petunia100
Aquarium Advice Activist
Here is the story behind this tetra. About 4 days ago I noticed this on his side. It appeared to be a whitish spot surrounded by red, but not infected tissue. I decided to give it a ~2% salt bath, I wasn't sure if it was a wound or a parasite and I'm still not sure. I've been giving it a daily salt bath for about 40-50 min. When I was going to catch him for his second salt bath, I was chasing him with the net and the whitish thing fell out of the hole. I looked at it with a magnifying glass but couldn't tell if it was a parasite or just fish tissue, it was whitish and about 2- 3 mm long. It looked like a glob of tissue but I don't know what effect the salt had on it. When I put him in the salt bath this morning I couldn't see the white spot, just a neat round hole that was a little red and inflamed around the rim. After I put him back in the regular tank, it looked like it does in the photos (that's when I took them.) Has anyone had anything like this and could give some advice. He is still swimming with the other tetras, but hasn't been eating as much, probably stressed from me trying to catch him. I don't have a quaratine tank, just a large bucketwith a little filter to use for treatments. My tank is a 55 gallon well planted tank. I do 40-50% water changes every week (sometimes every two) I did a water change on Monday and my pH was 7.0, my Nitrates were 10ppm and my Nitrites and Ammonia were 0 ppm. I added four turq rainbows and 4 siamese algae eaters about 3 weeks ago. I just finished treating the tank for ich by the heat method, it came in on the rainbows, they were the only fish I ever saw with the spots. The rest of the members of the tank have been there for 6 to 18 months when I set up the tank, they are neon tetras, lemon and priscinella tetras, two male GBR, and a pair of keyhole cichlids. If you notice in this picture you can see the hole extends into the back of the fish about 2-3 mm, it seems to me a pretty neat little hole and kind of reminds me of a botfly if anyone has every seen that in a mammal. But I can't really tell if it is a parasite or just fish tissue, and I have never seen anything like it. Any advice?
