headgrowth rot-exploding wens

[mikroll]

greetings to all.
here I report a repeat of an ? infection to the wens head growth where the fish stops to eat, has many head pimples on the wens and then the wens fall off and fish may die later too.
this time I have antibiotics ready. now am treating 1 hour bath 7.5 mg /liter 3 times a day and dusting wounds with bactrium after bath.
I ask anyone for advise or coments. this fish was obtained from Hong Kong in October and her mate died after one month of simular problem. She has produced one spawn in December and was displaying excellent health until this week when she stopped to eat and produced many head pimples. It is a very puzziling problem as I have never been able to identify any parasite or anything in the white mucus which issues from the wens.
picture is of first day when wens break off
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c288/mikroll/calico%20oranda/headgrowth%20pimples/DSCN0166.jpg
next picture.. day after as infection progresses
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c288/mikroll/calico%20oranda/headgrowth%20pimples/DSCN0171.jpg
closeup of damaged parts under treatment
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c288/mikroll/calico%20oranda/headgrowth%20pimples/DSCN0180.jpg
after baytril bath , dusted with the white powder of bactrium
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c288/mikroll/calico%20oranda/headgrowth%20pimples/DSCN0183.jpg
Iam most interested to hear about doses for a baytril bath and if any of you have had and solved this problem.

[suphi]

The white mucus looks like pus to me, which means most likely bacterial infection. You'll have to do gram stain for ID with microscope, but my guess would be gram negative rods such as pseudomonas/aeromonas.

For nasty lesions like that I'd use "big-gun" antibiotics, fluoquinolones (baytril or oxolinic acid). I've never used baytril bath so I can't tell you the dosage, but I've used oxolinic acid bath with great results...a few times now. The most recent one being internal wen rot. If you get a hold of this drug the dosage is on the side of the bottle.

[mikroll]

thanks for info Suphi. I have been following your thread on the treatments with interest too.
I have baytril 5% and have been bathing fish at 3 hours per day with about 5-10 mg /liter and after dusting with bactrium powder.


Last time I had this problem about 4 years ago I tried a treatment of baytril 15 mg/ 10 liter with gentalyn 10mg for 3 days bath + salt with mixed results.

saving only 4 out of the 19 infected. But the treatment was started too late in the infective stage I believe.

today white pus and red is less as can be seen in this picture:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c288/mikroll/calico%20oranda/headgrowth%20pimples/DSCN0184.jpg

[suphi]

That does look better.

When I treat I like to do 24-hr bath for maximum efficacy, but the dosage has to be right otherwise you could overdose the fish. For lesions like this you might want to treat more than 3 days to make sure you eradicate the bacteria not giving them a chance to develop resistant strain, I'd say 5-7 days minimum.

[Ichthius]

I see this from time to time. I call it Wenvy (wen envy) a term I think I coined ;)

The first time I attributed it to wenvy was on a red capped oranda. The dominant fish in the tank was a red and white short tail ryukin. He hated the fact that the other fish had a large wen and he did not. He was fairly sly about it but after watching from a cross the room he would sneak up on the oranda and bite the heck out of it. It was also on the back edge of the wen where the aggressive fish has the best chance of sneaking up. It's gotten to the point where I can not keep that fish in a tank with wen bearing fish, he just eats them up.

At first it looks a little ratty, then it looks infected and it just keeps gettting worse...

When ever I see this I search out the fish with the case of wenvy and relocated them.

[mikroll]

update on headgrowth rot treatment.
25 day-- fish eats and seems normal. Headgrowth seems to be growing a little. Some parts still are show fading transparent white; do not know if that is bad or not. other parts show a little black like healing.
So far am pleased with her recovery progress.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c288/mikroll/calico%20oranda/headgrowth%20pimples/DSCN0039.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c288/mikroll/calico%20oranda/headgrowth%20pimples/DSCN0045.jpg

[suphi]

That looks pretty good. My calico with ulcer is doing great also. Now you can't even tell it ever had an ulcer.

[Venus]

Even though it looks as if things are under control; once the meds are out of the tank, the problem could repeat itself. Meds often push goldfish farther away from good health because they treat the symptom, not the cause.

Harmful bacteria is the source of the problem here and there's a few ways to beat it.

If you have a lid on your tank remove it so the surface of your water is exposed to fresh air.

Increase your surface action; harmful bacteria prefers stagnant water and moving water discourages its formation.

Increase your friendly beneficial bacteria. Where you find an ample supply of friendly bugs, you'll find very few unfriendly bugs.

Just about anything that affects your goldfish has to do with the tank water. Work on improving your water quality.

I highly recommend pond pumps for all goldfish tanks. They sit on the bottom where the nasties are; close to their food source. This encourages larger stronger bugs. Filtering systems sit at the top of the tank; far from their food supply.

Pond pumps produce increased surface action without creating a current in the body of water.

This increased surface action stabilizes pH levels by increasing oxygen levels.

Every 6 to 8 weeks; salt your tank to increase goldfish slime coat and enhance their health. Use 1 tablespoon of salt per 10 gallons of tank water; dissolve and premix in fresh water tub using aquarium salt. You can also add 1 tablespoon per 10 gallons of tank water of Epsom salts along with the salt. If you've got MelaFix on hand add this also. Combined, these ingredients make a wonderful tonic for goldfish.

Best of luck, Venus