strange illness

[justcichlids]

hey everyone looking for some advice and wondering if anyone has seen or had this problem before

i have a small breeding colony of ey's in a mutiple tank /sump system

cosisting of 4 females and one male.

breeding very well over last six months. i have 2 females holding atm.

for about 4 weeks my male has had open sores appearing on his body

the fish is about 10 cm long and the sores are approx 5mm in diameter.

i have isolated the fish and treated with mela fix, but as soon as one sore heals another opens up literally

overnight somewhere else on his body.

he shows no signs of concern and is still feeding and breeding (he's back in with ladies)

i think it must be some kind of bacteria. no other fish has any signs of infestation so i'm assuming it's not contagious.

can anyone shed some light

thanks justin

[mcsx]

it would probably help with some pictures

[justcichlids]

i'll try and post some tomorrow

[mcsx]

but yeh from what you say sounds bacterial

[brucem]

Do you have any sharp rocks, wood, plastic.... or anything in the tank that he may be bumping himself on to cause the wounds?

Bruce

[JLL]

I have heard of a few people having this issue and it generally appears to be restricted to yellows. Unfortunately I have not heard any answers and have lost a couple of fish to this.

Nothing I had tried made any difference though I could not rule out being contagious as more than one yellow had this problem in my tank. The below pics are of a small female and the sores just starting to come up. They would have this white appearance with a scab like cover which would then disappear leaving an open red sore.

Sorry I cant offer much help but Melafix, Pimafix, salt and some all purpose anti bacterial (cant remember the name) did not help and the water conditions were close to perfect. Same deal as you though, as soon as one sore would heal another would come up.

[ozarowana]

Sounds like costia with a secondary bacterial infection. I think copper based meds or heat will work. Double check this though.

You may need something for the bacterial side of it, maybe salt and clean water.

Also don't use formalin type meds on open wounds.

[xzbit]

JLL and all I have had the same problem and I've lost 3 female EY's. They've breed, held and spat and then been put into isolation. One developed this after a few days and another develped this after a couple of weeks?! I tied melafix, but within adding it 2 days later they were dead (Both separate occasions).

I added a thread about a week ago I'll see if I can find it?

[xzbit]

Sick Yellow

Yeah, the thread kinda got side tracked, but i never did find out what was wrong with her? The water conditions were fine as well!?

[justcichlids]

xzbit, i read your thread earlier but the sores seemed a little different, a lot more and more red..

my male has had them for a couple of months and doesn't look like dieing. the sores look like the ones on jll pics.

[xzbit]

Justcichlids

They kind of develop into the white fleshy looking sores like JLL's pics and then they pretty much die a day or so later.

I also have a m.johanni in another tank that always seems to hurt itself, with like small chunks missing out of him in odd places and as soon as they heal he had a chunk missing another place?! But he still eats well and is really active.

[petdos]

Hi,after seeing photos and reading the info you put in ,it looks alot like red pest which is an internal bacteria and not very easy to fix,as far as i know you need some sort of antibiotic and never having to do this i would hate to tell you the wrong thing,unless someone out there has used this type of med id give your vet a call,wouldnt do any harm anyway,hope this helped.