Please Help! Injured Bumblebee Catfish

Hoping someone can help me.. I have an injured/sick bumblee catfish... will fill in below template for where he is NOW: which is a hospital tank...

• What is the water volume of the tank? - 16l

• Does it have a filter? - cycled sponge filter taken from existing tank he came from before separation

• Does it have a heater? - usually but in Australia it’s summer so temperature is a steady 24-26deg C without heater atm.

• What is the water temperature? - 24deg (it’s nighttime)

• What is the entire stocking of this tank? (Please list all fish and inverts.) - alone now. Before was with bristlenose, few apple and trumpet snails. Guppies and 3 petricolas.

Maintenance

• How often do you change the water? Weekly

• How much of the water do you change? 30%

• What do you use to treat your water? Prime

• Do you vacuum the substrate or just the water? - vaccum

Parameters

• Did you cycle your tank before adding fish? - Yes

• What do you use to test the water? API freshwater test kit

• What are your parameters? We need the exact numbers, not just “fine” or “safe”.

Ammonia: 0.
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 40
pH: 7.6

Feeding

• How often do you feed your fish? Once daily (remove if not eaten within 30 min)

• How much do you feed your fish? - He isn’t eating anything at the moment

• What brand of food do you feed your fish? - variety of API, hikari, and seachem and frozen bloodworms on different days

• Do you feed frozen or freeze-dried foods? Usually frozen if any of the 2

Illness & Symptoms:

• How long have you had this fish? This particular one 3 months

• How long ago did you first notice these symptoms? - Tuesday evening so 3 days ago

• In a few words, (more room for details below) what are the symptoms? - hole in side of face. Either attacked or disease? Unsure...

• Have you started any treatment for the illness? Was told to add salt to water and treat with pimafix and melafix

• Was your fish physically ill or injured upon purchase? No

• How has its behavior and appearance changed, if at all? Hard to say as he’s separated. I’ve given him a cave and he isn’t going in there though which is odd for his normal behaviour - which is I rarely see him so I don’t even know if he’s been like this for a while. Swimming ok it seems but is now swimming at the top of the water level. Not trying to get air that I can tell just swimming horizontally like normal but along the top.

Please explain your emergency in the best detail possible.
Not much more to tell I suppose? I thought he must have been attacked but now not too sure. It’s pretty sever and there isn’t anything in the tank that I can see which would hurt him like that.

 

I'm not certain that I am seeing that picture correctly. Is that an actual hole through his cheek area, showing the interior of the mouth and part of the gills? If so, I am sorry to say that I think that fish should be euthanized. That is severe, missing tissue and bone will not grow back.

I would be looking around hard for an explanation for this, to prevent any other of your fish from suffering the same fate.

 

I'm not certain that I am seeing that picture correctly. Is that an actual hole through his cheek area, showing the interior of the mouth and part of the gills? If so, I am sorry to say that I think that fish should be euthanized. That is severe, missing tissue and bone will not grow back.

I would be looking around hard for an explanation for this, to prevent any other of your fish from suffering the same fate.

Hey...
Yes from what I can tell it’s a hole. I thought that will be the next option as in the last 3 days he hasn’t improved (if anything it looks maybe worse) and hasn’t eaten or shown any interest in food.

There is honestly nothing I can think of unless another fish has done this to him?
Or some flesh eating disease I should be keeping an eye out for?

I separated him immediate after finding him.

Thank you for your response! If no better ideas come up I will likely take work out a way to euthanise him tomorrow ...

 

I am sorry but I agree with jjohnwm it doesn't look like he will make it

 

I ‘adopted’ him from someone closing down their tank. Along with 12 loaches that were all very skinny and malnourished. One has a twisted spine .. so I suspect maybe their previous home wasn’t the greatest.
Have been keeping fish for a few years now and have a 6ft cichlid- catfish tank so I’m not super new to the hobby. But I’ve never had any issues with disease or anything with my fish and I’ve never seen anything like this before so suddenly! Which was why I thought it might have been attacked by someone...

