Injured Archer, Need Treatment?

[Dave Legacy]

Hi,

I have an injured archer (T. jaculatrix) that may need treatment. It jumped into some over hanging branches that I had setup above the water line and got a shallow gash on it's side from it's dorsal to anal fin. Seem that the scales have been damaged, maybe shallow flesh wound. The wound itself doesn't seem to be inflamed or oddly discolored and the archer seems to be swimming and feeding normally.

My question is, do I need to treat this? If so, how do I go about treating it and what should I use? I don't want the archer to die from infection or anything like that.

Thanks,
Dave

PS> SG is 1.014 if that matters at all in terms of infections.

 

[nmonks]

Fish heal astonishingly well, all else being equal. The saltiness of the water will be helping, but nonetheless, I'd add some anti fungus and fin rot medication as well. Once the scar forms, the rest should heal fine, but in the short term you need to make sure an opportunistic infection doesn't set in. Iodine applied directly to the wound has been used for this purpose on large fish like koi and works well, but you do need to remove the fish to do this.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[CFC]

I would be inclined to add some melafix to the tank (or home made equivilent) just to be on the safe side to prevent possible bacterial infections, removing the fish while injured could cause added stress which allows for infection to set in faster. I've always had good results using a tea tree solution to treat wounds like this, i make my own using 2ml of pure tea tree oil and 100ml of R/O or distilled water and just giving the bottle a really vigorous shake to combine the oil and water before each use.

 

[Dave Legacy]

I took your advice, guys, and got some AquaPharm Melaphix. I used a light dosage, I'm teriffied to kill of a tank that's been perfect up until now, but this stuff seems pretty safe. I probably should have made my own homemade blend, I didn't realize that's all this stuff was... HAHA.

 

[CFC]

Yeah the only difference with the API stuff is that is has an emulcifier to bind the oil and water permamently where as the home made stuff seperates after a while and needs to be shaken up before each use.

 

[Dave Legacy]

The bottle of API Melaphix instructs me to dose 5ml per 10US Gallons every day for 7 days, followed by a 25% Water Change. Do I really need to dose this much for 7 days? I'm on day 2 and the water is already getting frothy.

 

[CFC]

To be honest with my home made stuff i never even measure it i use a squeezee bottle and just squirt it in until it smells right. As long as you can smell the tea tree in the tank i wouldnt add any more, you could probably get away with half dosing, play it by "nose" and see how it goes.