Fire Eel and Angelfish infection

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MarioTaboada

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Feb 20, 2023
Messages
1
Hello,

I've recently had this problem with my aquarium with some sort of infection on my 75 gallon tank. I've had it running for a year and a half.
My one fire eel has these white marks on his skin and my angel fish got these pimple like things on them. One of them cant seem to close their mouth, mouth fungus I believe from lip locking. I plan on moving them to a quarantine tank today.

I currently have Aquarium Salt, Pima/Mela Fix, EM Emrythromycin, and ICH-X.

Can anyone help me out on what am I dealing with? Or what exactly should I do? Do I need anything special for medication? I'm not really an expert when it comes to these types of infections. Thanks.
 

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Hi and welcome to the forum :)

I can't tell anything from the first eel picture due to it being out of focus. The second eel picture shows a couple of white marks that are not a disease, but look more like bites from something.

The angelfish with the white stuff coming out of its nostril does not have mouth fungus (Columnaris). It has a sinus infection. Salt and clean water should fix it. If not then a broad spectrum medication to treat bacteria and fungus (but preferably not an antibiotic like Erythromycin).

The white bumps on the big angelfish are probably old age bumps that sometimes occur on fish. They aren't normally anything to worry about but monitor them.

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WHAT TO DO NOW
Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. The water change and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt, (see directions below). If there's no improvement after 2 weeks with salt, look for a broad spectrum medication.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.
 
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