Sailfin Ulcer

[Deesongsinger]

Hello there, I am new here and would really like some helpful advise; we bought a beautiful sailfin just a few days ago, he is huge (about 14inches long) and we have him in a big tank all by himself at the moment. His name is 'Brutus' and he is a real character; however, on getting him home in a big box and having had him take the skin off my knuckles getting him from box to tank, we noticed that he has a large sore on his belly. The sore stretches across his tummy and is a sort of fleshy/creamy colour, with two redish raised lumps in it, the outer edge of the sore seems to be quite white. The reason we did not see this before bringing him home was that every time we went to see him at the aquarium shop, he was suckered onto the tank not showing his tummy, we do not blame the shop as they would not have seen it either without having taken him out to have a look at him. He is lively and he is eating normally, he swims and glides about the tank and hides in his bogwood cave, he rasps the tank the wood and the gravel, so he is acting just as he should but we are very concerned about this ulcer/sore. Has anyone got any helpful advise, please dont tell us to take him back, he is already a member of the family and I could not part with him now, so please anything helpful would put a smile on my face. thanks

 

[Jpmc™]

Hello there, I am new here and would really like some helpful advise; we bought a beautiful sailfin just a few days ago, he is huge (about 14inches long) and we have him in a big tank all by himself at the moment. His name is 'Brutus' and he is a real character; however, on getting him home in a big box and having had him take the skin off my knuckles getting him from box to tank, we noticed that he has a large sore on his belly. The sore stretches across his tummy and is a sort of fleshy/creamy colour, with two redish raised lumps in it, the outer edge of the sore seems to be quite white. The reason we did not see this before bringing him home was that every time we went to see him at the aquarium shop, he was suckered onto the tank not showing his tummy, we do not blame the shop as they would not have seen it either without having taken him out to have a look at him. He is lively and he is eating normally, he swims and glides about the tank and hides in his bogwood cave, he rasps the tank the wood and the gravel, so he is acting just as he should but we are very concerned about this ulcer/sore. Has anyone got any helpful advise, please dont tell us to take him back, he is already a member of the family and I could not part with him now, so please anything helpful would put a smile on my face. thanks

OK, I need the usuals.

Tank size
Ammonia
NitrItes
NitrAtes
Ph
Temperature

Does it look really bad? Wilder or Colin T are the best here for prescribing.

 

[Deesongsinger]

Hello there, I am new here and would really like some helpful advise; we bought a beautiful sailfin just a few days ago, he is huge (about 14inches long) and we have him in a big tank all by himself at the moment. His name is 'Brutus' and he is a real character; however, on getting him home in a big box and having had him take the skin off my knuckles getting him from box to tank, we noticed that he has a large sore on his belly. The sore stretches across his tummy and is a sort of fleshy/creamy colour, with two redish raised lumps in it, the outer edge of the sore seems to be quite white. The reason we did not see this before bringing him home was that every time we went to see him at the aquarium shop, he was suckered onto the tank not showing his tummy, we do not blame the shop as they would not have seen it either without having taken him out to have a look at him. He is lively and he is eating normally, he swims and glides about the tank and hides in his bogwood cave, he rasps the tank the wood and the gravel, so he is acting just as he should but we are very concerned about this ulcer/sore. Has anyone got any helpful advise, please dont tell us to take him back, he is already a member of the family and I could not part with him now, so please anything helpful would put a smile on my face. thanks

OK, I need the usuals.

Tank size
Ammonia
NitrItes
NitrAtes
Ph
Temperature

Does it look really bad? Wilder or Colin T are the best here for prescribing.

Hi there, thanks for the reply

Tank size 400ltrs
Ammonia .50
Nitrites .25
Nitrates 20
PH 7.6
Temperature 27c

As for appearance, it does not look too pretty but it does not seem to be bothering him, he is not scratching it on anything and he is eating well and doing his megga poohs, he is swimming about the tank and rasping on everything in it. He is obviously quieter during the day but come half nine tonight he will be flexing his muscles in a fine display for us, his eyes are not sunken at all and his tummy is a normal size so he is not malnourished. he is using his sail and all his fins as normal so no clamping etc... his mouth parts all look in good order and the rest of his body is a nice even colour, his fins tail and sail are all well formed with no ragged bits, if it helps clarify things we can post a pic of the sore as we have taken some of it to show the shop when I go in next week because although I do not intend taking him back unless nothing can be done for him, I will be after some kind of compensation as he was not cheap and it is going to cost money to get him 100% well again.

 

[indigoj]

Ok your first problem is the presence of ammonia and nitrite so plently of water changes required as these will definitely not be helping. Was the tank fully cycled before you put him in there? (sorry if this sounds obvious but if it was please give a brief description of how this was done too - lots of people say oh yes of course it was only for them to have simply let water sit in the tank for a week)

The sore itself sounds like it could be a cut that is healing? Pics will definitely help with that.

 

[Deesongsinger]

Ok your first problem is the presence of ammonia and nitrite so plently of water changes required as these will definitely not be helping. Was the tank fully cycled before you put him in there? (sorry if this sounds obvious but if it was please give a brief description of how this was done too - lots of people say oh yes of course it was only for them to have simply let water sit in the tank for a week)

The sore itself sounds like it could be a cut that is healing? Pics will definitely help with that.

