Pristella Tetra Wounded

Hey all, first post since this is our first tank! Almost a year with this 60 gallon freshwater tank and hardly any issues. We have 6 pristella tetras, 10 cardinal tetras, 4 albino corydora, 2 side suckers, and a bunch of assassin snails and live plants and wood/rocks. We haven't lost any fish yet, and we hope we won't for a long time.

Today got me worried. I just noticed one of my 6 pristella tetras had a big gash in its side and white stuff was coming out, almost like a little wad of toilet paper. The area around the gash was discolored, purple-ish. I took a bunch of pictures and rushed over to the local fish shop, but they said it didn't look like anything they'd ever seen before. When I got home an hour later, the white stuff was gone and it looks like the wound sealed, but little Scar still has that purple mark.

Do any of you recognize this? Is Scar going to be ok? He's also swimming a little funny, like his tail is weighing him down. Any advice is much appreciated :'(




Around 12pm:



Around 1pm:

 

Do you have a hospital tank you could put him in? Then you could treat him with some Melafix.

 

What most likely happen is your tetra got injured on something, possibly from another fish nipping, slamming into something, or the most likely; he got stuck inbetween something and couldn't get out. As for the white discharge, I would assume it is some type of bacterial infection. I would take him out and quarantine him immediately and treat him with some Melafix and some sort of anti-bacterial mediaction like API General Cure. If you can't quarantine, then treat your tank but just a fair warning, fish that are treated and have nothing wrong with them can grown an immunity to medications (Other than Melafix). So your best bet would be to buy a little 5 gallon bucket or rubbermaid tote so you can use that as a quarantine, pick yourself up a sponge filter, and there you go, a hospital/quarantine tank.

 

What most likely happen is your tetra got injured on something, possibly from another fish nipping, slamming into something, or the most likely; he got stuck inbetween something and couldn't get out. As for the white discharge, I would assume it is some type of bacterial infection. I would take him out and quarantine him immediately and treat him with some Melafix and some sort of anti-bacterial mediaction like API General Cure. If you can't quarantine, then treat your tank but just a fair warning, fish that are treated and have nothing wrong with them can grown an immunity to medications (Other than Melafix). So your best bet would be to buy a little 5 gallon bucket or rubbermaid tote so you can use that as a quarantine, pick yourself up a sponge filter, and there you go, a hospital/quarantine tank.

Thank you thank you, that's great advice. I will do that this week. I hope the poor guy pulls through. He's struggling to swim even as the other tetras sleep.

 

Thank you thank you, that's great advice. I will do that this week. I hope the poor guy pulls through. He's struggling to swim even as the other tetras sleep.

That's unfortunate, I am sorry to hear that. That's why it's important to take him out and quarantine him so he can relax a little bit. Right now he's in that tank surrounded by other fish so he feels like he constantly needs to be moving which stresses them out even more, not to mention your water flow in the tank pushing him around I'm sure. That's why I always have a little tank setup for a hospital tank with 1 sponge filter so fish can relax as they heal up.

 

Just got a little 3.5 gallon tank, I know it's small but I'm limited on stable tank surfaces at the moment. Prepped it and tested the water and everything, then moved him over. Moving him was the hardest part, he got so scared of the net and kept hiding. I'm a little heartbroken but I know it's best! Now for a 7 day melafix program. I hope he calms down and heals quickly. The move was a little stressful.

 

That's unfortunate, I am sorry to hear that. That's why it's important to take him out and quarantine him so he can relax a little bit. Right now he's in that tank surrounded by other fish so he feels like he constantly needs to be moving which stresses them out even more, not to mention your water flow in the tank pushing him around I'm sure. That's why I always have a little tank setup for a hospital tank with 1 sponge filter so fish can relax as they heal up.

It's been two days since the move, yesterday he seemed calmer and was swimming around mostly normally, but this morning I woke up and saw he was swimming worse than before, head up tail down. I've been doing the melafix treatment and feeding a tiny bit of dried food twice a day. I did some research and came up with a few possibilities. Going to keep trying to help Scar with anything I can. If you have any ideas I'm open to hearing them!!

 

Update: sadly we lost little Scar a few weeks ago. We had him in a quarantine tank and we treated him with Melafix, fed him a small amount of peas and normal fish food every day or every other day, and kept the lights low to keep him calm. He was really struggling towards the end, basically swimming vertically. One day we woke up to find him lying at the bottom of the tank. I know many fish owners go through this, but it was still heartbreaking to lose our first fish.

My concern now is that one of the other pristella tetras is recently showing the same warning signs we failed to notice in Scar: very slight change of swimming pattern, seems to be struggling slightly to keep level, tail weighing her down. Does this sound like a disease that can be passed from fish to fish? None of the other tetras have this issue. I'm worried we're about to lose another fish.