HELP! Black ghost knife with pink sore sticking out of side! need diagnosis

[Jake C]

My BGK has been acting strangely lately and I just noticed this pink and white sore coming out of his side. He used to swim vertically in a fake root system that I have in the tank, but has recently been laying on his side for the past couple of days. Now he is out swimming again and I noticed this sore. Please comment if you know what this ailment is and/or how I could treat it.

I have had this BGK for 2 years now and he is my favorite fish.


***I have him in a 40 gallon tank with an eight inch long Senegal bicher and a single glass catfish (I had five before I introduced BGK and this one seems to have outsmarted the BGK and bichir). I let the tank go for too long for the past two months and did not do the bi-weekly 50% water change that i normally do because School and work have been too much lately.

 

[Jake C]

BGK is about 10 inches long at 2- 2.5 years old. The sore is pink and white and sticking out of his side, about and inch away from his stomach. There have been no new additions to the tank in 2 years. I feed his frozen shrimp and freeze dried shrimp. Water temp is 80 degrees and i have a 70 gallon fluval filter with sand substrate.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

I need a bigger picture because I can't tell anything from the current one.

In the mean time do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate each at for a week. 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. Clean filter materials in a bucket of tank water.

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The log that the knife fish hides in should be horizontal so the fish can swim into it easier. Knife fish are not that flexible and the fish could have damaged itself if it has to bend its body to swim up into the log.

 

[NickAu]

A 40 gallon tank is way to small for a BGK.