Black Ghost Knife Fish stabbed

[BlueIce]

I would advise adding melafix to the tank and doing daily water changes to keep things clean, melafix is a 100% natural remedy with the only active ingredient being 1% tea tree oil so will not harm any of your fish.

NEVER treat a tank with a strong medication like those intended for internal bacteria unless the situation really calls for it as these medications will kill off some of the bacteria in your filters and cause problems with water quallity and oxygen levels.

A full dose of melafix is NOT good for BGK...I know this from experience.
If a person does the full dose for 3 days,I have no aoubt the bgk will die.
Scale-less fish react much dif to it then scaled fish.



Could you provide a list of medications intended for internal bacteria that would kill off the beneficial bacteria in the tank? I know of very few that have that result and none of those would be appropriate in this situation.

 

[Allix]

what do people mean by getting zapped? im newish to fish keeping and really know nothing about these fish!

 

[Bloo]

This will tell you more about it

 

[boxman]

I WOULD LISTEN TO BLUEICE IF I WERE YOU.

I don't have any experience with injured BGK's but I would be very careful about treating scaleless fish with melafix (from what I've read on the subject).

I have BGK's and I can testify they don't zap you! Check out this and I would bet my life this guy didn't get anything more than a wet arm!

Yes they can release a small electrical charge but nothing we could feel - trust me, I've hand fed these guys and felt nothing!!

What about putting him in a quarantine tank so none of the other fish attack him???

Keep us informed!

Pete

 

[CFC]

I would advise adding melafix to the tank and doing daily water changes to keep things clean, melafix is a 100% natural remedy with the only active ingredient being 1% tea tree oil so will not harm any of your fish.

NEVER treat a tank with a strong medication like those intended for internal bacteria unless the situation really calls for it as these medications will kill off some of the bacteria in your filters and cause problems with water quallity and oxygen levels.

A full dose of melafix is NOT good for BGK...I know this from experience.
If a person does the full dose for 3 days,I have no aoubt the bgk will die.
Scale-less fish react much dif to it then scaled fish.



Could you provide a list of medications intended for internal bacteria that would kill off the beneficial bacteria in the tank? I know of very few that have that result and none of those would be appropriate in this situation.

Anti bacterial medications destroy ermmmm, BACTERIA. Medications cannot distinguish which bacteria are friendly and which ones are not, this is why they are known as BROAD SPECTRUM medications. Of course no medication will have it written on the bottle that they may destroy bacteria colonies but virtually all will have some kind of affect on the good bacteria in the tank to a lesser or greater degree.
As you have said however an anti internal bacterial medication is not what is called for in this case and simply keeping the water clean and using melafix to prevent a secondry infection setting in is all that is required.

Ive never experienced any fish suffer from adverse affects from using melafix even when dosed with my home made 5% strength version, this includes delicate fish such as freshwater stingrays, wild caught predatory Characins, Mormyrids, wild caught Pimeloid catfishes, Appistoramma Cichlids, moray eels and knife fishes, all of which are known for having bad reactions to most medications. I would suggest that if you have experienced deaths while treating with melafix you must have either severely overdosed the tank or the fish has died from whatever you was treating the tank for in the first place.

 

[cottonj21]

I think i will stick with doing daily water changes, as the water is very well filtered. 3ft juwel vision (curved) running 2 filters, an eheim 2213 and a hagen 4.
I was going to check with my lfs about the medication on scaleless fish as i did have a small case of whitespot which I had to treat and the black ghost didnt like that one bit, but at the time i had no other option as it was either that or let all the fish get white spot and there was no other tank i could have put him in.

But just to let you know he seems un affected by his injurys just has a soar whole which looks better than it did yesterday and the plants are coming out tonight.

 

[Undawada]

Hopefully he gets better Sounds like he's a real fighter though.

I don't know much about BGK's which is why I assumed they could zap you. I've just heard so much about it and no one ever disagreed

Blue Ice keeps multiple BGK's so her advice is from experience.

I don't know what else to say, it's a real freak of an injury.

 

[BlueIce]

There are meds that warn about killing off beneficial bacteria...
and there are meds that say they will not kill off beneficial bacteria.

As others have said,I have had BGK for a long time ,and have several...melafix at full strength is NOT a good idea period....if a person wishes to risk it just because one person had luck,then I suppose they will...

I've given my advice...I've nothing further to comment on

 

[lucky62]

any improvement ?

 

[Dorkhedeos]

lol, bgks zapping you thats the funniest thing ive heard this week. they only use the electric field to find food or to find their way around.

 

[cottonj21]

Ye seems totally unafected, swelling has gone down and he just has a little lump where the plant was stuck. just put 2 cubes worth bloodworm and he is stuffing his face at the moment so he hasn't lost his appertite.

 

[Mr Miagi]

thats always a great sign! Congrats on keeping him healthy through this ordeal! that looked like quite the nasty injury he had there. My gourami has injured himself in recent times, but nothing like that!

Im so happy he ok!

 

[Raechal]

I also thought you shouldn't use melafix full dose with Bettas. I've had a bad experience with that as well.

I would just maybe keep the water really clean with every other day water changes or something.

I am glad he is healing well.

 

[WILDER]

I'm all so glad he's is on the mend, good sign when they are still eating well..

 

[boxman]

Good work! It looked really bad! Hope he recovers fully!