I need help.

[FaintOfHeart91]

So I have recently been given what i believe to be a pond loach, about 4 to 5 years old. Today i noticed a spot on the left side of his body near the back fin, is there any way I can treat this. And what product would be recommended. Hes in a 29 gallon tank alone so I dont believe I'd need to move him into a qt. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am new to keeping fish.

[banasophia]

Oh no poor fish! I wish I had more experience to help, but I’m not sure… hopefully someone will chime in to help. What is that substrate? Is this a freshwater fish? If so maybe a freshwater forum can better assist? 

[filefishfinatic]

if theres no plants and things, dose copper. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

18 minutes ago, filefishfinatic said:

if theres no plants and things, dose copper. 

This is the worst possible advice you have given so far on this site. Please, PLEASE read up more on loaches before advising someone on how to 'medicate' their fish. With copper (!!!) of all things! 

 

13 hours ago, FaintOfHeart91 said:

So I have recently been given what i believe to be a pond loach, about 4 to 5 years old. Today i noticed a spot on the left side of his body near the back fin, is there any way I can treat this. And what product would be recommended. Hes in a 29 gallon tank alone so I dont believe I'd need to move him into a qt. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am new to keeping fish.

Please ignore filefishfanatic. He gives horrible advice and has a lot to learn about fishkeeping in general.

 

Pond loaches - or any type of loach, are categorized under 'scaleless' fish, although they do have very tiny scales, like in your pic. They are intolerant of copper and will die if you use copper or copper sulfate. Same goes for rays, sharks & eels. 

Your loach appears to have a bacterial infection; the exposed flesh is very worrisome. Is he the only fish in the 29G? If no, then you'd have better success treating him separately in a QT. Also, loaches can't handle most meds very well - melafix is usually recommended, but even this can cause more harm than good for your loach (especially now that it has an open sore). If you choose to treat with melafix or *any antibacterial meds, use only 50% of the recommended dose for the fish. 

 

You'll need to keep up with WCs (small, daily WCs of 25% or so should be good) and also try to get the fish to eat. There are a lot of diseases that afflict FW fish unfortunately, and sometimes when it reaches a certain stage, there isn't much you can do about it, except change the mode of treatment to palliative rather than rely solely on medication. 😞

 

I noticed your crystalline substrate appears sharp at the edges. Perhaps consider removing as much of it as possible, because loaches can get damaged very easily when they sustain scrapes from 'sharp' substrate or even ornaments in the tank. 

I wonder if @Humblefish can help - he has years of experience in treating SW fish diseases, he *might know a thing or two about FW fish diseases too (*might). No harm trying to ask him for help. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

First of all what are your water parameters for ammonia, nitrite, nitrates and ph? What do you mean by pond loach? Any full body pics of the fish? 

It could be a water quality issue or abrasion from gravel, loaches do best on sand substrates. But more info is needed to really assist. 

DON'T add copper to a loach tank, they are scaleless and it will probably kill them. Never just throw treatments in without a good idea of what you are attempting to treat.

[filefishfinatic]

i didnt know loaches were scaleless. if thats true, use salt. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

2 minutes ago, filefishfinatic said:

i didnt know loaches were scaleless. if thats true, use salt. 

We don't know what the problem is yet. Stop saying to try treatments when we haven't got enough information to know what is wrong.

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

53 minutes ago, filefishfinatic said:

i didnt know loaches were scaleless. if thats true, use salt. 

This thread is a perfect example of your clueless nonsense.

 

STOP SPREADING IT EVERYWHERE. 

 

It’s ok to not know the answer to everything.  None of us do.

 

I sincerely hope you’re just trying to help, but are inexperienced. However, the more I see you commenting, and spreading bad information, the more I think you’re doing it to be a troll and/or to harm the animals. If you truly cared about the livestock in aquariums, you need to take a step back and assess what you really know, and how you can help others. If you don’t know the fix, it’s ok to not comment on a thread. If you just can’t help yourself, and have to comment , you can offer empathy. You can give them well wishes. You should not give advice, if you aren’t certain. 

[Tired]

About the best thing you can do for an injured fish is keep the water clean to help reduce infection. Unfortunately I don't believe there's any way you can offer the poor thing pain relief, which is really too bad, considering that looks like exposed muscle. You might pick up some Melafix or a similar product, something designed to help reduce the chance of infection. 

 

You should also pick up some clove oil. Clove oil is a natural anesthetic that makes a good way to euthanize fish, and IMO all fishkeepers should have some on hand, in case a fish is too far gone and needs to be euthanized to prevent its suffering. Right now, this is a very recoverable wound, and the loach will likely be fine. But if that wound gets badly infected, it could swing the other way, and a dying animal should never be left to suffer.

 

Do you have a picture of the whole loach and/or whole tank? 

