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Post by gonzoid on Sept 7, 2017 21:57:01 GMT -5
This morning while feeding Loki his pellets, I thought I noticed a white bump above his right eye. I was in a hurry and had to leave for work prior to investigating further. When I got home, I confirmed that there is a white growth of some form on his head above the eye. He doesn't have any of his fins clamped and doesn't appear to be in any distress. He was begging for food and "dancing" for me like he usually does when I'm near the tank. Below is a link to the shared album with all the pictures I took attempting to capture it.
Loki head bumpThe forum was down for a little bit (at least for me) so I put a small medicated WS in the tank as a "right now" treatment. Hopefully a more targeted treatment can be given once the issue is identified. Gathering water parameters right now. I'm not sure what I'm looking at right now. Will return with #'s and inline pics. Any help with identification would be much appreciated. OK, water parameters look about how they always do. GH slightly elevated from "normal" as it's been 20ish days since PWC: 9/7/17 @ 2012Temp 79.4 °F NH 3 0 NO -2 0 NO -3 0 ph 7.8 GH 14°=250.6ppm (up from 179ppm) KH 3°=53.7ppm (up from 35.8pp) |
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Post by Carl on Sept 8, 2017 9:16:29 GMT -5
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Sept 8, 2017 12:42:15 GMT -5
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Post by gonzoid on Sept 8, 2017 14:43:54 GMT -5
It did happen within a 24 hour period, if not overnight.
On hand I have:
Pimafix
Melafix
ParaGuard
Medicated WS
Jungle CLear Water
Methylene Blue
Triple Sulfa
MetroPlex
Ordering Unsea, Wound Control, and PolyGuard. Anything else I should add in ? Will I need something (activated charcoal or similar) to remove treatment(s) from tank afterwards or will treatment generally be swab/bath? Not asking about this round so much as just in general. If there are items I should add to my fish medicine box, may as well move past the free shipping level.
Will start Methylene Blue swabs tonight. Any of the above that I have on hand worth using instead of/in combination with the MB while I wait for my order to arrive?
If it is fungal, should I clean the tank up/vac gravel to minimize possibly decaying food/mulm?
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Sept 8, 2017 15:00:04 GMT -5
It did happen within a 24 hour period, if not overnight. On hand I have: Pimafix Melafix ParaGuard Medicated WS Jungle CLear Water Methylene Blue Triple Sulfa MetroPlex Ordering Unsea, Wound Control, and PolyGuard. Anything else I should add in ? Will I need something (activated charcoal or similar) to remove treatment(s) from tank afterwards or will treatment generally be swab/bath? Not asking about this round so much as just in general. If there are items I should add to my fish medicine box, may as well move past the free shipping level. Will start Methylene Blue swabs tonight. Any of the above that I have on hand worth using instead of/in combination with the MB while I wait for my order to arrive? If it is fungal, should I clean the tank up/vac gravel to minimize possibly decaying food/mulm? You wont need anything else for an in-tank treatment if you just do the swab. I would start with the MB. Yes, just make sure your keeping up with cleaning maintenance, including vacuuming the substrate. |
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Post by gonzoid on Sept 8, 2017 16:11:30 GMT -5
Just got an order in and figured I'd find things to buy to meet the free shipping. Grabbed:
Wound Control
Unsea
PolyGuard
Furan-2
Neoplex
Erythromycin
Betta Spa
Nirox Premium Lignite
Combined with my on hand list (failed to mention small bag of Purigen & salt, both aquarium & epsom), I think I should have a pretty well stocked medicine chest for the fish. At minimum, I think I have everything on the "must have" list. Thought I had everything listed already but Loki has helped me find a gap or 2.
