Angel fish with a bite mark or white spot?
Alright, from this we can gather that this is definitely no marking or color pattern indication of any sort. It would appear to be a wound, probably suffered when the fish ran into an unexpected foreign object (plastic rock or plant) you recently placed in the tank — not that the fish remembered the bottom as being previously devoid of these objects previously though). A panicked fish in the dark can be expected to run into such objects no matter how familiar they are with their tank; for this reason, you need to either limited such objects or see to the safety of them. Some hobbyists employ a night light for their aquariums, just for this purpose, would would help ensure the prevention of such “collisions,” as well as defusing any cause for panic in the dark in the first place.
While at least some of your fish may be aggressive, or at least known to have the possibility of being aggressive, its doubtful that this wound was caused by any other of your fish, unless some of your fish were of more of a carnivorus nature (Piranha’s, for example) which may take a piece out of the flesh. Most other aggressive “community - type” fish will usually attack other fishes’ fins only, regardless of which aggressive community fish are involved. Very rarely, but still possible, is an attack to another fish’s eye, but this is rare and may been primarily (though rarely) seen in conspecifics of the species involved. i.e., other Angelfish. We are not talking about Lake Malawi scale-eaters or eye-snatchers here, and its even doubtful that Blue Gourami’s would have the dentition to take a check out of another fish.
If you can get a pic, all well and good; if you can’t don’t worry about it. Your description of the wound’s location will suffice. The main thing now is to treat this wound to avoid infection. Salt addition will help prevent infection as well as promote a heavier slime coat on the fish, creating a barrier to infection. Your mini Silver Dollar (are you sure he’s not a mini Piranha in disguise — LOL) will prevent you from adding much more than 1 Tbs of salt per 5 Gallons, but I’d recommend adding that after doing a 25% PWC to ensure cleaner water conditions.
A pencil point chunk such as this should heal in short time. Keep an eye on it for any complications and report back to us if you see anything suspicious. There are a number of routes we can take with some mild medications if need be, but I don’t see them as being necessary, at least not at this time. You should think about a small night light (lamp with a mini refigerator bulb, perhaps, I think they’re like 7.5 Watts) or something similar nearby to use after lights out. Ray
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
