wierd fish zits ..mouthrot?

Question
QUESTION: i have 3 tanks 150, 55, and 40ish gal. my elliot chiclid in the 150 devloped what looks to be zits on and around the upper lip.  i thought i may be mouth rot but its not really a fuzzy look to it whith is my limited understanding of mouth rot.  it starts off swollen and redish then well defined white lumps grow out of it. its looks excatallylike a whitehead zit but the upper lip does seem to be deteareating slowly the zits come and go. i have him in iso treating with pimpa/melafix and quick cure. no carbon in the filter and have been adding meds daily with a 25% change and have slightly upped the temp to 85 and the salt content.  its been about a week no change in his condition.  now in my 55 my big goldfish has devloped the same thing.  i use sperate nets buckets and gravel vacs for all tanks so cross contamination is doubtful.  any ideas on what it is or how to treat it would be welcome. thank you  

-joabi

ANSWER: Hi Joabi
That's good you use separate items for each tank.  I use a python for all my tanks, and was just thinking about that same thing the other day.  Do you wash your hands/arms between tanks though?  You could cross contaminate that way as well.  

The white zit bumps are weird-especially if they're going away and coming back, but you said the lip appears to be deteriorating, I think you may be dealing with a bacterial infection called columnaris.  There's several different strains of it, and it can have a wide range of symptoms as well.  Sometimes they'll have mouth fungus, fin/tail rot, white stringy material hanging off their body, a whitish film on their body...just lots of possible symptoms.  

First thing, lower the temperature back down-slowly.  Bacteria thrives in higher temperatures.  You'll need a stronger antibiotic, especially if you haven't seen improvement with the PimaFix.  For an antibiotic, I would try Maracyn Twok, it's a tetracycline based antibiotic.  You did say he was in a separate tank?  Because the antibiotic will kill off your beneficial bacteria.  I would also stop using the Quick Cure at this point, especially if there's been no change.  Also, if you can pick up some antibacterial medicated food, that would help as well by attacking the bacteria from the inside of the fish.  Jungle Labs makes a good one.  

Here's a link that explains the disease a bit.  I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with it a few months back, even more unluckier I ended up with the extremely virulent strain that killed off half of one tank in about 24 hours....it's a nasty nasty infection.  

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

Hope that helps, and if it doesn't clear up let me know.  Good luck!

Christy

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: thanks for the help.  bad part is i just went to the store and bought api triple sulfa and it seems this bacteria is resistant to it.  so back for new stuff.  i had this infection a few months back in the same chiclid and a gourami the elliot surivived. i treated them with general cure.  anyways thanks for the help
-joabi

Answer
You're welcome, sorry you have to run back out :)  When dealing with bacterial infections in fresh water fish, usually it's going to be a gram negative infection.  That's why I usually recommend Maracyn Two or tetracycline tablets, because they treat gram negative bacterias.  There's others out there, Kanaycn is one brand name-but I've never seen it for sale anywhere I've lived, so I'm not familiar with them.  What I'm trying to say....you can't go wrong-for the most part-using Maracyn Two or tetracycline for treatment for most fresh water fish bacterial infections.

Christy