 

What are you feeding? Good-quality foods are a good way to help anything recover. 

 

Do you have water tests to check for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels? 

[Humblefish]

I would be more concerned about the wound/possible infection than the dot at this time.

 

While not particularly effective for saltwater fish, Melafix + Pimafix seem to have some efficacy against bacterial + fungus issues in freshwater fish. Both are herbal remedies (tea tree oil) so there should be no contraindications with scaleless fish. If those meds don't work, your next step would be a mild antibacterial like Methylene Blue.

[Tamberav]

I would listen to snow and humble. They have the most experience here. Melafix seems to be agreed upon 👍

 

[filefishfinatic]

melafix is like a bandaid though. it dosent do much

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

21 minutes ago, filefishfinatic said:

melafix is like a bandaid though. it dosent do much

You just can’t help yourself, can you? 
 

I am absolutely certain HumbleFish knows more about how to treat a fish that’s hurt than you. This is one of those times that you shouldn’t post. 

[filefishfinatic]

1 minute ago, NoOneLikesADryTang said:

You just can’t help yourself, can you? 
 

I am absolutely certain HumbleFish knows more about how to treat a fish that’s hurt than you. This is one of those times that you shouldn’t post. 

when one of my fish got its fins shredded, it didnt do anything and the fish died. its really a bandage for really minor things like cutting yourself on a rock. 

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

3 minutes ago, filefishfinatic said:

when one of my fish got its fins shredded, it didnt do anything and the fish died. its really a bandage for really minor things like cutting yourself on a rock. 

Just when I think you can’t make yourself look less irresponsible, you go and prove me wrong. 
 

Melafix is an antibiotic intended to treat infections in fish. Not to magically restore fins from a careless fish owner, which it seems you are.

 

I can’t put this any more bluntly : Stop giving people advice. 

[filefishfinatic]

1 minute ago, NoOneLikesADryTang said:

Just when I think you can’t make yourself look less irresponsible, you go and prove me wrong. 
 

Melafix is an antibiotic intended to treat infections in fish. Not to magically restore fins from a careless fish owner, which it seems you are.

 

I can’t put this any more bluntly : Stop giving people advice. 

dude, i added it before it was infected and it still got infected. it is only for minor cuts. not massive flesh wounds. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

What's the active in melafix? I've never used it 

[filefishfinatic]

its all natural. its like putting aloe on a chopped off hand at this point. it helps with pain and regeneration. its not a very good antibiotic 

[Ratvan]

2 minutes ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

What's the active in melafix? I've never used it 

Tea Tree Oil (Melaleuca), fantastic medication. Never failed me 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Ok.....These suggest it's not antibiotic in action per se but*can* kill larger parasites .....? 

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1557506315000269

 

https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/dao/v115/n2/p129-137/

 

But it contains polyphenols which are, after all, part of plants' natural defence, so that makes sense. According to this it's not FDA approved because it's a skin irritant.  And it will also reduce the dissolved oxygen content of the water. arsenal.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_tree_oil

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257622/

 

The only two papers i found specifically regarding its efficacy in fish were the first two however, but both of those were in freshwater which is useful for op. 

[Tamberav]

It has been stated that this particular fish does not do well with potent meds so Melafix is the drug of choice to give it a chance.

 

Fish die with or without treatment sometimes just like people do. 

 

 

[Tired]

Melafix is worth a shot. It won't hurt anything, provided the oxygen content is kept up, and may help. There isn't much else you can use on a loach. 

 

Dosing strong antibiotics into a fish tank is harmful to the biofilter, and more concerningly, runs a serious risk of producing antibiotic-resistant bacteria in and around the tank. Proper antibiotics are not to be used lightly- there's a reason they're banned for aquarium use in some areas. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria proliferating is our path back to the dark ages of medicine, with people dying of minor cuts because infection takes hold and we can't get rid of it, with respiratory infections having a solid chance of being lethal. Up until 2020 (technically late 2019), it was one of the biggest medical threats facing modern humanity. The current situation debatably comes equal with it. 

 

No infection-prevention treatment is 100% effective, but something is better than nothing. 

 

"All natural" doesn't mean "useless". Many of our medications we use today are derived from plants, or are synthesized versions of things that plants produce. Hell, penicillin is just refined mold. 

 

And while we're at it, a fish should not die of shredded fins. Technically any injury can get infected, but if a fish is an environment where it dies of an infected fin, something was likely very wrong with either that fish or that environment. 

[Humblefish]

Another mild treatment option would be Stressguard, which contains a light dosage of methylene blue (an antiseptic).

 

If you have to go the ABX route, I have used Maracyn 1 & 2 (which contains Erythromycin + Minocycline, respectively) on freshwater fish including scaleless species + loaches. This was many years ago though so there might be "better" antibiotics available for freshwater fish nowadays.