Kribensis mouth rot / hole in the head

[James7]

Hi all. Spent the weekend at the in laws house and a couple of the fish were pretty sick. I did a big water change for them as they ‘top up the evaporated water regularly’! (Difficult as it’s the brother in laws tank but he no longer lives there) and scrubbed the algae off of the glass and cleaned the canister filter. I think the nitrates will be high but didn’t have any test kit there. Probably old tank syndrome.

120l tank with a lot of kribensis in there (one pair currently breeding) Bruno’s Aries tetra and some WCMM. The Krib pictured below was pretty sick and was hiding, not moving much or eating at all. Is there any way it is going to get better, or is it time to euthanise? I brought it home and have it alone in a hospital tank with fresh clean water but not cycles so having to replace every couple of days and have treated with interpet anti-bacteria. Other kribs seem fine apart from one which looks like it’s had its fill flap bitten off. A couple of the tetra have some white spots around their mouths.

 

[kribensis12]

Oh wow..... Kribs are pretty hardy but this may be hard to come back from.

Is he eating? Since it's not a cycled tank, you can take some gravel/filter media from your current tank and it will instantly cycle this new tank.

I would recommend treating with the anti-bacterial as you have, give them plenty of hiding places and ensure that he has clean water and is eating. He may heal up -but if he won't eat you may need to euthanize him.

 

[James7]

At the moment it’s not eating, (bit of frozen bloodworm next to it) maybe stressed from the move and suddenly being somewhere new and alone. I will try flake tomorrow. I wish I had picked up the one with gill damage too but it seemed a lot more sprightly and was impossible to catch in the short time I had to get them out of the tank. I don’t have a lot of media that I can transfer but there is a bit of alfagrog in my main tank that I could use (I’ve also got a QT running for some new fish I got a week ago!) currently 5 tanks running in my house and the wife is going mad ?