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Post by Carl on Sept 9, 2017 10:13:36 GMT -5
Just got an order in and figured I'd find things to buy to meet the free shipping. Grabbed: Wound Control Unsea PolyGuard Furan-2 Neoplex Erythromycin Betta Spa Nirox Premium Lignite Combined with my on hand list (failed to mention small bag of Purigen & salt, both aquarium & epsom), I think I should have a pretty well stocked medicine chest for the fish. At minimum, I think I have everything on the "must have" list. Thought I had everything listed already but Loki has helped me find a gap or 2. A few thoughts on what you have and have recently purchased: *Usnea is primarily for bath use and then for tumors, Fish TB and some other gram positive infections *PolyGuard is a newer "all in one" type treatment for in tank use (not baths), and might be considered for this problem *Neoplex is generally best in baths & medicated fish food feedings (but in tank use is still OK) *Use Betta Spa through out treatment Carl |
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Post by gonzoid on Sept 9, 2017 12:00:21 GMT -5
Thanks for the help guys. I'm finding that the few times I've needed to treat for anything, I'm usually missing something. In this case, I had MB, but not Wound Control. I went back & tried to grab anything I didn't have from the "Treatments to Always Have on Hand" section of the disease prevention page. Hopefully my medicine chest is rounded out & stocked properly so I at least have something on hand that would be effective for what may be encountered. Even if it's not the #1 treatment, I'll be able to do something other than wait.
As to the MB swabs for the time being, is 1 swab a day sufficient?
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Post by Carl on Sept 10, 2017 10:49:59 GMT -5
As to the MB swabs for the time being, is 1 swab a day sufficient? Usually. sometimes if the fish will tolerate twice per day I will. However with fish swabs it is a balance of the benefits of the swab outweighing any stress catching and handling the fish might cause Carl |
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Post by gonzoid on Nov 1, 2017 22:04:30 GMT -5
So after a few days of the MB swabs I switched to the Wound Control for several days & thought Loki was in the clear. The lump receded and I checked with MB to see if anything was dyed blue. Nothing was. Fast forward a month & we went to Vegas for a week for our wedding. Came back about 10 days ago to a very lethargic Loki. He had been overfed based on the amount of food gone from his pellet container. He also seemed to have trouble getting to the top of the tank and started bottom sitting with his head elevated. Suspecting a swim bladder issue, I fasted him for a few days and he seemed to bounce back a little bit but the head bump returned while we were gone as well.
As the swabs seemed to cause him a lot of stress, I tried a week of Melafix/Pimafix combo (trying for weakest intervention in tank) which seemed to start to clear up the bump again. I did a 30% PWC, vacuumed the gravel & cleaned the mini sponge filter prior to this treatment. I did another 30% PWC after the treatment. Loki's color was still faded and the bump has turned gray. He's still bottom sitting and now not eating either. Yesterday he was at the bottom of the tank kind of on his side looking to be in a bit of distress. Last night I did a MB bath for 30 minutes hoping it would be theraputic and also to see if anything got dyed. Nothing did, but it didn't seem to help matters any either.
Tonight I did another PWC and cleaned the main filter sponge (trying to alternate the cleaning of the sponges/biobedia) and vacuumed out the bottom of the filter chamber of the Spec V. Got a lot of garbage out of it but it also had a large mat of frog moss in a filter bag on top so not sure how much was from that.
Anyway, I'm not sure what to do next. I started with the lowest level intervention I had as I didn't want to jump straight into blaster mode. I'm also thinking about the fact that my wife got him from her co-worker in 2015 and he was not in the best tank environment (high nitrate) until early this year. So he could be close to 3 years old I guess, but 2.5 years at the youngest. He's not a young fish but I don't want to just give up on the little guy either.
Water parameters prior to PWC tonight:
11/01/17 @ 1825
Temp 75.8 °F
NH3 0
NO-2 0
NO-3 0
ph 7.8
GH 9°=161ppm
KH 3°=53.7ppm
House is at 65ish degrees and the heater seems to be having trouble keeping tank above 76ish degrees..working on pics as well while I MB bath again.
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Nov 2, 2017 12:21:26 GMT -5
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Post by gonzoid on Nov 2, 2017 16:40:03 GMT -5
By full bath, should I use aquarium salt, Epsom and MB all combined? That's what I took away from the linked article, but just verifying.
Should I also attempt swab of wound care or Mb during the transfer to the bath?
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Nov 4, 2017 12:20:10 GMT -5
By full bath, should I use aquarium salt, Epsom and MB all combined? That's what I took away from the linked article, but just verifying. Should I also attempt swab of wound care or Mb during the transfer to the bath? Yes and yes  |
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