The Puffer Forum

On the water chemistry I can help most easily, so I;ll digress on that first. In FW (fresh water) that has not been polluted or abused by the use of commercial buffers and such inappropriate materials, KH, alkalinity or carbonate/bicarbonate hardness, is essentially responsible for the water's pH reading. But KH is used up in normal tank processes, especially biological nitrification. Thus it is fully normal for the KH to decline over time since the last water change. All nitrate produced in the tank from ammonia results in the loss of bicarbonate in double the equivalent amount. In unplanted tanks, nitrate increases as alkalinity falls because the chemistry requires the sacrifice of alkalinity in the oxidation of ammonia to nitrate. Routine water changes remove the nitrate and replenish the alkalinity in exactly the percentages used for the water change - changing 50% of the water removes 50% of the nitrate and replenishes 50% of the expended alkalinity. Tanks with heavy algae may show less nitrate, as will planted tanks, as algae and plants require nitrogen and take up ammonia and nitrate (few can take up nitrite, it is harder to handle safely in bio-systems), but the KH is still depleted even if the nitrate reading/titer is low. Removing nitrate by plants or other processes does not in any way remove the requirement for water changes. They are still required equally or even more so by the need to replace all the depleted minerals used by the plants or algae.

On the pathology of the poor fish' mouth I really have no clue. The picture is pretty high-res., which allows me to enlarge it quite a bit without "pixel-ing" out, but the best I can see (I am visually handicapped) it looks like some damage with fungal attack on the damaged areas. Self damage is always possible on moves if the fish got spooked and smashed into its container in fright or panic.

I do not have a lot of experience with fungus - although most of what i have seen has been from fights, so similar to what you see, but the mouth is particularly hard to treat as it is rarely really still, even in lurkers, as it is part of respiration. When my female Fahaka had mouth and gill cover damage (plus fin and body damage) with some fungus, a local vet provided some combo of meds which which helped control the fungus while the woulds healed. Unfortunately I do not remember the meds, and that vet is no longer available.

That looks serious enough that if is any fish-familiar vet in the area, I would contact them to see if they have any potentially helpful suggestions.

I'm sorry that I cannot offer anything better to try.

RTR wrote:On the pathology of the poor fish' mouth I really have no clue. The picture is pretty high-res., which allows me to enlarge it quite a bit without "pixel-ing" out, but the best I can see (I am visually handicapped) it looks like some damage with fungal attack on the damaged areas. Self damage is always possible on moves if the fish got spooked and smashed into its container in fright or panic.

I do not have a lot of experience with fungus - although most of what i have seen has been from fights, so similar to what you see, but the mouth is particularly hard to treat as it is rarely really still, even in lurkers, as it is part of respiration. When my female Fahaka had mouth and gill cover damage (plus fin and body damage) with some fungus, a local vet provided some combo of meds which which helped control the fungus while the woulds healed. Unfortunately I do not remember the meds, and that vet is no longer available.

That looks serious enough that if is any fish-familiar vet in the area, I would contact them to see if they have any potentially helpful suggestions.

I'm sorry that I cannot offer anything better to try.

thanks for the input RTR..............
i don't think there are any fish vets in this town, but i'll look into it
meanwhile, i'm treating with Melafix & Pimafix daily, with an airstone in place
other than daily partial water changes and the meds mentioned above, i don't know what else to do
one of the big concerns is the length of time since Ollie has eaten anything (almost three weeks)
he doesn't look starved yet by any means, but some nourishment may be beneficial
i'm thinking of pureeing some food for him for force feeding, but i'm afraid to further traumatize him and/or do more tissue damage
might some salt added to his water be beneficial? (i'm a bit leary of the idea)
i really don't want to lose Ollie

If that photo is recent, the fish grossly does not yet looked starved. The eyes are certainly not sunken. I would be afraid of doing more damage w/force feeding myself. But if it were a last resort thing, I might, after much dithering and fretting.

I forgot to compliment the pic - that is really good work.

RTR wrote:If that photo is recent, the fish grossly does not yet looked starved. The eyes are certainly not sunken. I would be afraid of doing more damage w/force feeding myself. But if it were a last resort thing, I might, after much dithering and fretting..

the photo was taken yesterday
soon i'll be dithering & fretting............

RTR wrote:I forgot to compliment the pic - that is really good work

thanks very much for the compliment - i work very hard on my photography

in addition to Melafix & Pimafix, i'm thinking of trying one of the Maracyn products (Maracyn 1, Maracyn 2, or Maracyn Plus) by Mardel
they are antibiotic, rather than chemical in nature
though they may affect the cycle of the tank, i'm in a better position to deal with that than losing my Ollie
does anyone have any thoughts or recommendations one way or the other?
could salt added to the tank water be of benefit (or more importantly, harm)?
what kind of salt to use, if any?

Go ahead & try the antibiotics (along with Mela/Pimafix), just keep a close eye on the parameters & do WC accordingly. Have Safestart on hand for when the treatment is over, to boost back your bacteria.

Table salt is fine, 1tbsp/10g.

I wish we knew for sure. If it is a fungal issue then I wouldn't be adding antibiotics. They won't help and harming the cycle will just increase stress levels. On the other hand, if it's bacterial...

Good luck *fingers crossed*

Looks like a fungus to me.

i've begun a regimen of erythromycin (400mg daily) on top of the Melafix & Pimafix
from what i've been learning, a fungal issue is frequently a secondary result of a fungus infesting damaged tissue that may be bacterially infected to begin with, possibly a result of damage or injury originally
thus, i am doing everything i can think of to combat what may be two different issues at the same time
if i don't do everything i can to combat possible bacterial infection, then the fungal issue will be out of control (it may be already)
if the antibiotics are detrimental to the tanks' cycle, then i'd be in a better position to deal with that, rather than take a chance otherwise, and not give Ollie the chance to survive this situation
at least the water conditions are something i can monitor and remedy
i don't want to play guessing games with Ollies' life
i don't want to lose him............

Of course, I don't blame you! Do whatever you can.

Pufferpunk wrote:Of course, I don't blame you! Do whatever you can.

thanks, that's what i'm trying to do
is there anything else you can think of?

Sorry, IDK much about medicating. I usually kill fish by over medicating them. Be sure you run an airstone.

Erythromycin will not hit the nitrification bugs. They are the wrong type for that - I use Maracyn for a lazy cure for BGA - which is a bacterium, not an algae. Maracyn 2 will hit the nitrification bacteria though.

You are correct that fungus commonly attacks damaged or dead tissue secondary to trauma or bacterial infection. You can easily have more than one process going on, especially when the situation lasts this long. That was why the vet i mentioned before gave me more than one agent. He freely admitted it was shotgun therapy and hoping for the combo to hit multiple seccondary invaders (the fish had nearly been killed by a male). Her caudal never regrew, but the wound to her front end cleared up quickly.

i lost my little Ollie