German blue ram with lump on her cheek

[Elodie Rose]

This has developed very recently. I made a bonehead mistake with the water I bought and none of my efforts to lower the ph were successful. At all. 
 

She is active, eating, chasing the smaller male ram around. I lost her original mate during a week away in September. I don’t know if he had any lumps develop, but none when I left. I regard this pair as wet pets, and really feel like I let them down by not lowering the ph. 
 

Is this curable? What can I do? 

10 gal tank has been set up about a year, had gravel substrate until 2 weeks ago when I covered it in 10 lbs of black sand. Temp 82 now, was at 85 over the summer.  Plants include hornwort, bacopa, salvinia, Frogbit, duckweed. Almond leaves always present. There is wood in the tank. 
 

ph 7.9, nitrate 20-40, ammonia 0, KH 80-120, GH 300. Those are the consistent readings, I’ve been trying to lower the ph for approx 2 months. Water changes 10% twice per week for the past 4 weeks. 

Tankmates are Japan blue-gold guppies. All bred by me, and ‘culls’ from their main colony. There are also 2-3 Amano shrimp, and a mixture of snails. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Elodie Rose

[TheSwissAquarist]

Looks a bit like a tumor or hole-in-the-head. @Colu

[Colu]

On 10/29/2023 at 5:08 PM, Elodie Rose said:

This has developed very recently. I made a bonehead mistake with the water I bought and none of my efforts to lower the ph were successful. At all. 
 

She is active, eating, chasing the smaller male ram around. I lost her original mate during a week away in September. I don’t know if he had any lumps develop, but none when I left. I regard this pair as wet pets, and really feel like I let them down by not lowering the ph. 
 

Is this curable? What can I do? 

10 gal tank has been set up about a year, had gravel substrate until 2 weeks ago when I covered it in 10 lbs of black sand. Temp 82 now, was at 85 over the summer.  Plants include hornwort, bacopa, salvinia, Frogbit, duckweed. Almond leaves always present. There is wood in the tank. 
 

ph 7.9, nitrate 20-40, ammonia 0, KH 80-120, GH 300. Those are the consistent readings, I’ve been trying to lower the ph for approx 2 months. Water changes 10% twice per week for the past 4 weeks. 

Tankmates are Japan blue-gold guppies. All bred by me, and ‘culls’ from their main colony. There are also 2-3 Amano shrimp, and a mixture of snails. 

Have you got a side on picture of lump 

[Elodie Rose]

Not a very good photo, I’m sorry. I’m trying to get a better one, but I did a water change with distilled water and she’s skittish. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Elodie Rose

[Elodie Rose]

[Elodie Rose]

This is one of the daily foods, or food mixes. It is made up of vibra bites, algae wafers, spiraling flakes, krill flakes, some sinking blackworm pellets, possibly the end of some other type of fish food. Very small pinch of this is one of the things they often get at some point during the day. It’s in several little cups that are near the tanks. 

Other frequently fed foods include frozen freshwater food, frozen baby brine shrimp, spirulina flakes alone, spirulina flakes alone, bug bites. Very small pinches, several times throughout the day. 

Just added grindal worms back into the daily routine, and will probably be adding daphnia. I have a very small white worm culture that I am nursing along and trying to feed up into an actual colony. The white worms are eating the same dogfood as the grindal worms at the moment, and are not being harvested, just fed. 

Currently there are 6 grindal worm colonies, generously given to me by @Guppysnail. I’m starting to grok them again. Very glad. 

Vita-Chem has been added to some of the frozen food water, and to the water that the dogfood soaks in after its microwaved. 30-40 seconds dry, then i splash in some tank water. As its cooling, a couple drops into the water that the crunchies are absorbing. Gotta have a few extra for the pupper. 

 

 

[Colu]

Could be inflammation of tissue caused by a bacterial infections or injury what I would do is quarantine if you can and do a course of maracyn2 and add a small amount of aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 5 gallons that will help reduce some of the inflammation @Elodie Rose

[Elodie Rose]

I do have an empty 5 gallon of green water next to their tank, I could raise the temp to 82. But I thought it would stress her more to be out of her familiar environment, which I just added a bunch of new caves to. I’ve only started seeing her since adding those caves, I think she felt too exposed before.  

Will it hurt the other fish in the tank to medicate the tank? I can dose pond bacteria, or microbe lift, to help it along. Or Fritz Zyme 7, I’m sure I have at least one of those on hand. 

[Elodie Rose]

I’m asking in an attempt to genuinely understand the ramifications of the decision to medicate the tank, rather than pull her out.

