stonefishnz
New Member
Hi,
I have a 9 year old kissing gourami in a 100lt freshwater tank. I first noticed a large hole in the side of my gourami about 2 weeks ago. You will see from the pictures it is behind his fin on his right side. It is about 1cm in diameter. When I first noticed the hole it was ‘empty’. You could look right into it and not really make anything out at all. It seemed to go in quite a way – maybe half the width of the fish. The hole was ‘clean’ and didn’t have rough edges. No sign of cottony white. Also no difference in colour around the edge of the hole. The gourami is alone in the tank and has been for over a year now. He is around 9 years old and has never had any issues before. There have been no recent changes to the tank. About a year ago we moved to a property on rain water so the tank water was a bit different but this was many month ago now.
I put some fish tonic in the tank (the blue stuff). It didn’t seem to get any better after a few days but didn’t get any worse. About 10 days ago I went to our local pet shop and they recommended some treatment (after phoning another of their stores that dealt with tropical fish more). They recommended and I purchased a box of Furan-2 and treated the tank that night – this treatment has continued as per the back of the box with the last treatment today (2 sachets then 2 sachets again in 24 hours, another 24 hours and a 25% water change and add another 2 sachets - I continued this for a total of 10 sachets). I completed a final 25% water change and replaced the filter media. On the pet store's advice I also added tonic salt as per recommendations on the packet. Within a couple of days of starting the Furan treatment the hole didn’t change except there seemed to be something you could see in it now. Over the past few days what you could see started to protrude from the hole. It was protruding a few millimetres from the hole - this is the stage when I took some photos (one attached). Still no change in the size of the hole though. The fish seemed to be behaving normally the only sign of anything different was about an hour after food he seemed to be gasping. But this settled fairly quickly and I don't really know if it is related. I have contacted a vet for advice 2 days ago but am yet to hear back. When I got home from work today the stuff that was protruding from the fish has come out in about a 1cm round lump and was laying on the bottom of the tank. I put it in a plastic container with some tank water and it seemed to smell a bit rank. It wasn't soft but also not totally hard.
The hole is again 'empty'. Though I have noticed in the past few hours that the 'stuff' is appearing again and starting to protrude from the hole once more. The edges of the hole seem to be a little red in colour now - but not obviously.
Has anyone out there seen anything like this before. I'm desperate for some advice and don't want to see my fishy buddy suffer.
I have a 9 year old kissing gourami in a 100lt freshwater tank. I first noticed a large hole in the side of my gourami about 2 weeks ago. You will see from the pictures it is behind his fin on his right side. It is about 1cm in diameter. When I first noticed the hole it was ‘empty’. You could look right into it and not really make anything out at all. It seemed to go in quite a way – maybe half the width of the fish. The hole was ‘clean’ and didn’t have rough edges. No sign of cottony white. Also no difference in colour around the edge of the hole. The gourami is alone in the tank and has been for over a year now. He is around 9 years old and has never had any issues before. There have been no recent changes to the tank. About a year ago we moved to a property on rain water so the tank water was a bit different but this was many month ago now.
I put some fish tonic in the tank (the blue stuff). It didn’t seem to get any better after a few days but didn’t get any worse. About 10 days ago I went to our local pet shop and they recommended some treatment (after phoning another of their stores that dealt with tropical fish more). They recommended and I purchased a box of Furan-2 and treated the tank that night – this treatment has continued as per the back of the box with the last treatment today (2 sachets then 2 sachets again in 24 hours, another 24 hours and a 25% water change and add another 2 sachets - I continued this for a total of 10 sachets). I completed a final 25% water change and replaced the filter media. On the pet store's advice I also added tonic salt as per recommendations on the packet. Within a couple of days of starting the Furan treatment the hole didn’t change except there seemed to be something you could see in it now. Over the past few days what you could see started to protrude from the hole. It was protruding a few millimetres from the hole - this is the stage when I took some photos (one attached). Still no change in the size of the hole though. The fish seemed to be behaving normally the only sign of anything different was about an hour after food he seemed to be gasping. But this settled fairly quickly and I don't really know if it is related. I have contacted a vet for advice 2 days ago but am yet to hear back. When I got home from work today the stuff that was protruding from the fish has come out in about a 1cm round lump and was laying on the bottom of the tank. I put it in a plastic container with some tank water and it seemed to smell a bit rank. It wasn't soft but also not totally hard.
The hole is again 'empty'. Though I have noticed in the past few hours that the 'stuff' is appearing again and starting to protrude from the hole once more. The edges of the hole seem to be a little red in colour now - but not obviously.
Has anyone out there seen anything like this before. I'm desperate for some advice and don't want to see my fishy buddy suffer.
I'm going to go into a specific aquarium store tomorrow and show them some pics to see if they can help - it is the shop I originally bought him/her from 9 years ago.
