Sore/Abrasion on Pearlscale Butterfly

[mitchrapp]

Day 6 of new Pearlscale Butterfly in QT with a royal gramma. I noticed this morning a sore/abrasion on his side. His breathing has increased and is floating/swimming sideways in the pvc quite a bit. I put some Maracyn 2 in the QT in case there is a bacterial infection. Anything else I should try? What could have caused this? He and the royal gramma are quite friendly towards each other and hang out together.

 

[mitchrapp]

There's nothing sharp in the QT, just a heater, airstone, and pvc fittings.

Really not looking good now. Thought he was dead, as he was lying on the bottom of the tank. I got a net and went to get him, then he started swimming. Now he's lying against the side of a pvc fitting.

 

[mitchrapp]

...and he's dead.

Question now is do I continue the Maracyn Two treatment on the royal gramma who did not have any sores/abrasions/infections? The Maracyn Two instructions say to finish treatment even if visible signs disappear. Not sure if that's due to antibiotic resistance or making sure to completely treat any infection.

 

[mattcoug]

That looks really nasty - was the fish ever trapped or scraped in any way? In the bag home? In the net? The red flesh indicates bacterial infection or uronema. If there was never any physical injury I would suspect uronema - this tank and the other fish could now be infected.

 

[mitchrapp]

No, he was perfectly fine until this morning.

 

[ThRoewer]

The open would with reddish bloody border looks like Uronema.

I would give the gramma a formalin bath (or two) and after each bath put him in another sterilized QT. The current QT and all equipment or decoration in it should be sterilized with bleach and then thoroughly dried (I personally would go for a week or even longer).

 

[mitchrapp]

Agggh. I didn't think of uronema. I thought it was not common for fish other than chromis.

Thanks all, gramma is getting dipped.