URGENT! Fish dieing. Need advice!

Have you treated it with anything yet?

I would suggest some Melfix (hope I spelled that right) and maybe even an antifungal med.

Hope it pulls through for ya.

Watcher74 said:

should I euthanize?

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As I hope you know that is entirely your call, regardless of advise given here. It seems you have taken the right steps. If it is just a bit beat up it will take time, and patience on your part. At my LFS (good store, not the petsmart type) they have a BIG jack in thier hospital tank thats been in for about a week. He had about a quarter sized hole in his back from a parrot (no not a fish). Now that hole is down to dime size, and while it still looks awfull, he looks a lot better than he did. If you feel it can make a recovery, go for it. Don't worry about the apitite, as it should be able to live a while without food. If it does recover, don't put it back in the same tank. I hope you are OK[*sending virtual hugs*]

Although I am not a big fan of melafix I will admit that it does do a nice job on cuts and most minor wounds. As for the rest of the things it may promise ... well lets leave that debate for another day.

One thing you will want to do is keep the HT water nice and clean. Allot of water changes will help the healing greatly. A little salt in the tank won't hurt either.

If the wound is really deep and looks like it may get worse. One thing I have done quite a few times in the past is use mecurochrome one the wound.
Yes the same mecurochrome that you would use on your cuts the kind you get at the drugstore.

Catch the fish and with a cotton swab place the mecurochrome on the cut. Then with your finger place a decent amount of vasaline on top of the cut. This will allow the mecurochrome to work before it gets washed off in the tank.

Do this for a few days until the wound is healing nicely. Along with the salt and water changes all should be better within a few days. It works wonders. One VERY imortant thing though. DO NOT get the mecurochrome anywhere near the gills or eyes of the fish. It will kill the fish or permanetly blind it.

I hope you can save him. I agree, loads of water changes will really help. The cleaner the tank, the better his chances are. I have read about the method ScottoMacD suggested, it sounds like a good idea to me. MelaFix is good stuff for small injuries, but if your fish is showing signs of fungal/bacterial growth around the wound I don't think it will be enough.

Watcher74 said:

Scotto,

That information is really interesting. I'd never heard of such a direct way of dealing with a wound on a fish like that. Wouldn't the handling cause alot of stress on an already injured fish though? Is this type of treatment used on larger fish, or small, or both?

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Watcher. I have used it on bigger fish, 3 inches and bigger. Mostly new world cichlids and barbs (the target fish for the cichlids) It is much easier to hold and handle the larger fish. Smaller fish it becomes risky because of the ease of slipping and touching the gills and eyes which is trouble. Use a Q-Tip to apply the mecurochrome. Makes life easier and is much easier to control. It also allows you to hold the fish down incase it freaks and tries flopping while being medicated.

I highly doubt the handling of the fish will cause any more undo stress. Considering that a fish that is sick is stressed anyways. You could always leave the fish in the net and place it on a towel and do the work while the fish is netted.

The treatment truly does wonders on really bad open wounds though.
I use to leave the fish out until the med was dry but it tended to wash off quite fast which in turn lengthened the amount of days to treat. Some suggested the vasoline idea to me so I tried it. Low and behold it really cut down the treatment time.

Watcher, I haven't had a fish go through what 'Ugly' is going through, but maybe this will give you a bit of hope:
Once I tried housing a betta in my community tank. Things were fine for a while, and then all at once he turned on my angel, who was about the size of a quarter at the time. I woke up to find the angel was missing scales, both ventral fins and almost all of his tail. He had raw patches that looked like he'd been bashed or bitten, and looked like a goner. He was sitting at a 45 degree angle, almost floating, at the top of the tank and I thought he would die. I moved him to another tank to recover, and it took time but he healed completely. For the first few days he wouldn't eat, but salt, melafix and daily 50% water changes eventually did the trick.
If Ugly has a deep, infected cut, I'd use Scotto's method to help him along. I've got my fingers crossed for him - c'moooon Ugly!