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Is this an ulcer?

I didn't see this sore yesterday, but he seemed out of sorts. He wasn't doing laps around the tank in the usual fashion. Late last night, I saw what I thought was a little snail behind his eye. I tried to net him this afternoon, but I'm limited in mobility at the moment. Rather than stress him out more and cause further damage, I left him in the 75 gallon and started MelaFix/Pimafix.


If it wasn't a snail, I wonder if it was too much of this:


You can see Otos like him. He swats them away about 90% of the time. I'm worried because his appetite is low and he's not as active. Any advice anybody could provide would be most helpful.

His coloration this morning is like the second picture. I'm a novice, so I don't know stress colors from normal coloration. When the lights came on, the wound looked flatter, but the area looked a little bruised. He started to run around a bit and went to the driftwood to eat. His breathing is not quick and stressed as it was for the past two days. Of course, he's now feeding under the driftwood! A little difficult to get a picture from there. I don't want to stress him any further than I have. It appeared to be a small burrowing snail of some kind. I found a few more small ones. I've been picking them out all morning. They're very tiny and hard as sand grains.

it looks like a mini gun shot wound.....
quit giving fire arms to fish......

as of right now it looks like an external parasite.....

so i would try to keep it external
umm treat ur tank with rid ich or some other type of external invertabret killer stuff
thats if its in the tank....

if there isnt any others around u could bath the fish in mediicine

maybe some macalite green

thats why i said he should bathe him in some macalite green,meleafix, or w/e u prefer treated tank water for 10-20-30 seconds maybe twice a day
for a couple days
i really kind of just blew that reply off though wit out explaination........

so

if ur tank is infected
thats when i would put medicine in ur tank.....
but if u dont see any other problems bathing the fish is easier considering the other tank inhabitants and bacterias.....

I did a 50% water change this morning and didn't add any further medications. The spot is smaller and no longer red. He's hiding under some driftwood, rasping away at the moment. I tried to take a picture when I was cleaning the tank, but he was very active. So far, the spot hasn't been larger than the tip of a pencil. I hope I caught it early.

I've been picking those little burrowing snails out all morning. They were everywhere. I think these little things came in with some new plants. I pre-soaked them, too. The eggs must be tiny. Could these things burrow into driftwood?

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'll try to get a progress pic soon.

Warning
Melafix is good, however; Melafix tends to effect the oxygen levels in the water.
So when using Melafix as a treatment always increase the air flow in the tank,

Telepathic, Medaka. I added a 3rd pump to the tank last night. This makes three Rio pump/powerheads going for aeration. All the fish seem to like it so I'll leave it.

This is how it looks now:

Sorry for the poor quality of that one, but I had to lift his piece of driftwood to get any photo of the wound. It's not red and puffy as it was for the first 12-24 hours. The puffiness went to his eye. It's flat now.

He did come out to play today for the first time(photo from his good side):

It was feeding time and he ate some frozen tubifex and cleaned gravel.

He's a little boy, when you look at him in relation to the Otos. This is a 75 gallon tank. He's the largest inhabitant.

Do I need to medicate again?

Here's how he looks this morning:

I did another smaller water change yesterday. He's been more of himself. When he started to clean the glass, that was another step forward. He's also kicking Otos off of his favorite rocks. It's a nice swiping motion sideways.

In your 2nd picture...it looks like the Oto is sucking the area where the wound is. Any chance the Oto might have caused it

That was my initial thought, too. Until I saw the little antennae and movement. This guy likes to wedge himself between driftwood and rocks. He can stay very still there for hours. On the opposite, he can be very active for hours without stopping. Swimming laps around the 75 gallon tank. It makes me think it's too small a tank for a 3" fish.