Sylvia I need your help!

[Elisabeth83]

My female spiketail has a wound on her underside. It circular in shape looks like it's making a hole..but also there is kind of a lump on the side of it. The wound is on both sides of her body.

I am thinking it's maybe an ulcer or possibly Aeromonas? It's white on the outside and red on the inside.

I've moved her to a hospital tank and am treating her with JBL furanol which is for gram negative and gram positive bacteria.

The other fish in the tank appear to be healthy...what are the chances of whatever she has spreading to them? I'm worried about the main tank. I'm also worried because I took a couple small plants and a piece of wood out of that tank yesterday and put them in 2 of my other tanks.

Should I take any precautionay steps or just wait and watch the other tanks??

How long should I treat her for? The furanol says it lasts for 4 days and then if a follow up treatment is needed to do a 50% water change. I dont want to not treat long enough and think shes all better only to see a couple days later the problem re-appearing.

I sure hope you come on-line today!!!

 

[lucky62]

Hi Elisabeth ,

While you're waiting for Sylvia , do some water changes in the main tank , careful of any possible cross contamination .

 

[Elisabeth83]

Joe if you can help me by all means go ahead ) I just asked for Sylvia because she seems to be the gourami/anabantoid expert around here.

I'll go ahead and do a water change now...should I be doing them daily as a pre-caution?

Dealing with my fish lately I've had a knot in my stomach pretty much for a month..well now it's just doubled in size thinking about if I just contaminated 2 of my other tanks

 

[lucky62]

With few exceptions I never had much look treating with meds [ other than ick ].
As you know my big thing is water changes , also a minimum 3 week quarantine of new arrivals [with more freaquent water changes for the first week or so ].

Back in January I received 18 small fish from an on line source , half came DOA , some croaking Gouramis , nannacara and some curviseps , most the rest died with in days , except for one croaker [ all the croakers had what looked like ulcers on their bodies when they arrived ] and what kept him alive was water changes , he lasted six months and died from some other cause , maybe he was old , no ulcers .


Why this ) face ? Sylvia can probably tell you much more

 

[Elisabeth83]

Yeah I try to do at least 2 water changes a week sometimes more depending on the tank. With this particular fish no new fish have been added to the tank so there is some other reason. I lost the male about 2 weeks ago to some type of bacterial infection. It didn't present itself like this but I believe it was a similar bacteria. I treated the main tank for 8 days with furanol. The male died only after 2 days but I continued treatment because the female was acting a little strange and I was worried she was getting the same thing. So now it's been a few days since I finished the second treatment and it seems that was the wrong decision I am using the same medication in a hospital tank ..I hope she hasn't become a little immune to the medication. I treated this time as a "hard" case. It says for normal cases use 1 tablet per 30 litres of water but in hard cases to use 1 tablet per 20 litres of water. I've also added salt to the water as I just read a whole article about stressed/sick fish having a hard time balancing their salt levels.

I now have 2 smaller tanks as hospital/quarentine tanks. It sounds like you had a rough time in January I agree quarentining new fish is essential.

I used this ) face because I was embarassed that I wrote sylvia in my title when maybe there are others on this forum who can help like you

 

[sylvia]

Hi
Sorry I didn't come earlier but it looks like you're doing all the right things already and lucky's advice is excellent. You realy should do lots of water changes on the 'healthy' tank and be extremely careful not to use the same equipment both tanks. That 'equipment' would include filters, gravel, nets, buckets, heaters and syphons. Also, watch you aren't contaminating anything with your hands... make shure you wash them and then rinse thoroughly as soap is poisonous to fish.
You also need to try and pin-point what caused this fish to become more stressed (and thus susceptible to the disease). Test your water params, look at the temp and pH etc and recall whether she was being bullied or anything like that. Hopefuly you can correct the problem and avoid further cases.
The best preventative measure you can take with the healthy tank is lots of water changes, offering as stress-free an environment as possible and providing healthy foods for all the fish to eat. Having said that, watch all the other fish carefuly and, at the first sign of trouble, isolate any sick fish and treat like you are doing the spiketail female.
About the treatment itself... Without knowing exactly what it is, I can't be more accurate but I would suggest you continue the treatment with the antibiotic and with the salt but maybe try to find yourself an antibiotic food to give her instead. These are usualy more effective when it comes to ulcers and the like than are your typical bath-type antibiotic meds. I forgot to check where you are from but in some places their availability is limmited. In the UK where I live I only know of a single antibiotic being offered in food and that one has lost its potency somewhat from misuse. All I can suggest is to try mixing your own. The downside is that a lot gets washed off before being eaten (though that's still ok as the fish is still getting it as a bath) and it's difficult to get some sick fish to eat or to put enough of the antibiotic on a small amount of food. I actualy found a site with some info on this: http/www.fishdoc.co.uk/treatments/medicatedfood.htm
On the same site (quite useful ) is this: http/www.fishdoc.co.uk/treatments/topical.htm Topical treatment of severe ulcer infections is usualy necessary to cure it. It's a difficult thing to do with small fish like spiketails and I personaly would not risk the cleaning process if you don't feel confident (I now I wouldn't be). However, if you or anyone you know does feel confident (or desperate) enough to try it - it's probably the one thing that can almost deffinately save the fish if done correctly. Still, you'll need to sedate the fish and its small size will not help you as this sort of procedure is used mostly on large fish like koi.
In the worst case, I'd say you should euthanise her and disinfect all equipment with a bleach solution, taking care to rinse and rinse and rinse afterwards.
Anyway, good luck! I don't know how much help I have been. I don't realy have much practical experience with ulcers as I've only ever had a couple of very mild cases and they recovered with just some antibiotic food and clean water.

