Help!! My bigger fantail has red veins on the back tail and he is having stuff, like threads coming out of his mouth. Can anyone help me? I will look at the diseases forums, but I want to make sure what is happening.

Im not sure , But it sounds like maybe anchor worm?the red veins in tail could indicate, HIGH ammonia, HIGH nitrItes, pH is high or low,OR mine gets like red viens whenhe is fed color enhancing food,also if the tail is white they are MORE noticable. I hope someone else rolls thru to help, Ur n my thoughts , Good Luck!!!!
Make sure u do a water change with *maybe some stress coat*salt*turn lights of to not stress him out so much.

Ok, thanks for attempting to help

Nitrate: 40
Nitrite: .5
hardness: 150
ph: 7.2
alkalinity: 80

don't know about amonia

This is Columnaris, from what I can tell. Strings mean Cotton Mouth. Check that out in the disease section. I used JFE on my Ryukin with success.

I'll check that out
thank you

Also, I'd definately do a 50% water change. It helps clean the water of bacteria and get your nitrates, and nitrites down. My Ryukin was susceptable to this disease like your fish, because of these bad chemicals. They can do fine for a few weeks, but eventually, it breaks down their immunity.

just did a 40 % water change yesterday, so the water is good, what about the veins?

That's caused from stress. It is common for all major diseases. It goes away when he is better.

That's great about the water change. How big is your tank? I'd do frequent water changes. It doesn't look like you are cycled yet. Treatment for bacteria (that's what Columnaris is) will usually kill good bacteria too, so before you treat, take out the filter media to save the good bacteria.

Jungle fungus eliminator is made to treat this and is probably the easiest to find. It eliminates Columnaris too as it is also anti-bacterial.
I also used an antibiotic to work on my fish.

It is a 20 gallon with 2 small fantails and one common pleco
2 airstones, with (lots of bubbles)
10-20 Whisper power filter

Okay, can you put him in a hospital tank? If you can, it may help the other fish who have a risk of getting it too.

BTW, it is often caused by soars on the mouth getting infected which can come from sharp rocks or artificial plants. I wound-up taking out my plastic plants but already had smoot stones. That's just a tip for later to think about.

Hope he gets better soon.

just wanted to add, the reason i thought of anchor worm was because of the (string like things) coming out of the mouth , Ya know. Sorry i couldnt be of any help

thats alright, Goldfishgurl
you scared me, I'm like anchor worm inside mouth?
yeah, but hospital tank is not possible, we are not really that capable of having that...
so only one 20 gallon tank, yeah.

No problem GoldfishGirl. It is VERY hard to diagnose these things. I just so happen to have seen strings before on my fish. If the strings move on thier own, and aren't very long, then they could be anchor worms, but they'd likely be all over the body in a short time.

The nice thing about JFE it treats both fungus and bacterial infections, so diagnosis doesn't have to be perfect. It is likely that added antibiotics will help. Hope that helps.

hey that sounds like the s ymptons my fish had! it was becuase i didnt change the water enough! as soon as i did a immdiate water change, the thready liek substance coming out from its mouth and its red veined fins gradually stopped altogether within 24 hrs.

i htink the problme is due to too much amonia in the tank, or something liek that. ive realised that poor water quality is the main culprit

pretty commonly it is anchor worms.. dun be too hard on yourself.. you were trying to help too..

Man! I hope I was right.... I just remember what I went through and it sounded exactly the same.

Anyhow, I would treat and watch the water quality. He already has the infection, but the cause is likely a long periond of ammonia, nitrite and maybe nitrate exposure.

i don't know what the stuff coming out of its mouth is but red streaks on the fins could be septicemia. they have good medicine for that at petsmart, or other pet stores.