Loaches Online Forum

The clowns in my tank have what look to be sores/holes in there heads... Can anyone point me in the right direction for a treatment?








The fish are eating normally, dont seem to rub against anything but have become much more shy except when food is around.

My setup is ...

6 clowns (2x 3.5in, 4x 2in)
4 kuhli's
1 catfish
8 danios

5ft tank, eheim 2217, river manifold w/2x powerheads, silcia sand, driftwood, granite river stones & plastic plants... food is pellets & flakes with some live food when I can get it (mosquito lava, bloodworms)

Water conditions have been spot on since the tank was started up last july/aug except the ph is a bit high (7.2... local water).. I try and do a 30-40% water change every other week. Temp is 28C... Air is supplied thru the powerheads and one of those tube type air stones that runs front to back of the tank

The only reason I setup this tank was for the two bigger clowns... it would be a shame to lose them

Any help would be appreciated

That looks very bad, the first thing i thought of was "hole in the head".
if i'm right then i'm sure it would be kinder to put them out before it gets worse.

mick

It looks like an open wound injury to me. Like it was scraped and the skin flapped over off of the wound. It looks like it's healing already too. Is there anything that the fish could of gotten stuck in that could cause this?

Some like this happened to one of my clowns when it got hurt in a powerhead. I quarantined it in a small tank and treated it with melafix. It completely healed in about 6 weeks.

Keith i'd have thought that, but laika said clowns so it's very unusual for them all to have the same injury.
i think i'll stick with what i think it is.

mick

mickthefish wrote:That looks very bad, the first thing i thought of was "hole in the head".
if i'm right then i'm sure it would be kinder to put them out before it gets worse.

mick

Culling all my clowns seems a bit extreme at this point. The clowns dont seem to be distressed and still can be seen playing and doing usual clown things.



Is there some course of action I can try first?

there's a few people on here that might be able to help you in the treatment of this laika, i hope i'm wrong and it is'nt hole in the head.
wait for them to come on and give you their thoughts as to what it is and how to treat it.
how many clowns are like this?.

mick

I didn't know it was more than one clown.

There are treatments for this nevertheless. Firstly, you should increase the water change frequency. Every other week is not good enough and usually causes problems eventually. Small water changes are easier on the fish than large ones. I usually recommend two 20% water changes per week. You might want to do small daily water changes until the fish are better. If that doesn't seem to help you'll probably want to use some medications that will help heal the wounds and kill off the bacteria or parasites that might be causing this.

I'd try the daily water changes first, and if that don't work we can talk about what medications to use.

If it is Hole In The Head there is treatment. This disease is more common among Cichlids.
It does indeed start with increasing the water changes and emphasizing gravel vacs. You want to get all possible organic matter out of the tank.

Also, add garlic and vitamins to their food. Offer as wide a range of food as you can, including vegetables, live or frozen foods and a big variety. Any one meal might just be a single item, but rotate through a wide range of foods.

First time I've seen a cl like that hope somebody here can help you.

We seem to have been seeing a couple of cases like these over the past few weeks

Long as the holes stay clean and no secondary infection gets in hopefully clean water and a varied diet should do the trick. Your stocking seems fairly light for that tank but just as a precaution keep an eye on Nitrates and keep them at 10ppm or lower.
Try and made sure you get some vits into the foods you are feeding as well.

Heres a link to another members post a while back.... clown seems to have the same problem as yours.

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php ... light=hith

How long did it take the 'holes' to appear like this???

Ashleigh

Are there any sharp points/rocks/decorations etc in the tank that they might be hurting themselfs on?

Could they be jamming themselfs into rocky hiding places so hard that they're scraping their heads?

What had changed in the tank about the time this started?

Hi,

that was my clown in the link above. Everyone on here was really helpful and I've followed their advice.

I treated the tank with Octozin,
do regular small water changes to keep the nitrates as low as possible,
upped the temperature and increased surface splash,
added aquarium salts for 6 weeks and slowly removed them,
varied the diet,
Provided more hiding spaces so they didn't feel stressed
Also did a few other things recommended to me in the linked thread.

The clown that was suffering from HITH is still with me and is a happy feeder with a nice chubby body. To be honest the holes never seemed to bother her and she continued being a typical clown throughout.

I think that by carrying out the steps above I helped prevent any secondary infections (although the octozin was specifically to treat HITH) and, although the hole is still there, it is not infected and looks like it is starting to grow back.

HITH is hard to treat as there is no one proven cause of it. Octozin treats Hexamita which is one possible cause, others include poor water quality and not enough oxygen. I'd recommend following the advice given above and in the other thread and you should keep your clown happy. With any luck you'll see an improvement as I am seeing with mine.

Clowns have been the most difficult fish for me to keep healthy but I'm learning and so far my shoal is very happy.

Recently one was breathing rapidly and had clamped fins. It also began to lose weight. I treated with Kusuri wormer, anti whitespot and a velvet treatment over a 4-6 week period and everybody is fine and the skinny loach is recovering.

Excellent water quality, good oxygenation, hiding places and varied food should keep your fish strong and able to fight off infections.

Best of luck!