Help ID Spot/Sore on Anthia

[ufchristyb]

Hi All,

Below are pictures of my male anthia. He has a problem area at the base of his fin. He has been in my quarantine tank since his purchase about 2 months ago. He and his tankmates have been through a complete hyposalinity treatment. This spot used to look worse - it was much larger and had a red area around it. I did a week's worth of Maracyn II treatments and it did not respond. I began treating Metranidizole for intestinal parasites in the other anthias and the area shrunk to just a brown dot. Now that he is off of the Metranidizole it is expanding again. I do not know if I am dealing with a bacteria or fungus. Any advice would be appreciated.

I have more Metranidizole on the way, so I can begin treating again tomorrow - I am wondering if I just need to get it to disappear completely, and if the Metranidizole will be able to do this. I have erythromycin and prazipro in my medicine stock, as well as the usual copper, formalin type dip treatments. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks for the help!

--Christy

 

[ufchristyb]

Not a single response?

 

[Versus]

Aww his lil doodie hole is clogged <3 thats adorable ...

Anyway , How many other fish are in the tank? what are your parameters ? size of tank? .. its a bacterial infection most likely.

Set up a QT tank for the lil tyke and let em glub around for a couple days and see if he gets better ( 4 days ) . If not you have a few options .. I had CheeseDoodler my puffer fish which had this also , alough I dont know the name and thought maybe he was just well endowed , I used tetracycline and kantrex ( kanamycin ) , with a vitamin enriched diet . Id stay away from copper and formalin , I know they are supposed good methods of treatment but , if your ph level dips for whatever reason while treating with copper it can actually "go into" the fishy . which isnt good .. and formalin is for dead people in coffins so they dont smell bad , and works for welding plastics togethor .. so no thanks. heh.

I like to rub my fish down with neosporin that works very well . Alough I dont think they like it in their gills ..

Id try the Ery.. eryt .. err r .. erythro m .. Best thing I have used though to treat similar problems was myacin / kanamycin .. Its expensive as hell though unfortunately. Found some in grandma's med cabinet though and used 200mg's per 10g .

please get back to me with your parameters on the tank though .

 

[ufchristyb]

Its not his anus. That is a little forward, and operating just fine, I assure you.

The parameters are fine. No ammonia, 8.0 pH, 1.025 sg, no anything else that would be harmful. He is in a QT tank with several other female anthias and a PBT. They have not made it into my main tank yet because of this issue. He has been through a hyposalinity treatment for ich.

The spot did not respond in any way to Maracyn II. It did respond to Metranidizole, but did not heal fully, and then came back as soon as I stopped dosing.

Bacterial was my thinking too, I guess I just need to find the right antibiotic. I have some erythromycin I can try, but have been hesitant to handle it, since I am allergic to it.

He is eating fine and acting entirely normal.

What do you think about pulling him out of the tank and swabbing it down with iodine?

 

[Versus]

Well , The tolerances of med's can be a pain .. Now I dont know how a bacteria in the ocean builds tolerance to man made chemicals , but they do build slight immunities ( esp during spawning alot of fish farms pump the tanks full of diff anti fungal , antibiotics . Malachite Green , methylene Blue etc . )


last time I pulled out a fish for a rub down ( frog fisheee ) he had gotten majorly stressed out I just dont think the stress is worth it to the fish unless they have open lesions .. Stick with the Ery , for now , And see if you can get your hands on some tetracycline or Kanamycin ( prefered ) its called cantrex \ kantrex , kamycin , Resistomycin , Kanaplex . ( just ask your vet for it , its not a government regulated drug since its an antibiotic , so im pretty sure they would give you a couple , just keep in mind the price is horrible on them , bottle of 20 is 50 something and they are 150mg each )

Eventually on Cheesedoodler it just went away with minor treatment , but it did take a while, 5 days of treating then a couple/few weeks after it went away .


Drug em up and see what happens , If your fish gets the cold sweats and dialated pupils you might want to check em into rehab though .

To bad you cant take a pill for poor grammar eh? ..

Good luck with your mr wet pants.

 

[ufchristyb]

OK thanks, I will try the erythro. I should be able to get other antibiotics from my vet if need be, he had no problem giving me interceptor for the corals.

--Christy

 

[jeffbrig]

Hey, christy's husband here....

I was googling fish anatomy pictures, and thought this was worth sharing.

The yucky swollen area on the fish looks like it may be the "genital pore" as shown in this diagram. Pretty darn sure it's not the anus, as I watched him disperse a cloud into the water the other day. The swollen area has been present for a couple of weeks now...

