white cankers on fish bodies

[kitties1]

About two weeks ago my ruby shark developed two white sores on its body. one near the head and one on the tail. i thought he brushed against a rock, as he has done before, to inflict the wounds. unfortunately, because i did nothing (assuming it was a scrape or surface abrasion as before), the wounds worsened and developed into large red sores. they eventually killled him. i think that this is a fungus of some sort. i did medicate the tank wth Tank Buddies fungus cure right before he died. i think i was too late though. i did a 30% water change and continued on.

now my gourami has developed a similar infection on his body. this one is still in the white stage, but it looks bad. i have once again medicated the tank, using the Tank Buddies and some Methelyne Blue (sp?) product to treat fungus.

does anyone have any recommendations? i cannot isolate the fish as i do not have an empty tank, and i do not want anymore to get sick. also, anyone have similar experiences? is my community doomed? all of the other fish have been inspected carefully and show no signs of infection, yet. thanks for your help. please e-mail me directly with any immediate suggestions.

-christine

 

[enchanted]

I haven't had to deal with this illness before, but if it is a fungus I would recommend a combinatoin of melafix/pimafix dosage.

 

[digital_run]

I'm not to familiar with "tank buddies" but i'd try and positivly I.D the disease before treating with medications. A natural "med" such as Melafix would be the way to go until you can be positive of what your treating. Adding unnecissary chemicals can sometimes make a situation worse. Sorry about your Shark

 

[blue_ram]

Fungual infection don't develope sores; but parasite and bacterial infections do. It's really difficult to diagnose anything based on verbal description. Try this site. There's quite a few pictures of fish diseases that might help you diagnose.

 

[WILDER]

It's a bacterial desease you will need to treat with an anti internal bacteria med, salt would help but I don't think you can use it on sharks and a salt bath would help, so I would add some melafix to the tank, the anti internal bacteria will treat the fish inside and the melafix will treat the outside of the sores.