Hi there,
yes we set the tank up especially for Brutus, we have a huge external filter as well as the juwel internal filter, he has been in the tank since Sunday afternoon and we gave it a 50litre water change last night (Tuesday) to bring the PH down, I will get Mike (My Husband) to post some pics asap. so would you say that we ned to change the water again? and what would you recommend as far as meds go?

 

[indigoj]

How did you cycle the tank?

You need to change the water any time there are readings of ammonia or nitrite - at least 50% right now really to bring the ammonia to 0.25 and then test again in the morning - if it is higher than 0.25 do 50% change, if lower than 0.25 do a 30% change. If they are both back to zero then I'd do a 15% anyway to keep the water super clean until that sore heals.

Post pics before any meds can be recommended, also check the tank for any sharp egges. Oh do you have a heater guard too? some plecs can be prone to burns from taking a liking to sitting on heaters.

 

[Deesongsinger]

How did you cycle the tank?

You need to change the water any time there are readings of ammonia or nitrite - at least 50% right now really to bring the ammonia to 0.25 and then test again in the morning - if it is higher than 0.25 do 50% change, if lower than 0.25 do a 30% change. If they are both back to zero then I'd do a 15% anyway to keep the water super clean until that sore heals.

Post pics before any meds can be recommended, also check the tank for any sharp egges. Oh do you have a heater guard too? some plecs can be prone to burns from taking a liking to sitting on heaters.

Hello,
We set the tank up last Wednesday so a week ago today, we used JBL Denitrol tank starter as recommended by the shop, yes there is a heater guard, but Brutus had this sore/cut/ulcer when we got him, it was just not visable until we actually put him in the tank and he started swimming about, he had been suckered onto the sidewall of the shop tanks and they are set up in such a way as not to show the underbelly from that view, you can only see directly straight into the front of the tanks, so the only way we would have seen it prior to getting him home would be if he had suckered onto the front glass of the tank.
I went into our local store yesterday and took some pics in with me, the guy there recommended 'Bacteria control' and 'Stress coat' which we have added at the recommended doseage, taking out both charcoal filters beforehand, would you recommend the water change and no more meds for now? or water change and add meds again?

 

[indigoj]

Oh dear. Please please please read the section in beginners on cycling a tank. You now have a very large messy fish in an uncycled tank. You are going to need daily 50% water changes as a very minimum until the good bacteria develops. This can take anything from 2-8 weeks.

The tank starters in a bottle are pretty much useless - a few of us have seen that they can help shorten the time cycling the tank takes and can be beneficial when adding new fish to an existing tank but they will not cycle a tank alone - an ammonia source is required for that.

Concentrate on water changes for now, if you want to use the meds then you will need to re-dose according to how much water you remove.

Stress coat is just dechlorinator - I presume you already had a different brand of dechlorinator?

 

[Deesongsinger]

Oh dear. Please please please read the section in beginners on cycling a tank. You now have a very large messy fish in an uncycled tank. You are going to need daily 50% water changes as a very minimum until the good bacteria develops. This can take anything from 2-8 weeks.

The tank starters in a bottle are pretty much useless - a few of us have seen that they can help shorten the time cycling the tank takes and can be beneficial when adding new fish to an existing tank but they will not cycle a tank alone - an ammonia source is required for that.

Concentrate on water changes for now, if you want to use the meds then you will need to re-dose according to how much water you remove.

Stress coat is just dechlorinator - I presume you already had a different brand of dechlorinator?

thank you very much,
the advise is more than welcome and now we have at least got something we can aim at, we will be doing the water changes as from when I finish here tonight; you mentioned the fact that plecs like sitting on a heater and this can burn them, after reading your words, I thought about it and actually it does look like a burn, and I am wondering if the heaters in the shop tanks are guarded. The other thing I have thought about is that he was in a tank with a very very large catfish and every time we saw him in the tank he was imobile, it was almost as though he was afraid to move in case he got attacked by the catfish, from the moment he settled into this tank he has been having a grand old time and seems very happy in his environment; as I type, he is out suckered onto the front of the tank and is rasping away loud enough that I can actually hear him, with intermediate breaks off the glass to go for an exploration of his domain. You are right he is a very messy fish, I have never seen so much fish pooh from one fish, we have a community tank in the other room and it is well stocked but even they do not make so much pooh, we also have a very large pond full of Koi carp, Goldfish, Tench and shabumkins so you might guess that we are a bit fanatical about our fish, now you might ask why we were not sure about the cycling aspect, well when we bought the community tank, it came ready cycled with the fish stock insitu so all we had to do was reset it and keep it going, this new tank we have started from scratch, the pond is something both my husband and I are used to and know what we are doing so we dont have any probs apart from the local cats and the bloody heron which we have taken care of by installing an electric fence round the pond, it works and all we hear now and then is a loud screech as either a cat puts its nose on it or a heron tries to land on it but the fish are all OK so are the newts the lizards and frogs. On top of that lot we have three huge hairy muts of various denomination and we are about to rescue a few ex bat hens to add to the family; yep we are bonkers but we are happy, OK, we will post some pics and you can give us your views as to if you think this wound is a burn or something else but for now take care and thanks again for your help,
Dawn

 

[indigoj]

Hiya Dawn,

The fact that you have a tank and pond is a massive help - take a little bit of the filter media from your tank and pond filters and put them in your filters on the plec tank - this will transfer some good bacteria. (don't wash it or anything) That should mean your tank cycles much much quicker.

Good Luck

 

[indigoj]

How's things today?