Ulcers On Zebra Daino

[confusion]

I noticed one of my zebra danio nose down in some micro sword grass today. I looked at him closely and it looked like he had been shot through right behind his gills. One each side of his head was a big lump and a bloody looking hole. It really does look like he was shot. So, I got a net and went to scoop him out and off he went, still very much alive. I put him into my hospital tank that has some harlequins that are being QT'd and - one has a fungal infection I'm trying to get rid of.

The daino came from a 55G community tank with 2 pearl gouramis, 5 honey gold gouramis, 2 angels, 3 otos, 7 serpae tetras, 5 cherry barbs, 3 dwarf gouramis and 5 other zebra danios. This danio is one of the original fish from about 9 months ago. The stats are good, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 100 nitrate.

As far as what's changed, I have started being more regimented with CO2 and fertilizer for the plants, but I've done that before and I can't see them being related. I also added the 3 dwarf gouramis yesterday.

There are no other illnesses in the tank (that I know of - knock on wood).

I treated him with maracyn plus in the QT - hoping that would also help with the fungal infection. One big problem I have is that the QT is currently uncycled. I used some anti-fungal meds 2 days ago and that completely nuked the bio filter. I have added ammo lock as a stop gap, but it's not a good solution. I keep extra pieces of filter media in the filters of my other aquariums. After changing the water in the QT, I added some of that filter media, but no dice. Not sure if there is still meds lingering or if there just wasn't any bacteria on that filter media.

I am doing roughly 80% water changes per day on the QT, and I have a UV sterlizer going in there too, so I'm hoping that I'm giving him a good environment to heal. No idea if he's too far gone to recover, though.

Any idea what in the world is wrong with the daino, and what else should I be doing to trat him?

 

[WILDER]

Your nitrate reading is high need to get that down.
Looking at bacterial to parasite, it sounds bad to be honest, any signs of him rubbing his gills on objects.

There this hole in the side but not usually the gills.
But some info on meds.
http/www.nationalfishpharm.com/articles.html

If he's in issolation I would go in with tetracycline to be honest needs a good antibiotic.

 

[confusion]

Interesting. That sounds like what I have. It's not actually in the gills. It's maybe 3mm behind the gills. It's so close that you have to look close to see that the gills aren't involved.

 

[WILDER]

Can you get a magifying glass and see if you can see any worms in that area.

 

[confusion]

I can't see any. It's hard to get him to hold still for me to look at him through the mag. glass.

By the way, he is now swimming more or less normally.

 

[WILDER]

I know it's hard the only other thing to do is wrap the fish up in a cloth wet in tank water and wrap the fish in it, and take a closer look with the magifying glass.

But don't keep the fish out of the water to long, this way you will know if you are dealing with a parasite with a bacterial infection on top.

 

[confusion]

Will do. I forgot to mention, he is not rubbing or flicking.

 

[WILDER]

Ok thats a good sign then, just have to rule the parasite out thats all as they can cause nasty bacteria infections on top.
I would go the bacterila route then.
Good luck.

 

[confusion]

Thanks. One of my kids made off with the magnifying glass whilest I was responding to another post. ugh.

I have added tetracycline and turned up the airstone.

 

[WILDER]

Ok confusion good luck.