The Puffer Forum

If you remember my post about the scat from earlier who had what I thought was a fungus ball on his face (looked like a big red zit). The other fish in the tank looked like they were getting some sort of whitish fungus. My friend started treating with both melafix and pimafix. At first I thought his whole tank was gonna crash. His synodontis catfish looked like its skin was peeling off and looked very very dead. Other fish were suffering from whitish smears all over their bodies. Luckily, the pimafix and melafix cleared everything up. Except for the scat. The red bump went away, but then he started getting it inside his mouth. Neither of us knew what it was so he kept treating it with pima/melafix. Now all the medicine is gone and the scats condition has worsened. I checked it out yesterday, and it looks like its face is being eaten. Thats the only way I can think of to describe it. Its all red and it looks like his mouth/face area is having a big hole eaten into it.
I have no clue as to what it is. I know a picture would be great, but since it's not my fish I can't do much about it.

If anyone has any idea what this is and knows how to treat is, your advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I think I knew of someone here that had a fish like that. Some kind of flesh-eating bacteria. Fish didn't make it. You might want to put it out of it's misery.

It's not hole-in-the-head, is it? It's the only thing I can think of, but I don't have much experience with fish illnesses.

If the fish is in pain, having trouble functioning, and not responding to meds, I agree with PP. A humane euthanasia is better than having its face slowly eaten away.

I have never been able to successfully treat Mouth Rot. Best bet is to try a cocktail of broad spectrum antibiotics, like a combo of Maracyn/Maracyn 2. But the chances are very slim.

The best guess (and photos probably wouldn't help narrow the choices) is some type of Psuedomonas or Aeromonas bacterial infection. Both of these are quite opportunistic, attacking fish with suppressed immune systems from stress or improper handling. I'm not surprised a scat would show signs of such an infection, as scats are unfortunately SERIOUSLY mistreated in shipping and receiving. Without close examination of infected tissue under microscope it is impossible to be precise in prescribing medication. Kanamycin or Tetracycline might be your best choice, either in a QT or in feed. It would also help (although it would probably be quite painful to the unfortunate fish ) to clean the wound to remove decaying/dying tissue, and treat with a contact antibiotic cream with Neomycin sulfate (like Neosporin). Be certain to increase aeration in the tank, and do increase the salt content gradually.

Other antibiotics: sulfas (poor solubility in water), chloramphenicol (hmm .. can't find this anymore), acriflavin (never had much success with this) Good luck, I don't know if I would quite give up on the fish yet. Several ulcerative diseases can look extremely frightening, yet fish can recover if given proper water conditions and a helping dose of TLC.

J