Just a little background on our setup - we have a fully cycled 55g that we maintain as a QT/hospital tank. On this tank we run a remora skimmer, a large biowheel filter, and a powerhead under n.o. flourescent lighting. Pretty effective filtration for QT, and regular water changes using aged water from the display keep nitrates from building up.

All new fish acquisitions spend a good 2 months in there as we put them through a preventative hyposalinity treatment (to avoid ich introductions), and observe and treat for any other illnesses that may be present. This is all part of my master plan to never have to attempt catching a fish in the 250g, and it's worked well so far. We also quarantine our corals in a separate 10g tank.

We've successfully battled Brooklynella, Lymphocystis, Ich, Popeye, and abdominal swelling in various fish over the last year. This is the first thing we've encountered that hasn't responded to our treatment attempts so far.

 

[eskymick]

Erythromycin is the primary active ingredient in Maracyn (not Maracyn II). It works great for most bacterial infections. Best used in a hospital tank.

 

[jeffbrig]

More gruesome pictures to share. Problem continues, much worse than when the previous shots were taken. Today was the second day (of 4) of the erythromycin treatment, no visible improvement so far, but it may be too early to judge.

Fish still seems relatively unaffected by this. Appetite is good, swimming in the water column, etc.

 

[Versus]

Holy crap , its starting to look more like a tumor now ... I dunno what to say as the one on my puffer stayed the pale yellow color then went away .

Is it still making doodie?

 

[jeffbrig]

Yes, as far as we can tell. He is still eating and acting normal. This is just completely stumping us. This will be the third different antibiotic that he has been in and it doesn't seem to be responding to anything. I am starting to wonder if it is a fungal infection, but I wouldn't even begin to know what to treat for that.

--Christy (and Jeff)

 

[Steven Pro]

For an antiobiotic, I prefer to use a furan-based one like Furazolidone, Nifurpirinol, or Nitrofurazone. At the fish store, look for Seachem's Focus, Gel Tek Ultra Cure BX, Furan-2, or Furanace.

 

[ufchristyb]

Steven,

Thanks for the advice. I will get one of those this evening. Based on your experience - does this look bacterial? I was starting to wonder if we were dealing with a fungus, up close the spot almost looks a little hairy, like mold on bread. Its really unlike anything I've dealt with before.

--Christy

 

[Versus]

Well , the medications you are using ( a couple of them any way ) are anti bacterial and fungal . So I dont see why it isnt helping or going down .

Fungal would tend to have alot of necrosis , alough this appears just like a large red blotch , something similar to a mothercyst / tumor that
has surrounding daughters. Even something like Lymphocystsis or similar diseases that are brought on by viral infections and are not exactly treatable.

I guess you could try methblue or ampicillex , From the pictures ive seen so far i would still stick with bacterial / viral that led to that mass of ugh , salsa.

Please take another picture when you get the chance , Ill see if i can find out anything .

 

[jeffbrig]

Ok, I will try to put up some more this evening. As for the color, its surrounded in red, but the blotch itself is dark brownish/black.

--Christy (Jeff)

 

[jeffbrig]

A closer shot w/macro and flash...definitely looks like something erupting.

 

[Versus]

good luck with that. Im very suprized its doing doodie since it appears as if its totally blocking the #2 and #1 , it looks like a tumor .. Most of the time stress kills the fish before the tumor does. Is a pretty fish though minus its over grown flesh dingleberry ..

If it dies open the fishy up and see how deep it goes and where its actually coming from .


Keep treating though , Id let nature take its course personally . it looks bigger every day

 

[ufchristyb]

Anus is still definitely working, saw him go this evening. That tiny red dot right above the mass is (I believe) his anus.

We are starting him on Furan2, so we will see how that goes.

--Christy

 

[ufchristyb]

Well, we couldn't stand just taking a wait and see approach on another antibiotic. So, in addition to starting the Furan2, we pulled the fish out, and swabbed the mass with a watered down iodine solution. We really have no idea what were doing here, and kind of making this up as we go, but it sort of made sense. This was looking more like a growth of some sort, so I wanted to apply something topically to it. We basically took the fish out, held him in the net with some wet paper towels, and wiped at the mass with a q-tip. Lots of black junk came off (necrotic flesh? fungus?)with some blood . We then dabbed it with the iodine/rodi water solution. Fish tolerated it relatively well, and the wound looks cleaner now (from what we could tell with the tank light out). We will see what it looks like in the morning and try to post another pic.

--Christy (and Jeff)

 

[Versus]

Well keep it up , I have seen people "pull" them off but that looks under the skin too.. I really hope your fish gets better . Just cross your fingers it isnt a tumor . I DO not know of any rub on medications but i am sure there are some .


Who knows maybe the growth will turn into a chubby cat cheek like in your avatar.. you could sell it as a limited edition chubby cat cheek fish