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Can Cardinals catch cotton mouth from neons?


whetu

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Hi all,

I have three neon tetras in my tank that aren't doing very well - they have cotton mouth :( I have tried all kinds of meds but they haven't worked. I think the water temperature might be too warm for the poor little neons, but I need to keep it warm because of the clown loaches.

Anyway, I was thinking of getting cardinal tetras - I have heard they are hardier and will tolerate warmer temperatures. Is this true?

Also, if I put the cardinals in the same tank as the neons, will the cotton mouth fungus spread and infect the cardinals as well?

This is a 220 litre planted community tank with the unfortunate neons, a school each of gold barbs and cherry barbs, five clown loaches and a pair of bristlenoses.

The tank is mature and I use two Eheim pro II filters on it so it is thoroughly over-filtered and the water quality is excellent. I am an experienced fish-keeper (so will do all the right quarantine/acclimatisation stuff) but am not experienced with tetras! Please help!

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Yeah after doing some more reading on the subject, I think I am going to have to euthanase my poor little neons. Apparently the disease can spread easily to any other fish in the tank and is very hard to cure (as I have found).

Looks like it's goodnight little neons :cry:

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Furan-2 with meth blue will work on fungus, but you'll aslo be dosing antibiotics into your system. Wunder tonic or wunder white spot has malachite green which is also effective against fungus.

Either way it might be worthwhile dosing anyway to kill off the zoospores from the sap. fungus incase they do infect your other fish. Zoospores much easier to kill than the hyphae (the cottonwool like growth) and of course check your water parameters, I'm seen pepople with fungus infected fish just because thing slike pH were out of whack.

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Furan-2 with meth blue will work on fungus, but you'll aslo be dosing antibiotics into your system. Wunder tonic or wunder white spot has malachite green which is also effective against fungus.

Either way it might be worthwhile dosing anyway to kill off the zoospores from the sap. fungus incase they do infect your other fish. Zoospores much easier to kill than the hyphae (the cottonwool like growth) and of course check your water parameters, I'm seen pepople with fungus infected fish just because thing slike pH were out of whack.

Ok now I'm really confused... after doing some reading, I thought the cottonmouth was caused by a bacteria rather than a fungus. I originally assumed it was a fungus because of the fluffy look, but Shirley Sharpe (see link below) tells me:

1) The proper name for the disease is Flexibacter columnaris

2) It is often mistaken for a fungal infection because of its mold-like lesions... Columnaris is a common bacterial infection...

Link: http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disea ... mnaris.htm

I have never had this disease before (nor have my fish!) so I really can't work out what to do for the best...

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