But it doesn’t look like Maracyn 2 is one of the medicines I have on hand. I’ll have to check the LFS tomorrow at lunch. 

In the meantime I’ll learn to use my new salinity meter. I don’t think I’ve added salt to that tank, but I’m having trouble remembering. 

[Elodie Rose]

I’m making preparations to move her to a Qt tank asap. 

[Colu]

On 10/30/2023 at 1:07 AM, Elodie Rose said:

I’m making preparations to move her to a Qt tank asap. 

Medication can be hard on healthy fish so I would always quarantine if you can't get maracyn2 then I would treat with kanaplex there's always possibility that the antibiotic treatment will harm your benefial bacterial in the main tank 

[Elodie Rose]

That makes sense. I’m waiting for the water to come to temp. Thanks so much for your help. I’ll look for kanaplex.

The regular Maracyn won’t work? I do have that one. 

[Colu]

On 10/30/2023 at 1:47 AM, Elodie Rose said:

That makes sense. I’m waiting for the water to come to temp. Thanks so much for your help. I’ll look for kanaplex.

The regular Maracyn won’t work? I do have that one. 

You can use maracyn that predominantly treats gram positive and some gram negative bacterial infection maracyn2 and kanaplex are more broad spectrum antibiotic treatment that predominantly treat gram negative some gram positive bacterial infections gram negative bacterial infections are  most common type of bacterial infection found in fish 

[Elodie Rose]

She has been moved, she has not been medicated. I’m going to see if I can go pick up Maracyn 2 tomorrow.

Her hospital tank is the 5 gallon that is beside the GBR tank, which has green water in it. It’s had 4 endlers in it for a week or so (they were removed a few days ago), it has half substrate from another tank and half new, a tablespoon of API aquarium salt, a heater at 82, green water, a new sponge filter, an existing piece of sponge from the GBR tank, and a tight lid with no gaps.

I’ll have to light it from the side. It also has her favorite cave, some of the fake plants, and some of the hornwort. 

My priority tomorrow morning will be finding the Maracyn 2. 

I don’t understand about the gram positive and the other terms you used in that paragraph, I will look them up. If there’s a resource you could point me to, I would really appreciate it. 

Thank you so much for all your help!

Edited October 30, 2023 by Elodie Rose

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/29/2023 at 8:06 PM, Elodie Rose said:

I don’t understand about the gram positive and the other terms you used in that paragraph, I will look them up. If there’s a resource you could point me to, I would really appreciate it. 

basically just different types of bacteria and so you have to treat them appropriately.  Some meds are designed to work with one and not the other.  I found this, the abstract talks a little bit more about the structural difference.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2857177/

[Elodie Rose]

She’s active this morning and looking for breakfast. I’ll probably feed grindal worms midmorning. I’m looking for Maracyn 2.

Update: House of Tropicals has it, I’ll be making a trip there at lunch. 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Elodie Rose

[Elodie Rose]

She let me take a few pictures of her this morning, and the grindal worms disappeared overnight, so I assume she ate them. (They were in a feeding dish.) there was also a tiny block of green repashy, and I can’t tell if she ate that or not.

Still treating with Maracyn 2 per the directions. Did a 50% water change yesterday, will probably do another today. But she’s hanging in there, and has more grindals for breakfast. 

[Colu]

On 11/2/2023 at 1:44 PM, Elodie Rose said:

She let me take a few pictures of her this morning, and the grindal worms disappeared overnight, so I assume she ate them. (They were in a feeding dish.) there was also a tiny block of green repashy, and I can’t tell if she ate that or not.

Still treating with Maracyn 2 per the directions. Did a 50% water change yesterday, will probably do another today. But she’s hanging in there, and has more grindals for breakfast. 

If she's still eating that good sign 

Edited November 3, 2023 by Colu

[Elodie Rose]

The lump is almost gone from River’s cheek. What a little fighter she is!  If we continue, this would be a 2nd round of antibiotics, for another week. 

I’m not sure whether to continue medicating for a 2nd week, or if I should just let her be and give her the space to heal. 

What do you think?

[Colu]

On 11/5/2023 at 1:27 PM, Elodie Rose said:

The lump is almost gone from River’s cheek. What a little fighter she is!  If we continue, this would be a 2nd round of antibiotics, for another week. 

I’m not sure whether to continue medicating for a 2nd week, or if I should just let her be and give her the space to heal. 

What do you think?

As your seeing improvement it's more than likely bacterial in nature it can take two full course back to back so I would follow up with a second course of maracyn2