diagnosis. I do know for certain that metro stands a chance in curing this and so does tetracycline. Hopefully you live somewhere any of these meds can be obtained. Good Luck!

I have more than a wee bit of experience when it comes to fish, disease, and medication, and from what I have seen & read I would be inclined to believe that the vast majority of cases of "duck lips" is indeed bacterial, not parasitic, and not viral. In which case I would not bother attempting to cure it using metronidazole, but would use both a gram positive & gram negative anti-bacterial medication as suggested in my previous comment.

BTW - if you read the info in the links that I provided you would have found that salt (sodium chloride) at elevated levels has also shown promising results for treating flexibacter bacteria, which could very well explain why your fish pulled through. (even with elevated temps)

HTH

I have lost many expensive fh to this type of illness. It is very fast acting and once the lips extends out,, I have never cure it. If catch early enough, put in hospital and add salts and marcyn 2. Do not feed the fish and water must be very clean.

Once the fish is cured, the illness can come back even faster is water is not clean.

RD.;4913249; said:

From what I have been able to gather what is commonly referred to as "Duck Lips" is a bacterial infection. The info below was copied from an old post on a FH forum. (I don't recall which one?) It makes more sense to me than anything else I have ever read on the subject. In some cases it can act very swiftly, so I suggest that you treat ASAP and DO NOT RAISE THE TEMP of your tank, flexibacter bacteria thrives at higher temps.

And as Cam stated once it hits a certain stage, your fishes days are probably numbered.




Here's more info on the same disease, and another plan of action with meds that should be effective.

http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Columnaris.html

Treatment - Furan 2 (60 mg Nitrofurazone and 25 mg Furazolidone per packet) & Kanaplex (Kanamycin Sulfate) combination.


HTH

Click to expand...

Good read. Now I know it is cause by gram - rod. I got plenty of oxytetracyline and marcyn and marcyn 2 on hand.

Tetracycline I have not found to be helpful against mouth fungus.