Can you identify what is wrong?

[FlapFlap]

I have had a little microctenopoma ansorgii for about 6 months now. I really like him and will do whatever is needed to give him the best chances at survival. A few days ago a discolored spot appeared on his head. It was much lighter than the rest of his body or fins. I looked at fish fungus pictures and descriptions online but it does not have that cotton like appearance. It is almost as if the skin is raw...

He was behaving normally (typically a lurker but comes out regularly for a few minutes) and eating fine until today. The light colored area has gotten much larger and now I think he is acting sluggish and I am worried. I have included a picture (fuzzy, he is small and hard to photograph). I also filled out the suggested information below.

Tank size: 40 gallon breeder
pH: 7.8
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 20ppm
kH: 6
gH: 8
tank temp: 76F (24.5C)

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior): see above

Volume and Frequency of water changes: 50% every 7-10 days (9 gallons RO, about 10 gallons tap)

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank:
- Aquavitro Premier (for dechlorination of tap water)
- Thrive (3-4 pumps 1x per week)

Tank inhabitants:
(1) Microctenopoma Ansorgii (the sick one in question
(1) Siamese Algae Eater
(1) Stigmatogobius sadanundio (Knight Goby)
(3) Puntius Titteya (Cherry Barbs)
(4) Corydoras sterbai (I think sterbai, not totally sure)

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration):
Knight Goby added about 8 weeks ago

Exposure to chemicals:
nothing new

Digital photo (include if possible):

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

It looks like a type of fungal infection that affects fish. If you have a spare tank then set that up with some water from the fish's current tank and treat with a broad spectrum medication or Methylene Blue. Methylene Blue will kill filter bacteria and stain silicon blue (silicon is the glue holding the tank together), so is best used in a separate tank.

If you don't have a separate quarantine tank to treat the fish in, then treat the main tank but use something that is safe for scaleless fishes (catfish, eels & loaches). If you can't find a medication for scaleless fish then use a normal medication at half strength.

Continue treating for 3 days after the white stuff has gone and the area starts to look normal again.

Do a big 75% water change and gravel clean the tank before treating, and increase aeration during treatment.

To work out the volume of water:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

when you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

There is a calculator in the How To Tips at the top of the page and it will help you convert litres to gallons.

 

[FlapFlap]

Colin,

Thank you very much for the detailed response. After work last night I went to my LFS where they also came to the same conclusion. I have already started treatment so I do not want to change course until the current treatment has completed.
I had planned on doing a water change yesterday regardless so I used 60% tank water and 40% treated tap water in my quarantine tank (15 gallons). After letting it sit for a bit with the heater and an HOB running (no sponge, carbon or pellets, just there to agitate water surface) I transferred the infected fish, Lewis. I went with the recommendation of my LFS and I am treating with Furan-2, water is a little yellow but its all getting flushed when done so I don't care.
When I acquired the secondary tank that I am using for quarantine it came with a bunch of fake decorations and plants. I went with live plants and a more natural look in my primary tank but the extra fake stuff was perfect for the quarantine, cleans easy and plenty of places for Lewis to hide.
Behavior wise he looks completely normal, if not a bit more energetic last night; perhaps the change in environment riled him up. He ate this morning and is behaving normally.

Again, thank you for the response. I will let update you on the tank progress.

Hi and welcome to the forum

It looks like a type of fungal infection that affects fish. If you have a spare tank then set that up with some water from the fish's current tank and treat with a broad spectrum medication or Methylene Blue. Methylene Blue will kill filter bacteria and stain silicon blue (silicon is the glue holding the tank together), so is best used in a separate tank.

If you don't have a separate quarantine tank to treat the fish in, then treat the main tank but use something that is safe for scaleless fishes (catfish, eels & loaches). If you can't find a medication for scaleless fish then use a normal medication at half strength.

Continue treating for 3 days after the white stuff has gone and the area starts to look normal again.

Do a big 75% water change and gravel clean the tank before treating, and increase aeration during treatment.

To work out the volume of water:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

when you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

There is a calculator in the How To Tips at the top of the page and it will help you convert litres to gallons.

 

[Colin_T]

Furan 2 is an anti-biotic and will not make any difference to fungal infections.

If you have anti-biotics in the tank you need to do a complete water change each day and retreat the tank. You should also wipe the inside glass down each day before swapping the water.

bacterial infections appear as red areas. Fungal infections are white

 

[FlapFlap]

Well, I feel dumb. The people at the LFS have traditionally always steered me right. Because of my confidence in them I didn't even read what the treatment targets until I read your e-mail, just the direction's on the back. Dumb.
The 1 positive of this is the quarantine tank is super basic. No substrate, empty filter and fake plants/decorations.
My corrective action plan is this : water change of 100% (50% primary tank water, 50% tap) and clean the tank out as you described (wipe down walls, scrub decorations, scrub HOB filter). Wait 24 hrs to not over medicate Lewis and start an appropriate medication tomorrow. LFS is far but PetSmarthe website has 'API Fungus Cure' , 'Kordon Fungus Cure' and a giant $85 bottle of 'KORDON Methylene Blue'. Plan right now is to go with API Fungus Cure unless I hear a reason not to. I will check back before I purchase anything. Thank you for your time!

 

[Colin_T]

get the API fungus cure. It contains neutroflavine and Victoria green B, which is acriflavine and malachite green.

Handle with care because it is in a powder form and both acriflavine and malachite green are hazardous. Malachite green being the worst of the 2 ingredients.

Don't inhale any of the powder and don't get any in your eyes. And wash you hands and arms well with warm soapy water after using the medication, or working in the tank.