 

[lucky62]

Yeah I try to do at least 2 water changes a week sometimes more depending on the tank. With this particular fish no new fish have been added to the tank so there is some other reason. I lost the male about 2 weeks ago to some type of bacterial infection. It didn't present itself like this but I believe it was a similar bacteria. I treated the main tank for 8 days with furanol. The male died only after 2 days but I continued treatment because the female was acting a little strange and I was worried she was getting the same thing. So now it's been a few days since I finished the second treatment and it seems that was the wrong decision I am using the same medication in a hospital tank ..I hope she hasn't become a little immune to the medication. I treated this time as a "hard" case. It says for normal cases use 1 tablet per 30 litres of water but in hard cases to use 1 tablet per 20 litres of water. I've also added salt to the water as I just read a whole article about stressed/sick fish having a hard time balancing their salt levels.

I now have 2 smaller tanks as hospital/quarentine tanks. It sounds like you had a rough time in January I agree quarentining new fish is essential.

I used this ) face because I was embarassed that I wrote sylvia in my title when maybe there are others on this forum who can help like you

[snapback]892560[/snapback]​

I wasn't offended ...........no go change the water again

 

[Elisabeth83]

Today the reddness seems to be going away but the ulcer (if thats what it is) seems to of eaten a hole through her underside. Through the upper part of the fin and the lower part of her body. She doesn't seem to be bothered by it though as she's active and eating adn greets me when I come to the hospital tank. I added some rocks and some pieces of silk plants to make her feel more comfortable as they are a pretty shy fish.

I've never dealt with anything like this before..is she going to get better or do ulcers only get worse? How long should I treat her for?

The only thing I can think of that could of sparked why her and her mate got sick (he died) would be the live plants I bought that rotted that I didn't know about until I moved some wood. Other than that..I really don't know. She got this ulcer after he died though so maybe it was the stress of loosing him?

Joe, I'm glad you weren't offended I'm off to do water changes now

 

[sylvia]

Well it sounds like she's on the road to recovery but we'll see in about a week's time if that still holds true (I have my fingers crossed for you). Ulcers can be brought on by anything stressful so both a slight fluctuation in water quality and her mate's death could have played an equal part.

 

[Elisabeth83]

Today is the last day of treatment but I think I need to treat longer. While the redness seems to be gone the hole is still large and it doesn't seem to be healing up

Do you think I should start another course of the furanol or should I finish today do a water change and add some salt to help heal the hole?

 

[sylvia]

Do a 100% water change and then re-start the treatment. Keep it going until the fish is fully (or almost fully) healed so as to avoid it re-infecting the fish.

 

[Ldy-Icedragon]

Are spiketails very suceptable to ulcers? I had 4 a little while ago, they all died with large holes that looked like the scales had been eaten away. No on bit them and no one else got sick, I tried saving them but no luck

~Danielle

 

[Elisabeth83]

Ldy-Icedragon I think a lot of gouramis are susceptale to ulcers for some reason I don't think I'll get anymore of the spiketails..maybe try some sparkling gouramis instead.

 

[Elisabeth83]

Well I'm on day 3 of the second treatment of the furanol. I can't really tell if it's getting better. The hole looks like it's slightly closing up but there is still a crater. She's been very very very pale lately. I can't see any pigment at all she's just cream colored. She is still active and eating.

I just don't know if the ulcer/hole/crater will ever heal? Is it worth it continuing treating her or should I euthanize her? I'd feel bad euthanizing her seeing as she acts healthy otherwise I just don't know if it'll heal, how long I will have continue treating (at this rate it seems like forever), or if she'll be ok by herself in the hospital tank for so long? I'm worried about her being so pale. Maybe I should throw in some dark colored gravel to make her feel more comfortable? Right now I just have 2 large flat rocks that she sits under along with a small silk plant.

I want her to get better but I don't want it to take months of expensive medication for her to get better

 

[sylvia]

Under normal circumstances I would not suggest this. However, try stopping the treatment for a day, maybe two. Just to see the effect. If she brightens up, it may mean it's the treatment stressing her and you should stop it. The ulcer may still heal without treatment if water quality is kept up. If, however, she gets worse, resume treatment immediately. I can't say how long it'll take for her to heal. Don't worry about keeping her isolated. Just add lots of plants and some dark gravel (like you said) to keep her feeling comfortable and make sure she's eating well and the water's clean. As for the expensive meds., unless you find she actualy does better without them, there's realy no alternative. Oh and don't euthanise her if she's still eating.