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I reacently discovered thet one of my L-333 was in poor condition. most of the back of its body, and the complete tail is ghosty white, and on the tail theres no skin left.

I have quarantined it, but how shold I treat this?, and how great are the risk of this spreading to the rest of the group (they seem fine for now)

heres a picture of it

Hi

It looks like a really nasty case of finrot to me. Once it starts to get into the body it's almost impossible to treat. I'd isolate the fish and treat it with an anti-finrot treatment. It might be a good idea to treat the whole tank too just in case any of the other fish have got the early stages of it.

thanx

Having watched him a litle bit closer I to suspect injury from fight over the best cave..

He is now in quarantine-tank of aproximatly 100liter, where I try to give him the best conditions posible and some snacsy food..

If I treat the whole tank with antibacterial agents, how will that affect the good bacteria in the filter ?

Some of the stronger antibacterials will kill definitely the filter bacteria. There are some that claim they don't. I don't know if that's true or not. Talk to your local fish shop and see what they think.

To begin with, you may want to just isolate and use melafix/pimafix, which are mild and shouldn't cause a big filter-crash. Also, if this fish is alone in a 100l quarantine tank, it shouldn't produce too much waste to cause a big problem even if the filter starts going bad. Just keep an eye on the ammonia/nitrite and if either starts rising, start doing water changes (which you should do frequently in a hospital tank anyways).

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Mats

Talk to your local fish shop and see what they think

unfortunatly, I trust my local fish shop to have about the same level of expertise on fish handeling as my pet dog have..

I have been in contact with a lady from Norway who I think have experienced the same type of trouble as I have, She just let the catfish alone and well fed, and changed water about 20-30% every day for some time, and it came through all right.

But, is melafix so mild that it is ok to use it "just-in-case" or should I hold my horses and just look carfully for signs on the rest of the group ?

Yeah, I guess I'm lucky to have a LFS that DOES know what they talk about at least on most things.

I haven't personally used Melafix/pimafix on any of my fish, but I believe it's mild and "filter-safe". Barbie is the expert here.

But if the fish is looking reasonably OK in the hospital tank, then it's perhaps just as well to leave it to "plenty of rest and healthy food". These (and other) fish have an astonishing ability to heal themselves as long as the water is reasonably kept clean.

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Mats

From personal experience, when using any medications with Pl*cos, it's good to make sure you add some extra aeration to the quarantine tank. Some medicines can interfere with the oxygen levels. An extra airstone might do the trick.

Here are pics of my L333 and an L260 suffering from fighting wounds. I treated in a QT tank with Melafix and they are both fine now and have been reintroduced to their respective species tanks.