Thank you for your comments.. although grI'm I don’t want him to suffer longer if he isn’t likely to make it.

I love all my fish.

 

Few more pictures ...

 

I'm so sorry this happened. If you do need to euthanize, you may find this article helpful:

 

I'm so sorry this happened. If you do need to euthanize, you may find this article helpful:

Thank you!
I have read that article before and will call someone tomorrow to help me do it. I simply can’t do it myself hey. Maybe if I had clove oil or something but certainly not physically.
I appreciated your response thanks

 

Clove isn't terribly hard to find, at least in the US. A lot of pharmacies carry it (no prescription necessary, but you may have to ask the pharmacist), as do many natural food stores and anywhere that sells aromatherapy oils. And of course it can be ordered online. It's a good thing to have on had. Of course it's awful to need it, but even worse to need it and not have it.

 

Clove isn't terribly hard to find, at least in the US. A lot of pharmacies carry it (no prescription necessary, but you may have to ask the pharmacist), as do many natural food stores and anywhere that sells aromatherapy oils. And of course it can be ordered online. It's a good thing to have on had. Of course it's awful to need it, but even worse to need it and not have it.

I have been meaning to buy online but just haven’t got around to it. Won’t likely come in time now but I will order for future anyway... I’ve not actually tried to look tbh.
What is the dosage?

 

Does it appear to anyone else that these pics show the condition in different stages? Almost like some sort of deterioration rather than a traumatic injury?

Is there a piscine version of necrotizing fasciitis, i.e. flesh-eating disease? Except this appears to be affecting actual bone as well as soft tissue. Very curious and disturbing. I think I would be keeping a close watch on the other fish in this tank.

 

Does it appear to anyone else that these pics show the condition in different stages? Almost like some sort of deterioration rather than a traumatic injury?

Is there a piscine version of necrotizing fasciitis, i.e. flesh-eating disease? Except this appears to be affecting actual bone as well as soft tissue. Very curious and disturbing. I think I would be keeping a close watch on the other fish in this tank.

Hmm I don’t know much about fish diseases, but it does appear to be getting considerably worse as time goes on. All those pictures were taken tonight except for the last one I think which was the day I noticed it. (Tuesday night)

Does the fish have to be injured or sick for the flesh eating disease to appear or take hold if you will?
I also don’t know a lot about fish anatomy but is there usually bone on the face area there or just tissue?

 

I don't even know if there is a version of that disease to which fish are susceptible; hoping someone with more knowledge in this area pipes up here. But looking at those three pics, it sure looks like the last pic was taken first, the middle pic next, and the pic in the first post was taken't most recently? Because the condition looks worse in each one if that is the order in which they were taken.

Certainly, there is still soft tissue on the face, but that area has a lot of bone very close to the skin, and in those pics the deterioration appears to be affecting that bone as well. Again, I don't know that much about diseases, I'm just trying to interpret what I'm seeing.

 

I don't even know if there is a version of that disease to which fish are susceptible; hoping someone with more knowledge in this area pipes up here. But looking at those three pics, it sure looks like the last pic was taken first, the middle pic next, and the pic in the first post was taken't most recently? Because the condition looks worse in each one if that is the order in which they were taken.

Certainly, there is still soft tissue on the face, but that area has a lot of bone very close to the skin, and in those pics the deterioration appears to be affecting that bone as well. Again, I don't know that much about diseases, I'm just trying to interpret what I'm seeing.

Thank you! I appreciate any feedback even if it’s just to learn from this experience.
All other fish seem ok but will be keeping a closer eye on them and water parameters for the next few weeks +

Re-looking at the pics I posted you would be absolutely correct. Each one about a day or so apart. So it’s definitely not getting better from the medication so will do the necessary this morning so he doesn’t suffer any more.
Poor thing is probably starving too and by the looks of the way he is swimming I’m presuming not getting enough oxygen from his gill

Oh this is terrible I hate the thought of anyone suffering... I will sort it now I can’t wait any longer for a miracle cure...