inareverie85

Might want to get an antiparasitic while you're at it. I've noticed that often one thing leads to another once the fish are pretty far-gone.

Zapins

Hmm ok, I'll look into that or at least keep an eye out for parasites. He is still eating very well and is otherwise frisky so hopefully I won't need to treat for parasites :/

I think when I take him back home, I'm going to separate all the apistos/cichlids. I'll put the veijitas with my angels in the 125g. The other apistos will get a 10g tank

Zapins

Ok well the TC and didn't seem to help, I started dosing metronidazole as well as TC.

The infection or whatever it is hasn't slowed down and it seems to have eaten away a good portion of its head and around the right eye socket.

Now he tries to eat but his mouth seems to be locked open and he can't close it around the food even though he goes after it and sometimes gets it in his mouth (but spits it out again).

At this point I don't know what to do and I think hes probably going to die...

I'm still doing 60-90% water changes every 3 days.

Do you think using these two medications together might me causing the locked jaw or do you think that is from the progressed disease?

jmontee

Zapins,

I hate to say this but I truly feel that it is time to euthanize this animal. That amount of tissue damage will not heal and if he can't eat then he will just starve to death. I am sorry to hear that he did not continue to get better but IMO it is time to cut HIS losses.

Zapins

Well... jmontee you were right. I should have euthanized him but I just didn't want to see him die... Somehow I thought he might pull a miraculous recovery and be fine.

he died at roughly 1:30 am today

nosoop4u246

I'm very sorry to hear the bad news. Cichlids are always hard to lose since they actually have personality! For future reference, though, erythromycin (Maracyn I by Mardel or EM Tabs by API) would have been a considerably better choice. Tetracycline is broad spectrum, but pop eye is almost always gram positive, which erythromycin is more specific for. Also, tetracycline degrades rapidly with exposure to light, actually making it MORE toxic. Metronidazole and Maracyn Two (minocycline) are virtually useless against pop eye, and using the combination at once will do little butbquickly destroy the fish's liver and kidneys. please just keep all this in mind in case you see any future symptoms...

Zapins

Thanks for your input... I didn't have a lot to go on since the internet is full of "miracle cures" and recommendations. I tried calling a vet but he wanted 50$ to look at the fish never mind treatment.

In retrospect maybe it would have been better to go to the vet, but I don't know.

Thanks for the info and I will use that combo next time (I actually had both maracyn and mardel) I used tetracycline since it is broad spectrum and I didn't know what type of bacteria I had.

In retrospect I think it might have been a fungus since near the end I noticed little white strands coming out from between his body scales near his side fins as well as near the head. The body became overgrown with fungus or possibly bacteria a few hours after death. I am not sure what exactly he had, perhaps this description helps a bit?

Six

$50 is cheap for taking a fish to a vet. there are about 0 vets that would even look at a fish.