Dwarf Gourami Bacterial Infection

[thedodd64]

I've had this powder blue dwarf gourami for a few weeks in a 20G long tank, heavily planted, with one female neon dwarf gourami, two honey gouramis, and three ghost shrimp, and after one week he developed a lump just above a small red spot on his side that looked like an injury that would easily heal.
I looked all over the internet and spoke to my LFS and of course all my findings suggested dwarf gourami disease or dwarf gourami iridovirus, because people tend to jump to that conclusion when it is a dwarf gourami and there is any lesion involved. I am convinced that it is neither of these because my gourami has not had any lethargy and he has been very active and eating plenty. He even loves to shoot water out the top of the tank!
After a few days, the scales covering the lump started standing up completely with red skin showing underneath. After a day or two of this, the scales fell off completely and he was left with a large red patch on his side where the lump was. At this point, my research had pointed to a bacterial infection, so I bought some Furan-2 and KanaPlex to treat him. I also got some Paraguard to protect against any secondary fungal infections.
I've put him in a 5G quarantine tank and dosed Furan-2 and fed him dried bloodworms soaked in a solution with KanaPlex. After three or four days, the lump has almost completely disappeared! The only problem is that his wound still looks terrible and doesn't seem to be healing. When looking at it from the side, I can't tell if there is fungus or if there is just decaying flesh. I'm not sure how I should continue treating this moving forward. Just this morning, he has been a little less active than usual and is a bit slow to eat, but this could be due to loneliness/stress from medication.

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 10ppm
PH: 7.0
Temp: 78F

He is currently sitting at the top of the tank lightly breathing and isn't moving. Please help!

 

[AtomicFish]

wow that is a pretty big wound im surprised it hasn't died yet. I don't really know anything about fish healing or wounds but I suppose about the best thing you can do is keep the water clean. I hope someone else can chime in on this.

 

[corylover5]

@Colin_T

 

[itiwhetu]

I take it that jar was just for the photo. Make sure he has lots of plants and is kept warm, with nobody that can annoy him. and try to find him some live food like mosquito larva to get him excited about life

 

[thedodd64]

I take it that jar was just for the photo. Make sure he has lots of plants and is kept warm, with nobody that can annoy him. and try to find him some live food like mosquito larva to get him excited about life

Yes, he was only in it for about an hour. The 5G quarantine tank has sterilized driftwood and rocks and one bamboo plant. Does the KanaPlex and Furan-2 route seem to be the right one? I have also heard mixed reviews about using Erythromycin, which treats only gram positive bacteria while apparently most fish infections are from gram negative bacteria.

 

[itiwhetu]

I no nothing about meds. just wait someone will help you. Hope he gets better.

 

[Colin_T]

That's just gross even by my standards. The skin has peeled off and left the muscle tissue behind.

The fish had/ has a bacterial infection and you need to continue using the medication for at least 4 days (preferably a week) after it has healed. This gives the wound a chance to heal over properly before you stop using the medication.

I would probably euthanise the fish but if you have the medication and want to try, keep treating it for at least another week.

Don't lift the fish out of water when cleaning the tank or moving it to photograph. Put it in a small container of water so the wound isn't exposed to the air.

-------------------
When you use medications, wipe the inside of the tank down, clean the filter and do a 90-100% water change and gravel clean the substrate before re-treating the fish. This provides a cleaner environment for the fish and gives them more chance of recovering.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Make sure there is no carbon in the filter. Carbon will remove medications from the water.

Only have a very thin layer of substrate in the tank, less than 1/4 inch.

Take the driftwood out of the quarantine tank and make sure you use the correct dose rates for the medication.

-------------------
To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

You can use a permanent marker to draw a line on the tank at the water level and put down how many litres are in the tank at that level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "FishForum.net Calculator" under "Useful Links" at the bottom of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

 

[thedodd64]

That's just gross even by my standards. The skin has peeled off and left the muscle tissue behind.

The fish had/ has a bacterial infection and you need to continue using the medication for at least 4 days (preferably a week) after it has healed. This gives the wound a chance to heal over properly before you stop using the medication.

I would probably euthanise the fish but if you have the medication and want to try, keep treating it for at least another week.

Don't lift the fish out of water when cleaning the tank or moving it to photograph. Put it in a small container of water so the wound isn't exposed to the air.

-------------------
When you use medications, wipe the inside of the tank down, clean the filter and do a 90-100% water change and gravel clean the substrate before re-treating the fish. This provides a cleaner environment for the fish and gives them more chance of recovering.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Make sure there is no carbon in the filter. Carbon will remove medications from the water.

Only have a very thin layer of substrate in the tank, less than 1/4 inch.

Take the driftwood out of the quarantine tank and make sure you use the correct dose rates for the medication.

-------------------
To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

You can use a permanent marker to draw a line on the tank at the water level and put down how many litres are in the tank at that level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "FishForum.net Calculator" under "Useful Links" at the bottom of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Thank you for the great information! Unfortunately, he died this morning.
I agree, it may have been better to euthanize him at the state he was in, but he hadn't been displaying any behavioral abnormalities until just yesterday evening. Hopefully I will be able to nip this kind of thing in the bud if it comes for one of my other dwarf gouramis.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Thank you for the great information! Unfortunately, he died this morning.
I agree, it may have been better to euthanize him at the state he was in, but he hadn't been displaying any behavioral abnormalities until just yesterday evening. Hopefully I will be able to nip this kind of thing in the bud if it comes for one of my other dwarf gouramis.

I'm sorry for your loss Hope that none of the others come down with the same thing, it looks terrible.