[awilson0001]

my wife had an open wound on a blue ram months ago. it died shortly after, and one by one the other rams died with-in weeks.
since then, i removed all the fish and bleached the tank and boiled the deco. the fish where placed back in the tank after it cycled and so forth, and all was fine for probably near two months.

now here it is again... one of her angel fish has open sores, like ulcers maybe. it has had them for over a week, and we thought they were getting better. i looked today, and i am thinking it is actually worse.

is this common? a parasite? what causes this? should we treat the whole tank or just the fish?

i dont want my wife to lose more of her babies. i am gonna go check the water. any help would be awesome!

 

[awilson0001]

okay, i checked the amon and nitrites, both are at zero. the nitrites are maybe slightly off of zero, but i only say that cause the color isnt a crystal clear blue. it is still blue, but i can tell its slightly off. just to be safe ill do a water change too and toss in some known good bacteria from another tank.

 

[awilson0001]

is this like an unkwown illness? does no one have any ideas or comments?
poor angel fishy

 

[DJRansome]

I am not good with open wounds, so left this one for others. Maybe this will help. If you will post your pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? And has the fish gotten better, worse or stayed the same since your original post?

I think you said nitrite was zero but the color was a little off. What I do in that situation is estimate how far off the color is between zero and 0.25 and post the estimate.

Still only one fish impacted? Is it eating, swimming, breathing and pooping normally? No symptoms other than the ulcers?

You said the tank was re-cycled (finished two months ago). Were the weekly test results during the last two months always ammonia=0 and nitrite=0? If everything is zero now, but there was a little variation over the last two months, that could help with the diagnosis.

 

[awilson0001]

good idea, thank you.

the tank was recycled with nitrites and ammonia staying at zero. it stayed that way for like a month before i added fish. i waited the month to be sure everything looked okay for awhile after the bleaching.
like i said, this happened before once. that time the tank had been up and running fine for about 8 months. thats when a blue ram started showing ulcers.
that time i tested and the nitrites were like .5

my wife lacked the responsibility and the filter was running slow, so i think the bacteria may have starved due to poor water flow.

anyhoot, this time the water tests for zero for both ammonia and nitrites. the nitrites was a bit off color but was still blue, so i would say zero.

the ph of the water we have is about 7.6
all of our fish are in the same water ph and we dont try to alter it. i have heard its better to keep it constant.
i didnt test the nitrates at the time. maybe i should have, but the water had a 75% change done three weeks before this happened.
the tank is a 60 hexagon.
fish list is:
1 ghost knife
5 gourami
5 angels
2 kribensis
1 fancy goldfish
so not heavily stocked, and they are fed only once per day.
so...
ph 7.6
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates- not sure what they were sorry, but after the water change the other day it was like 10 or so (50%)

 

[HDrydr]

I am stumped on this one too... My only advice is to keep up on water changes to keep the water clean and I use Melafix on open wounds and fin issues..
good luck...

 

[awilson0001]

thanks Hdrydr. appreciate the response.
i got the angel fish and one other i found in a 10 gallon tank for treatment. hope it goes well.

 

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

I would treat with melafix, if anything it'll lessen the chance of secondary infections