Catfish with flesh/bone disease?

[Yellowcat]

I recently acquired (3 weeks ago) some African Dwarf Giraffe catfish, 2 species. One of them, a notoglanidium macrostoma, showed what appears to be some kind of skin and bone flesh eating disease?
It went all the through the gill plate and exposed the gills. Her respiration was rapid (no wonder) but still continued to feed. Sadly, the fish died this morning. Another of the same species may have shown symptoms, not sure as they hide, need to check further on today. When I first noticed the symptoms about a week ago, I added aquarium salt as directed on the box and started treating with melafix and pimafix. Water temp is 78-80 degrees, PH 6.5, 0 ammonia level. I have several catfish from 10 to over 20 years old and treated and saved many fish from various diseases and wounds but have never seen anything like this. Having read this forum a bit I suspect it may be columnaris or HITH. I will admit to being an amateur when it comes to diagnosing diseases, especially something I've never encountered before. Any clues would be greatly appreciated...

 

[Hendre]

That's absolutely nuts! From what I have seen these are often bacterial in nature, never seen it in fish

Assemble the gang! Oddball tlindsey kno4te Charney

 

[tlindsey]

Never seen anything like that. Sorry for the loss.

 

[pescado209]

tagged. I had a subunkin comet get something similiar, half his face was eaten, treated in a similar way but little guy died

no other goldfish got sick and I was always curious as to what happened or caused it. hopefully someone will know.

 

[kno4te]

Sorry for the loss. Unfortunately most of the time would be treating empirically. Could be columnaris. In this case with skin exposed and how fast it deteriorated. Better to treat with antibiotics. Would avoid pimafix and melafix in this case.

If it's a clean wound then it'll help.

 

[Yellowcat]

Thanks for the input, so far! That said, I've been known to bark up the wrong tree in the past when diagnosing as well as treating for diseases. In this case, it also seems that there is the possibility that the injury to this fish may be the result of a wound that got infected? When I first noticed a problem with this fish was when one side of it's face, gill plate (operculum) was very red, the other side, fine. The size of the wound/infection in that same place continued to worsen the following days. I reckoned the fish had possibly been 'spined' by another catfish, hence the initial treatment with melafix. It's basically an all catfish tank with a 4 " bushynose pleco, 4-2" parauchenoglanis dwarf giraffe cats, 2-4" platysilurus mucous and two other 3" n. macrostoma, all recent introductions within the last month or so. All these species hide in the many pieces of driftwood provided and of course compete for their ultimate territorial favorite spots. The larger pleco in particular has some wicked pectoral spines and could be capable of piercing the operculum of a smaller tankmate. At this point it may be a result of fish fighting over hiding spots and a subsequent infected wound or a dreaded disease. Gotten a peek at one of the n. macrostoma and one parauchenoglanis and they look just fine. Ultimately time will tell what's up, or not… I don't want to waste anyone's time trying to diagnose something that may not be a disease so if that turns out to be the case, accept my apology, please!

 

[Charney]

that looks like a nasty infection. I would put money on bacterial for sure.

 

[Rocksor]

it could be furunculosis aka hole in the side disease

 

[Yellowcat]

Thanks Roksor, had to look that one up and yes, the symptoms and photo's of infected fish seen during searches are very close to the lesions/ulcers on my one fish. Learned it is a bacterial infection, perhaps in part exacerbated by an open wound, in any case a gram negative bacteria to be treated with one of various sulfa medications which I'll get today at my LFS. I haven't observed symptoms in any other of my fish as yet, just brief glimpses of some of them as all are very nocturnal and only come out to feed in darkness. Aside from the reclusive catfish there's also a dozen guppies, a Buenos Aires Tetra, and some kind of African Calvus cichlid that appear healthy. So far, so good, still treating with the Melafix and Pimafix and Seachem PolyGuard that contains sulfathiazole and malachite green which may help? Taking a conservative approach and intend to monitor for any signs of furunculosis, get the proper med's on hand in case I need 'em and do a water change in a couple of days, replacing the salt removed. There is the temptation to treat the tank with all kinds of med's and chemicals that may or may not be indicated which could do more harm than good and have negative side effects to fish and good bacteria so I won't. Still possible it was just a badly infected wound...