Injured Loach!

[AquaScaper]

One of my Angelicus Loaches has managed to injure his tummy :( my guess is from trying to squeeze into a small space resulting in him scraping off some skin, he's not doing very well now and has been swimming erratically and scraping it up even more, He's also been trying to bury himself under things to hide and I'm worried that he's doing even more damage but if I try to catch him to quarantine him he goes crazy and I'm scared that he's going to hurt himself even more :(
I want to medicate him but am not sure what I should use. I have both PimaFix and MelaFix would any of those help?

Thanks

[Melody]

Sounds like he's in pain - netting would probably be the kindest thing. A bare-bottom tank with Java Moss for him to hide under, lights out, small dose of aquarium salt and maybe some Melafix is all you can really do. I would feed very little so the water stays as clean as possible.

If he continues to act like he's in pain it will be easier to put him down if he's already quarantined. I hope he gets better soon!

[AquaScaper]

Thanks Mel,

I've got her quarantined now and have added some salt (1/2 dose) along with Melafix and we'll see what happens.
If she passes I'll have to find another so the other one doesn't get lonely :(

[CACAdmin]

You've done what you can. I hope she gets better.

[Corbin]

good luck! :smile: i had a loach break his back once.. and he lived, there tough little things.

[AquaScaper]

Well the loach is still with us today, she has stopped swimming like a freak now and has resigned to sitting on the bottom or hiding. She still hasn't eaten but at least she seems more comfortable now. Keeping my fingers crossed that I got it in time before a secondary infection had time to set in, that's my biggest worry at this point. I haven't been able to get a good look at her tummy so I'm not sure if it is still raw or not but she's not rubbing it against things any more either so that might be a good sign.

[CACAdmin]

Well, she's by herself in nice clean water conditions. No other fish to stress her out so maybe she'll just rest and heal. I hope so.

[AquaScaper]

Still alive...her tummy doesn't look great but it's not nearly as raw as it was, she's getting awfully thin from not eating though.....I tried to entice her with some frozen mysis shrimp but she showed absolutely no interest so I netted them back out. If she doesn't start eating soon, it won't matter that her tummy is healing, she'll die of starvation instead :(

[Melody]

Its only been a few days - they can survive weeks without eating. She'll eat when her system is ready for her to eat. :yes:

[CACAdmin]

Well, Ms. Aquascaper just looking for an update on your loach. Did she recover?

[AquaScaper]

Oopsey! Sorry I've been behind the eight ball lately, too many night shifts I'm starting to lose whole blocks of days instead of just one here and there LOL...

Anyways, YES! she's doing very well, thanks for asking!. Still has a bit of a scar but it's not looking raw any more and she's very happy to be back with her mate again, the 2 are inseparable. I managed to upload some pics of what her wound used to look like, it was pretty messy for a while but seems to be healing nicely so I think with time she'll make a full recovery! I've been trying to get good updated pics of her, but she just refuses to sit still so until I can get a good one I won't be able to post it, in the mean time, here's a pic of what her sore looked like before:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a125/pet_pics/Kubotai.jpg

[CACAdmin]

Good to hear she's doing well. That scrape looked pretty raw. She must be feeling much better now if she won't sit still for the camera.