Cory fish gill fell off? Pics included.

[cornflakes]

Help, one of my cory fish was not moving much and I got him to come to the edge so i can get a good shot. It appears as if he either sustained a flesh wound or could it have been a disease that made his gill fall off?

The other side is perfectly fine, but this side you can see a chunk seems to be missing (where his gills would be) and the pinkish flesh exposed underneath.

Does anyone know what might have caused this? Could a change in temperature do this (i recently raised the temp from 25 celsius to about 30 celsius because I thought one of the fish might be sick).

Or could this haven been a result from a smaller wound that got bigger?

The only other fish I have in the tank are ghost shrimp, 1 pleco and 2 neon tetras.

Oh and I should also not that there appears to be a small chunk of his back tail fin that either just died away or was ripped off...not too big but still noticeable.

 

[fishman888888]

If the other fish are sick, maybe he is too... he could have been flashing and ripped that chunk out himself...

 

[cornflakes]

as far as I can see, the other fish are not sick and all look perfectly fine and healthy.

This one was showing signs of sickness (lack of movement and not eating much, just sitting sort of off balance at times on the floor) for the past week and half. I thought maybe it could be some disease but none of the others are sick. It wasn't until today I noticed that missing chunk and saw a lot of pink and wondered what it was.

 

[fishman888888]

When a fish stops eating, thats a definite indicator somethings up....

If theres no external symptoms (other than the injury) ....

It could be parasites of some sort.... potentially gill flukes

I would advise raising the tank temp to 86f for a couple weeks,,that'll kill off any potential threats....
Its free and easy

API general cure is a good broad spectrum parasite med.,.. treats multiple parasites

Watch for any other symptoms...flashing, twitching/shimmying and eratic swimming, oh and bloating/stringy white stuff in poo

 

[fishman888888]

When a fish stops eating, thats a definite indicator somethings up....

If theres no external symptoms (other than the injury) ....

It could be parasites of some sort.... potentially gill flukes

I would advise raising the tank temp to 86f for a couple weeks,,that'll kill off any potential threats....
Its free and easy

API general cure is a good broad spectrum parasite med.,.. treats multiple parasites

Watch for any other symptoms...flashing, twitching/shimmying and eratic swimming, oh and bloating/stringy white stuff in poo

Oh....and what size tank you got?
And what type of pleco is in there?

 

[cornflakes]

Yeah the first week and half or so he wasn't eating much and moving much.

My tank had the case of ichs a couple months back and I raised the temp to about 86-87 celsius for 2 weeks and they got better (the neons that survived, 10 of 12 didn't make it but 2 of them did and are well today).

I'll try it again and raise the temp.

Would 50% water changes daily or every other day help too?