Africans With White, Inflamed Lips; Won't Eat

I have four female OB peacocks and a blue aceI that I have quarantined in a 40 gallon breeder.

I separated them as soon as I saw them not eating, noticed their lips, and saw them make a smacking behavior with their lips repeatedly. As of yesterday, they all stopped eating.

Here's a couple pics of what their lips looks like; no other sores of spots on their bodies, fins, or gills







Water tests 0/0/20-80 with weekly water changes. Stable Ph of 8.2.

I currently have kanaplex, metroplex, sulfaplex, and paraguard in my arsenal.

I was thinking of dosing the tank with paraguard since I'm not sure what this is, but wanted opinions on if I'm better off alternating metro/kanaplex or using one over the other.

Thanks in advance

 

You should get them into a quarantine tank immediately and treat them for ick and mouth rot. Those are the diseases that you explained.

 

Do you have Males in your tank? When you say "smacking their lips" Does is look like they could be swishing mouthwash?

 

treat them for ick and mouth rot

Do you have Males in your tank? When you say "smacking their lips" Does is look like they could be swishing mouthwash?

Yes, there are males and females, however I haven't observed any aggression towards him; he usually keeps to himself and swims back and forth across the tank (55g).

The lip smacking looks like they're trying to get something off of them.

He's still active, as are the females; they're just not eating.

 

Yes, there are males and females, however I haven't observed any aggression towards him; he usually keeps to himself and swims back and forth across the tank (55g).

The lip smacking looks like they're trying to get something off of them.

He's still active, as are the females; they're just not eating.

I ask because they could be holding and when they do, they don't eat and they tumble their eggs in their mouth and it looks sort of like their gurgling, swishing.

 

Thanks for all the replies.

I have since figured out the issue: my RO unit's carbon cartridge expired early, around the same time I set-up the 40 gallon breeder tank.

I used chlorine-soaked what-I-thought-was RO water to rinse my sand, media, and rocks, and they continued leaching chlorine until I did a complete teardown. A week later, the chlorine is leaching again. Not sure how to remove it this time, especially after heavy water changes, double dosing with Prime, soaking all the sand/media in dechlorinated RO water., and it still coming up

Moved all the fish to my 55 g community, and they've since recovered. Even more, one of the females not pictured above is now holding. Will probably need an entire restart on the 40 gallon breeder.