Update : had to euthanize (hole-in-the-head disease, something else ? Do i need to treat the hole tank ?)

Hi,

I added some shell dwellers to my trio two weeks ago. I noticed one of them behaving strangely. He mostly sits in the sand or on top of his shell, and he looks a bit bloated. However, he was eating well and he had been in the LFS for a long time, so I didn't pay much attention to him. Today, I saw a hole on the right side of his body, and the other side still looks bloated. I can clearly see a bump on the left side.

My question is: I think he has hole-in-the-head disease (even if it's not on the head, or maybe something else? Pics attached) and he had it before coming to my tank. The others are all doing great and I isolated the sick one. Are the others at risk of contracting it? Do I need to treat the tank? (I hope not)

My water is pretty clean, i use RO water (0TDS) with seachem tanganyika buffer and seachem cichlid lake salt to remeneralize the water. Nitrates under 10ppm, no phosphates, activated cardon, and an air pump to keep water oxygenated and Ph up. I feed good quality dry foods and 3 to 4 times a week frozen (artemias with spirulina and garlic oil, bloodworms, lobster eggs etc etc) and live (brine shrimps) foods.

Thanks

I would be concerned about Myco, with where the lesion is and his hardwater origins. It is incurable and communicable, and I euthanize any fish that shows it.

Oh god you make me worry about Myco everytime i post something..

He is in an hospital tank right now, with meds and salts, i'll check if it gets better if not i'll euthanize

Need clear pictures of the fish in its tank or at least a clean tank so we can tell what is what.

Hole in the head disease is caused by a dirty environment. If you do big regular water changes and gravel clean the substrate, and clean the filter regularly, you should never see it.

Hole in the head disease starts out as small white bumps that look like pimples on the head. After a few days the white bit goes and a small crater (hole) appears in the skin where the white bit was. Over time these holes get bigger and the fish ends up looking like it has bad acne scars. Eventually the fish dies.

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Treatment is easy if caught early. Cleaning up the conditions. Do the following.
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. Then do it once a week after that. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish. An established biological filter should be cleaned at least once a month.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

After a week of water changes, you add salt. If there's no improvement after 2 weeks of salt treatment, add Metronidazole for 2 weeks.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species like African Rift Lake cichlids.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.

here is the tank :
always clean, always have been, always will be
For water parameters and minerals check 1st post

To be clear, as i said fish came with the condition, i'm pretty positive about that, jsut got worse

He is already in an hospital tank with meds (esha 2000, exit, ndx) and epsom salts as mentionned before

Drakal said:

epsom salts as mentionned before

Click to expand...

I hope you didn't add epsom salt! Colin said to use plain salt, sodium chloride, not epsom salt which is magnesium sulfate.
Ordinary salt is a mild antiseptic and is used in the tank water. Epsom salt is used in a bath outside the tank for drawing fluid from a fish's body.

aquarium salt sorry*

Phew, that's a relief

i did a bath of epsom tho before going to hospital tank, he seems a bit bloated

Update (bad news)

The fish is dead. I had to euthanize him.

When I was feeding him today, I spotted a new hole on the other side, with white stuff coming out. He couldn't swim normally and didn't eat.

So I euthanized him with clove oil.

I did an "autopsy" afterwards. His belly was full of tiny white bubbles, kind of like pus, and the hole on his side went all the way through the skin to the internals. That white stuff was probably what was coming out of it.

I don't know what it was, but he was in a really bad shape...