gold dojo loach fleshy bump

[loachyloach]

hi!

I noticed this while doing our water change today. He’s still been swimming around like normal and eating eagerly.

ammonia was “stress”.
water is unfortunately very hard. any suggestions?
ph was also very alkaline. 8.4
no nitrites.

usually do weekly water changes of 25% and add in water conditioner.

tank make: pleco and one molly.

anyone idea what this is?

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Any chance of more pictures from different angles, and maybe a 1 minute video? It might show more information. A picture showing the entire tank can help too.
If you use a mobile phone to film the fish, hold the phone horizontally so the footage fills the entire screen. Upload the video to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.

It looks like a graze. There are 2 more patches behind the eye. The fish might have got caught under something and scratched it. If the water is clean it should heal up by itself. You can do a 75% water change and gravel clean every day for a week to help reduce the chance of infection.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Cleaning the filter can help too. Don't replace the filter materials, just clean them in a bucket of tank water and re-use the materials. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the lawn.