Treated one disease, got another

[Ltygress]

The first half of this post is for anyone experiencing the same problems. I know the first rule about any disease, is to take the fish to a veterinarian to get it diagnosed so you can treat it PROPERLY. But none of the veterinarians around me deal with fish. I even asked a couple of them to just "look at a sample under the microscope" to see if they could identify the problem. Nope! So it's a guessing game (kinda).

I have a tank with several chameleon whiptails, yoyo loaches, discus, and formerly honeycomb catfish. The honeycomb catfish have all died.

It started with a disease that looked a LOT like ich in a 75G aquarium. It did not respond to higher temperature (86 F) and salt. And once I got a fricking yoyo loach to stay still for a moment, I realized the spots were more brownish or off-white, not bright white. Definitely not ich. The spots didn't move though, so they weren't fish lice. Lost a few honeycomb catfish at this point. The yoyo loaches would try scratching themselves constantly on different pieces of decor. Between that and the brown spots, I thought maybe it was a parasite. General cure (four total treatments over 5 days) didn't work either. Fenbendazole (two treatments, 24 hours apart) also didn't help. At this point, I lost a chameleon whiptail and more honeycomb catfish. Finally, I used methylene blue. Still no improvement. I thought the tank should be STERILE at this point because of the damn medications I have used.

Several years ago, before COVID and the massive inflation we have going on, I stocked up on several antibiotics for fish. Back then I also had access to a vet that would take samples and give me advice. I found one of those medications still unused - Azithromycin. I added it on the chance that it might help. Lost one more honeycomb catfish the next day, but he may have been too far gone already. But aside from him, no more deaths and spots disappeared!

So if these symptoms mimic yours (especially those brownish spots, scratching, and deaths kinda spaced out by several days) and nothing else seems to work, try searching aquarium azithromycin. It's expensive! A vet visit could actually be cheaper. But it finally worked.

In the second half of my post, I'm trying to look for an answer. The aquarium below the first one (also a 75G), which also has chameleon whiptails, has taken it's own turn for the worst. It also has Synodontis Polly/Polli. These chameleon whiptails are somewhat new-ish. I had four. One arrived with horrible pop-eye and died within 24 hours. The other three seemed okay, so after about a month they went into the tank with the S. Polli. Only other inhabitants are an L014 pleco and some angelfish, and I've had all of those for ages.

But now that they are out of quarantine, I've noticed one chameleon whiptail seemed to have sores on him - one deep enough to be bleeding, but most just open flesh. I didn't treat it with anything at first, because I thought maybe the synodontis were just picking on him. I moved him to his own tank and he died within a few days. A few days ago I noticed I've got another chameleon whiptail with sores on him. And by sores, I mean just spots of exposed inner flesh. I gave them some oxytetracycline and apparently it didn't work. Today I found a dead S. Polli with the same issue, on his snout and tail (not tail fin though). All of these sores look like something has just been grazing on them too much and too long, but only in one tiny spot. The one on the Polli was too small to have been the L014 pleco. And being dead, I would have expected the L014 pleco to have done MUCH more damage than a small spot anyway. But the spots were also pretty deep - probably 2-3mm into the flesh (a lot for a fish). Small in width, but deep. I also gave the chameleon whiptail an oxytetracycline injection, so we'll see how that goes. He's already pretty weak though, so he might not survive long enough for the treatment to take effect - or it may tax his system too much. Tetracycline and oxytetracyline are very uncomfortable medications. They taste bitter as hell, and they burn. But if it saves the fish and eradicates the disease, it's worth it.

In short, it really looks like there is a flesh-eating disease hitting my catfish. The L014 pleco seems okay though. And the angelfish have had no problems at all. The substrate is black blasting sand from Tractor Supply, triple-rinsed, and "pea pebbles" from Home Depot. PH is about 6.0. KH and GH is VERY low (because my tap comes out with just 55 TDS). Temperature is about 83 degrees. Ammonia is dead zero, Nitrites are dead 0, and Nitrates are only about 10 ppm right now (pre-water change). This new "problem" tank only uses several air stones and a single sponge filter attached to a powerhead for filtration/aeration. I do about a 50% water change every week (because that's when I do all of my tanks and many are slightly overstocked). Well-planted with lots of mopani driftwood too.

I see no signs of an illness aside from these sores. It's not like an ulcer where a spot forms on the *inside* where you can see blood against the skin and scales. These appear to be something attacking from the outside, inwards. Some sores don't go deep enough to bleed. Others do. But there is no sign of a parasite on the outside. No worms, no leeches, no flukes.

As of right now I have looked up everything "flesh-eating" that I could find, on ANY organism, and the antibiotics that treat them. So far it looks like cephalexin might be the best choice that covers almost every disease I found in my research, and I ordered some today. But I'm wondering if anyone else has had anything that sounds like this, and was able to find out what it actually is. I really wish I could find a local vet that will just take a look at a scraping of this stuff and let me know what they see!

[Ltygress]

I guess I got way too technical in the actual medications I used here. Not many fish people are well-versed in chemical medications as well.

But for an update, I started using the cephalexin and haven't had anything else die so far. I did buy black german rams earlier this week and had one of those arrive with a large white spot that looked like a possible open wound as well. They're all still in quarantine, but I used the cephalexin on his tank as well as a preventative. It has been three days and the white spot hasn't gotten better OR WORSE, and he's still very lively and eating like a little pig, so I'm feeling hopeful. If he heals from that, I will be stocking up on this medication to use for future infections that don't appear to be "typical" fish diseases.