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I have wrote before on mouth fungus but I have had NO luck with the meds I've tried. Three different products. I dont know if its me but I'm following the directions on the box...!
Anyone know something that will be effective QUICK! I really dont know how my gauramis made it this far. Poor things. There's five and now they all also seem to have the beginnings of fin & body rot (which only one had when I put them in hospital tank. I dont know how much longer they have,(certain meds just seemed to relieve but not remove fungus.)They are still eating!!I'm not too familiar with this fungus or rot,please help!!

My Goldie had this, I tried a few over the counter meds with no affect what so ever, in the end I paid my local vets a visit who sold me some antibiotic powder, which I had to weigh out and mix with crushed flake and blood worm to hide the taste and then dip pellets into egg white and drop in the crushed food and med, the only thing that was hard about this, was I had to drop the food more or less straight into the fishes mouth, as the minute the pellet touches the water, the meds start to wash of, and they do need to eat it, its no good just in the water. Luckily my fish is very big, so it was quite easy to do.
The antibiotic is called "Terramycin" and it needs to be mixed 10g to 1kg of food, obviously, thats a lot of food, so you need to break that down into the amount of food you want to make up. I mixed an amount of med with the crushed food, and made batches for two days worth, kept in the refrigerator, and just left the powdered stuff in a sealed tub, ready for the next batch.
The antibiotic was dirt cheep, but the consultation is what cost me. It took a couple of months to rid him of the infection, but he is live and well to this day. Hope this helps.

Oh by the way, what made the vet decide to give me the med without seeing the fish, was I researched like mad over the net, and took loads of notes, also a list of all the meds that could possibly of been used, impressed by the amount of work I had put into finding out what was wrong with the fish he offered to help, but I had to sign a form clearing him of anything that went wrong, as usually they do have to see the sick animal befor giving out any meds, so show them what you have tried, jots some notes down and take them with you, hopefully he will be understanding enough to know that to bring an already sick fish in to him, might just cause enough stress to push the fish over the edge, and if he is a decent man, he may help you.
Its a shame you dont live in the uk, I could of posted you some of what I have. Good luck.

I've used Maracyn Plus with great results, which is a mixture of two broad spectrum antibiotics. I've also used maracyn and maracyn 2 tablets which worked to a lesser degree.

Just to be sure, could you describe the fungus a little bit more, as in its appearance? Also, what meds have you tried that didn't work.

Hi tk...
What medications have you tried? For something that works fast, Id suggest getting hold of 'Fungus - ade' made by Wardley.
It has formaldehyde in it (used for preserving bodies and the like). Not the best on your biological bacteria but if youre that close to losing your fish, Id say go for it.
Ive used it and found it to be the fastest working treatment for fungus and finrot. You treat once every 4 days and the liquid is quite concentrated.
((Im sure you know this already, but just be careful that you're not chucking too many medications in, make sure to remove one medication before trying another. ))

I've tried Melafix to begin with,which was doing good but the fungus came back. Jungle fungus Guard and also Fungus Clear in the fizzing tablets. No luck. I'm trying to find the maracyn Plus.I've tried 2 of my lfs with no results.
This is defenitely mouth fungus or "cotton mouth". Its like a cotton ball on their mouth with redness. They are also starting to display body and tail rot. Will the maracyn plus help with this too??:%)

Now to address the cause of the disease.. Not an expert but
need more background.. If your water conditions are bad you'll be fighting to cure your fish, only for them to get sick from something else... I'm not saying your water is bad, but it's so important to get this info...

How big is the tank.
How long has your tank been up and running ?
When did you add the last fish ?

What is your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings ?




The Amazon Nut...

What I have them in is a hospital tank. Its been running since I can remember.I bought the red flame gauramis and put them in the hospital tank with the disease. I also have a 72 gl but they will go NO where near it!!They were all added at the same time so its been about 2 wks. I ran out of tests kits so I am in the process of ordering. They have been fine with the water changes and conditioner. I have bought the maracyn plus today. So tomorrow it will be added and maybe with some melafix. They are still trying to eat.

I need to know if I should remove the carbon from my filter when using this maracyn Plus. The bottle says to maintain normal filtration and air.

No need to yank the carbon. Maracyn plus doesn't treat the water, it treats the fish. The antibiotics are contained in microscopic spheres which attach directly to the fish when you put it in the tank. The fish carries the maracyn plus on him, so carbon in the filter will not remove it.

Sounds corny, but the stuff works.

How big is the hospital tank.. Do you do a large water change before you switch meds ? Hope so !

Some people with hospital tanks also do daily large water changes to keep the tank from cycling and making it harder on the fish (although also, large water changes can stress a fish also) Jake, is this a good or bad idea ?

The Amazon Nut...

thanks for the quick reply... Jake.
I went ahead & treated them tonight cause one doesn't look too good.
I hope he makes it...

Jake, Is a water change needed between maracyn plus treatments? The fish are already acting better!!

No water change is needed. Dose the maracyn plus one day, skip the next day, dose it the third day, skip the fourth day, dose it the fifth day, skip the next day, then do water change as normal on day 7. It's best when timed like that so it will fit into the weekly water change schedule.

I have never had to dose it for a second week, but I'm sure others experience will vary.

As far as a hospital tank goes, ideally if you've tried assorted medications a water change should be done and carbon used to remove those meds. Fish will react to every medication placed in a tank, either negatively with stress or positively with good results. If a medication is not working it should be totally removed from the water before trying anything else, and usually unless the fish is critical and if you don't act it will die, a "breather" in between different medications will hold down the additional stress to the fish. You want the main ingredient in a hospital tank to be clean water and fish at any given time, in other words.

I was a combat lifesaver in the military so I guess I take the "triage" approach to sick fish...If I have multiple symptoms in my hospital tank , one fish has a huge fungal infection, one bacterial, one with ich, one with a wound on its side... do you put antibiotics, melafix, anti-fungals, and rid-ich in the tank at the same time? What I would do is start with what is the most fatal or serious while trying to slow down the others as best I can until I get the worst problem fixed. It does no good to straighten pictures in a burning house , if that makes sense.

I keep a hospital tank up and cycled at all times, since I don't use medications that will affect the biofilter. I use pure ammonia to keep it cycled in between , which some might consider to be a pain in the butt I guess. I use a syringe (minus the needle) with cc measurements and all that on the side sitting beside the tank, where I can squirt in a set amount of ammonia in the tank rather easily, and it takes me less time than it would to feed fish if there were fish in there so it's no big deal. If you have to constantly do water changes to keep the ammonia down or add chemicals to counteract the ammonia and nitrite, then you're going to be messing with that tank every other day at least and the stress on the fish isn't worth it.
Some people use a large amount of filter media from an established tank and set the hospital tank up the day they need it, fully cycled if a good balance between used filter media and hospital tank size was acheived. Running some additional sponge filters in an already established tank just for this purpose is not unheard of either, and both ways seem pretty acceptable.

Anyway, that's my opinion. What works best for some people doesn't work best for others.