Spotted Congo Puffer: white bumps, holes on body

[Keeg]

Older puffer, roughly 5 years old.

Just did a 40% water change on the tank and noticed he had bumps on the body and holes on the body. I just got home recently from school and only noticed this now, so I can't give a good time range for when they appeared. You can see the holes/ bumps on the body in the photos. White bumps seem to be either very attached to the skin or protruding from under the skin, holes are just pits, not symetrical. 

Tank mates: neon tetras, golden tetras, black neon tetras, galaxy rasbora, orange place, and a bunch of endler guppies. 

Just treated the tank with a malachite green and formaldehyde medication (similar to ich x but company shut down in early 2000s so true malachite green and formaldehyde, at low dosage for scaleless fish), copper safe, melafix, and kanaplex, hopefully these will do something. metroplex is on the way as this message is being sent. 

I would like some input on what this is exactly and if I need to add an additional medication to the above listed. Right now I am willing to treat anything and everything because this is a very important fish. 

New additions to tank: a random guppy from Petco months ago (a family member did this when I was away), the guppy is very healthy, and a couple plant cuttings from a clean tank today. 

I cant find any 100% certain sources of the lifespan of spotted congo puffers, but I have a feeling he's getting up there in age as he has been slowing down for a little while now, but hes always perked up when theres food. 

 

Photo key: Red= white dots, blue = holes. 

Willing to try anything, this is more of a family member rather than pet. 

 

[Colu]

The white spots could be epistylis if the spots are raised you don't get holes in the body with epistylis it's always possible to separate thing are going on the holes could be the start of hold in the head am not 100% sure that's whats going on I would do is just treat with kanaplex and the malachite green based medcation when your metroplex arrive do a course of medicated food feeding a small amount twice a day for upto 3 weeks @Keeg

[Keeg]

@ColuThank you so much. I just treated the tank with the metroplex and will start doing the medicated food tonight. Quick question about dosing, I recently just cured a betta with epistylis but her tank was super super overprinted and never needed a water change for the duration of the medication, as per most of my tanks. On this tank, it usually needs a water change every few weeks, but I am worried it will need one sooner as a result of the medications having an adverse effect on the bacteria. So if I have to replace the water, do I treat it with the equivelnt ratio of medication removed, mainly speaking for the malachite green and formaldehyde meds?

Thank you again, I really appreciate it 😁

[Colu]

On 6/17/2023 at 10:44 PM, Keeg said:

@ColuThank you so much. I just treated the tank with the metroplex and will start doing the medicated food tonight. Quick question about dosing, I recently just cured a betta with epistylis but her tank was super super overprinted and never needed a water change for the duration of the medication, as per most of my tanks. On this tank, it usually needs a water change every few weeks, but I am worried it will need one sooner as a result of the medications having an adverse effect on the bacteria. So if I have to replace the water, do I treat it with the equivelnt ratio of medication removed, mainly speaking for the malachite green and formaldehyde meds?

Thank you again, I really appreciate it 😁

for antibiotic treatment such as kanaplex if you do a 10 gallon water change add one scoop back in to keep the medication the  at a  therapeutic level