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55 gallon tank

-13 black skirt tetras
-5 gold barbs
-4 albino cories

One of my gold barbs has two wounds, one on the left abdomen, and one on the right abdomen. It has been coming out to eat, but generally hiding more than usual. The wounds are red(blood) and covered in white. The white looks like a heater burn, or possibly fungus. The wound on its left side is healing up pretty well, but the wound on the right is getting worse.

The right wounds is the one I am worried about. So far, it has gotten worse and hasn't healed. The wound on the right has been there for about two weeks, starting from a tiny spot. The scales on and around the wound since yesterday have begun to rise up, and recently I noticed it diving into objects and turning to its side to brush its right side against the object. A scale fell off of it when it did this, so that may be what it is trying to do. The raised scales remind me of dropsy, but it has not swelled yet.

I have dosed melafix for three weeks, when the wound on the right appeared. I have done two water changes in the past two weeks, with the water change before that four weeks ago(all about 1/3).

Thanks for any help you guys can provide, ask any other questions if you need.

Last edited by me is already in use at 25-May-2005 00:53

Last edited by me is already in use at 25-May-2005 00:55

I'm sorry I can't help at all with this but I did want to say I had the exact same thing happen to my golden barbs when I had them as well and I never found out exactly what it was. I did treat it with salt and it cleared up at the time but it ended up coming back again
I'll be watching this thread with interest.

If you suspect fungus don't treat with melafix. While some will say it's fine I've never had melafix acutally work in a serious, medication requireing situation. Look for Jungle labs fungus clear tank buddies. They're easily found in most LFS's and chain stores here in the states. If you can't find them you can also look for Furan-2. They both have Nitrofurazone, and furazolidone as their active ingredients. Treat per directions, you can increase surface agitation and leave the lights out to help with stress. If there is only one showing symptoms go for treatment in a hospital tank if possible. I've used the jungle labs meds to treat a case of bacterial fin rot, it treats both bacterial and fungal cases with gold barbs tetras and corys in the tank so if you're not set up with a hospital tank it'll be okay to treat the main tank, just watch your numbers for an ammonia spike.

Following medicated treatment give the melafix another go as it's likely to help in the healing process.

^_^[hr width='40%']"Has someone taken your faith? It's real, the pain you feel.
The life, the love, You die to heal.
The hope that starts, The broken hearts...
I’ve got another confession my friend, I’m no fool.
I’m getting tired of starting again, Somewhere new."

Edit:
Well now I'm rather embarressed!...that and or I'm not yet fully awake...
On second reading I'm wondering if it might be flukes? A parasite? Any chance of a pic of the wound? Post a link if possible and or maybe someone else hopefully has a bit more of a clue ...that and some tea for me .

^_^[hr width='40%']"Has someone taken your faith? It's real, the pain you feel.
The life, the love, You die to heal.
The hope that starts, The broken hearts...
I’ve got another confession my friend, I’m no fool.
I’m getting tired of starting again, Somewhere new."

After watching the gold barb, it isn't really hiding anymore.

Here are the best pics I could get right now (cellphone). Hopefully, I can get my hands on a real camera.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v419/alphanumerico/Picture007.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v419/alphanumerico/Picture019.jpg

In the second pic, I tried to get a shot of its upraised scales. Just go straight up from the pelvic fin and hopefully you can see it. Btw, the scale isn't actually above the pelvic fin, just in that pic. It is actually closer to its anal fin.

Last edited by me is already in use at 25-May-2005 17:37

Last edited by me is already in use at 25-May-2005 17:39

Those pics are good enough....I keep looking @them and am really not sure on the diagnosis though . Looks in the second one almost like there's a little white bone sticking out....seem to remember something like that with one of my gold barbs....of course by the time I got some meds and got back to treat it (next work week) the guy was healed up compleatly :%).

^_^[hr width='40%']"Has someone taken your faith? It's real, the pain you feel.
The life, the love, You die to heal.
The hope that starts, The broken hearts...
I’ve got another confession my friend, I’m no fool.
I’m getting tired of starting again, Somewhere new."

I don't know what I did, but it is actually healing up for now. Thanks you guys.

If it is the same as my gold barbs it may come back As I said this sounds exactly like what happened to mine and it seemed to keep coming back. Some healed but others just got sicker and died until over a period of about a year the all died. I did find that it seemed to coincide with lower PH but it was really only a theory
The sores on my barbs looked bacterial to me