--------------------
Malachite Green won't do anything for the fungus but does treat protozoan parasites. The acriflavine should deal with any fungus.

--------------------
Keep the medication in a cool dry place away from children or animals.

 

[FlapFlap]

Thanks again for the inputs, you know your stuff. So I went to the PetSmart and the API Fungus Care was sold out. No where else close to me carries anything like it so I have to wait until tomorrow to get the API Fungus Care. The only other option in store was API Pimafix. It was like $10 so I purchased a bottle but I did not use it yet as I wanted to get your opinion.
Today I emptied the quarantine tank and thoroughly cleaned it, as well as the decorations, plastic plants and HOB filter. I then refilled it with 50% tank water and 50% tap and Lewis is back in the quarantine for the moment. He is still behaving totally normal, ate this morning and the infected area has not increased at all. Given the apparent stable health of the fish, would you wait until you had the API Fungus Care to start treatment or does Pimafix work? I can just return the Pimafix if I should wait to treat with Fungus Care. Again, thank you.

 

[Colin_T]

Pimafix and Melafix are not worth using. They rarely work and can cause problems to some fishes (mainly Labyrinths).

If you can, return the Pimafix and get the API Fungus Cure when it comes in tomorrow.

-------------------
Another option is salt. You add 1 heaped tablespoon of rock salt, sea salt or swimming pool salt per 20 litres of water. The salt kills minor fungal, bacterial and protozoan infection.

Do not use cooking salt because it has an anti-caking agent in it to keep the salt granules separate, and this can cause issues in some fish.

 

[FlapFlap]

Colin,
Sorry for the radio silence but I actually had some issues with API Fungus Cure and I was spending my time trying to save the fishes life while also having to travel to help move my elderly grandmother.

Monday the 25th I purchased the API Fungus Cure after work. Lewis was still doing fine on Monday night 24 hours after treating the water with PimaFix. I changed the quarantine water out again and treated Monday night with 1 packet of Fungus Cure (it should have been 1.5 packets for the 15 gallons of water but I was concerned with all the changes happening recently to the fish). Water turned a pretty crazy neon green but I did not think anything of it. Tuesday morning I checked on Lewis and he seemed to be fine. He ate as usual and was swimming around displaying no odd behaviors. Throughout the day my wife said he was fine as well.

Tuesday night (about 24 hours after adding Fungus Cure) I could not locate Lewis. He does like to hide so I carefully pulled out the decoration he hides in and he was on his death bed. Once the decoration was removed he swam around sideways, in that manner that dying fish do and then just lay on the bottom of the tank barely breathing. I thought for sure he was going to die in the next hour. I remove dhim from the quarantine water and put him in a quarantine bowl of water from my regular tank fully expecting him to pass on soon. Since Tuesday he has been slowly getting better and better. From Tuesday night to Wednesday night I kept him in the quarantine bowl and changed the water regularly until he was no longer lying down and actually swimming around a little. Wednesday night I made a holding area in my main tank so that he was back in that water (heavily planted, lots of oxygen, I think?) but separated from the other fish. This morning I let him back in to the main tank for the day.

I am not exactly sure how to proceed at this point. I do not know if the API Fungus Cure reacted badly with him or if I had not properly oxygenated my quarantine tank or what the cause of his near death experience was. Once i removed him from that water he slowly recovered though. The fungus on his head is still present and he is still a bit more sluggish than usual, I think.
Options I can see to take right now :
Where to keep Lewis :
1. Leave him in main tank for a few days with no treatments to build strength.
2. Remove him from main tank asap and get equipment to better oxygenate the quarantine tank water

How to treat :
1. Treat main tank with heavy dose of aquarium salt (as you mentioned earlier) in the hopes that it helps cure the fungus.
2. Treat quarantine tank with heavy dose of aquarium salt.
3. Treat quarantine tank with PIMAFIX again (using HOB filter and adding air stone)
4. Treat quarantine tank with Fungus Cure (using HOB filter and adding air stone)

Also, I have not had ammonia in my tank since it cycled in December 2017 but I have done a lot of water changes to help fill the quarantine tank and when I tested last night i saw trace amounts of ammonia in my regular tank. Thanks in advance.

 

[Colin_T]

If you don't have a filter (with filter media and bacteria living in it), then you should only ever use half strength medications. You also need to aerate the water with an airstone. HOB filters don't aerate the water sufficiently when adding medications.

I would leave the fish in the main tank and do a couple of big water changes on it to dilute the ammonia. And add salt (1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water). Leave the fish in the main tank for a week with salt and see how it goes. But watch the ammonia and nitrite because they will kill the fish in its weakened state.

If the fungus has not gone after a week with salt then set up the quarantine tank with water from the main tank that the fish is in now, add salt and an established filter with media and beneficial bacteria and then treat with the malachite acriflavine medication.

 

[FlapFlap]

OK. So perhaps the use of HOB filter with no media at all and no other oxygen made for a toxic environment in the quarantine tank.
I have only added 2 tablespoons of aquarium salt so far. The bag recommended 1 tablespoon per 38 liters so I will add more tonight. I also planned on doing a 50-60% water change tonight. I assume the water change should be done first?
Also, I don't think oxygen has ever been an issue on my primary tank with all the plants and stream pump for surface agitation but would it be good to add an air stone for the short term? long term I do not like the bubbles but if it will help my fish recover I am fine with it for now.

 

[Colin_T]

yes, add salt after the water change.

adding an airstone to the main tank can increase oxygen levels in the water and that will help the fish recover faster, especially if the oxygen levels in the water are not that high. The airstone will make more difference at night when the lights are off and the plants are not photosynthesising.