This Hoplo Just Never Ceases To Get Into A Ton Of Problems...

[FishBlast]

This morning, he had a yellow bump between his nostril-like things next to the mouth. It looked as if a grain of sand was trapped there. An hour later, the thing just fell off... but now he has a round hole in there, as if whatever that thing was ate through his face. It's not a big hole but it is perfectly round and is between the 2 nostrils on his right side. (making it look like he has 3 nostrils instead of 2 on that side).
What could that yellow thing have been? A parasite animal? It all happened so fast...
He's ok, still feeding, but now has that odd hole...
No change in water parameters. Both ammonia and nitrite resulted as 0.
So I suspect it was either a sand piece that he sucked into his nose and got stuck there (but why did it drill a hole so fast?) or some kind of parasite, but what could it be? Fish tick?

 

[FishBlast]

Things are getting weirder:
when the hoplo sits still, he seems to be exhibiting labored breathing and a tiny fish is hiding in the moss, but it usually would be out in the open swimming with the adults... Did another nitrite test, came back 0, doing an ammonia test again, waiting for results. Increased bubbles from the filter but no improvement. Could it be the huge temperature causing the increased breathing?

And I have yet to find out just what caused that hole in my hoplo's nose. It looked like a baby apple snail (swirly pattern and same yellow color) but it can't be, these snails are not mystery snails. And normally they should not cause such holes.

Checked out hole in the head, doesn't match... No mentions of yellow hard stuff sitting on the fish for a few hours and then falling, leaving a hole.

Changed 11L of water with some cooler water, the fry got out of hiding but the hoplo's breathing is still the same...

 

[Bugdozer]

Didn't you stab this fish in the face with a tweezer a few weeks ago? Could that be connected to it?

 

[FishBlast]

Didn't you stab this fish in the face with a tweezer a few weeks ago? Could that be connected to it?

-.- Yeah, but this happened waay too fast and it all happened over the span of like... 3 hours. It was something yellow that appeared to be an animal that dug itself a hole in the fish... I have yet to find it, but it was about 2 mm in size and appeared to have a swirl. Looked suspiciously like an apple snail.
Now it's just a hole, as if something ate out of my catfish...

The hole also isn't in the area where the wound was made, that wound was just above his moustaches. This hole is between 2 of his nostrils. He frequently gets sand in the nostrils but no sand grain ever turned that yellow...

And the tweezer wound has healed a long time ago.

 

[FishBlast]

Another thing that should be considered is that lately he's been guarding some swordtail fry and will occasionally ram other fish away. Could he have rammed his head so hard into a sand grain that it would sink in his face like that? Doesn't seem plausible though...

 

[FishBlast]

He seems fine today, but the hole's still there. Will it close up? Or is it going to stay like that?