Hey, so hopefully I can explain this enough to make sense and get some ideas to move forward with. I bought a few Ropefish just over a year ago, they're all doing well. Back in January I decided to buy one more to add to the gang. He didn't appear to have any issues but I like to take my sweet time and quarantine for a month or two anyway to make sure.
The quarantine setup is a 10g with a sponge filter, cycled.. and a couple little fake logs to hide in. I've been doing debris siphon and top off with prime and a tsp per gallon salt, usually 25-50% every couple days, sometimes daily. Temperature is around 82, ammonia and nitrite are zero, nitrate is usually between the 20-40 range. It had tons of floating wisteria until I noticed he was having some problems, was easier to keep an eye on him without it.
So sure enough he started showing issues, looked like a small bump, then turned into a pea sized bulge with a bit of redness. I fed him some frozen brine/mysis/bloodworm mixed with Kanaplex, Focus and Garlic Guard once per day to try to keep any secondary infections under control. Swelling and redness went away fairly quick but solving the root of the problem is still a work in progress. I haven't been dosing the water column aside from the salt.
I've noticed a lot of times he'll have something start working it's way out of his side, it doesn't appear to be alive, it's not anchor worms it anything like that, it isn't really anchored in any way, I can just brush by it with the airline tube and it'll siphon it straight off. It almost looks like maybe he wound up getting some of his food suck to his side, but I always try to siphon any remaining food out, so I'm curious if maybe he's got a hole in his stomach or something that's forcing its way out his side... After a few months of this off and on I'm not sure if that's plsusable or not.
He's always responsive, swims and acts normal, and doesn't refuse any frozen food medicated or not... seems to poop regularly enough although it's kind of think and dark looking... that might be normal or because of his diet though so I'm not sure if that's a sign of anything, I've only heard of people being concerned about white and stringy so the opposite. I haven't been able to find anything remotely like this in any parasite or bacterial infection searches...
I don't have any photos on this device from when it was bulged out but there's a few photos showing how it looks before, during and after, once the debris is removed it appears mostly normal around the area but as if he's missing a couple scales making a bit of a hole in his side...
I've been hoping regular water changes would eventually clear it up but I'm wondering if I should trying metro dosed food or just fasting him maybe if it were a tear in his stomach or something it might not be getting enough time to heal up...
Anyone ever experienced something like this, I appreciate any help,
Thanks!
The quarantine setup is a 10g with a sponge filter, cycled.. and a couple little fake logs to hide in. I've been doing debris siphon and top off with prime and a tsp per gallon salt, usually 25-50% every couple days, sometimes daily. Temperature is around 82, ammonia and nitrite are zero, nitrate is usually between the 20-40 range. It had tons of floating wisteria until I noticed he was having some problems, was easier to keep an eye on him without it.
So sure enough he started showing issues, looked like a small bump, then turned into a pea sized bulge with a bit of redness. I fed him some frozen brine/mysis/bloodworm mixed with Kanaplex, Focus and Garlic Guard once per day to try to keep any secondary infections under control. Swelling and redness went away fairly quick but solving the root of the problem is still a work in progress. I haven't been dosing the water column aside from the salt.
I've noticed a lot of times he'll have something start working it's way out of his side, it doesn't appear to be alive, it's not anchor worms it anything like that, it isn't really anchored in any way, I can just brush by it with the airline tube and it'll siphon it straight off. It almost looks like maybe he wound up getting some of his food suck to his side, but I always try to siphon any remaining food out, so I'm curious if maybe he's got a hole in his stomach or something that's forcing its way out his side... After a few months of this off and on I'm not sure if that's plsusable or not.
He's always responsive, swims and acts normal, and doesn't refuse any frozen food medicated or not... seems to poop regularly enough although it's kind of think and dark looking... that might be normal or because of his diet though so I'm not sure if that's a sign of anything, I've only heard of people being concerned about white and stringy so the opposite. I haven't been able to find anything remotely like this in any parasite or bacterial infection searches...
I don't have any photos on this device from when it was bulged out but there's a few photos showing how it looks before, during and after, once the debris is removed it appears mostly normal around the area but as if he's missing a couple scales making a bit of a hole in his side...
I've been hoping regular water changes would eventually clear it up but I'm wondering if I should trying metro dosed food or just fasting him maybe if it were a tear in his stomach or something it might not be getting enough time to heal up...
Anyone ever experienced something like this, I appreciate any help,
Thanks!
