HELP! I believe my Angel has Bacterial Gill Disease

[Adi Hewitt]

Hi, I'm Adi Hewitt, a longtime reader & first-time poster on this awesome forum. I have a 5-year-old red-eye, Zebra Angel Fish who has a large red exposed portion of her gill on her left side as well as some strange pimples I've never seen before on her sides and tail (which are worse on the left side also, I do not know if this is significant or not). I am attaching some photos. If anyone can confirm my diagnosis or tell me what this is I would be very grateful. I'm a human doctor but when it comes to fish, not so good. My father was in the hobby for 70 years so I grew up with fish but never really got into the hobby until my sons were born and their grandfather got them off to a fantastic start (I think it's genetic). Since my father passed on I am a little at a loss and my sons (who's experience is actually greater than mine) have never seen anything like this. This little girl means a lot to us. The aquarium store just gave her to us when she was very little because the other angels in the tank had ripped her to shreds and all she had was her little bobbing body, couldn't even swim. We nursed her back to health in a little 6=5 gallon tank on the kitchen counter where everyone stopped and talked to her all day long. She will eat out of your hand and is the little mother in our 93-gallon tank, doing her rounds and keeping everybody in line. Thank you so much for your time.
Adi

 

[Autumnsky]

Has the fish always had a missing gill plate?


Are you familiar with the nitrification cycle? Article, link in my signature explains the cycle and many other helpful things. You might not need them but I recall after a long time of keeping fish I learned things too, I hadn't known about .

If the fish didn't just grow up from a baby with the eroded gill plate, then it would look like it is a bacterial infection.

Flavobacterium branchiophilum is one, F. Columnaris, they are both gram negative so would need medication which treats gram negative infections.

Although recently I have read that often gill flukes cause the damage allowing infection to begin with.

And you would want to treat for that if you suspect it.

This article is fyi useful for the names of the bacteria and how it affects the fish. Talking about game and farm raised fish. But the disease aspect /effect is the same.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090123214001325

 

[Autumnsky]

The columnaris can cause white / grey patches in the gills, so it doesn't look like I can see that.