Very Sick Jack Dempsey Mamma

Question
QUESTION: I have a pair of Dempseys. I have had them about 2 years now and this is their 2nd batch of babies. About a week ago, I noticed one of the Dempseys, I think the male, attacked the female and she had quit a bit of missing skin and cuts and missing fin patches. I seperated them and the injured one is the only one in the tank with the fry. I thought she would heal by herself and be ok since the damage didn't look to be too extreme so I didnt take any action also concering any meds would hurt the fry. now, she is doing very bad and the wound almost covers her whole left side. It is open and all the skin keeps falling off more and more. It is dwon to the meat and muscles. It is really red in some sopts and has like little bubbles maybe puss or something all over it. she is barely swimming around and only floats on her side with the wound facing up. I think it is definatly infected badly but i dont what i should do with her. What kind of medicine can i buy? Would it hurt the remaining fry? Do I have enough time to save her? From start to finish, she has been injured about 7 to 8 days and within the last few days, she has rapidly started getting worse. I also noticed the other side of her is starting to get small areas of skin falling off. i dont know if this was just prior injuries or if it is resulting because of the deep wound on the other side. The wound kind of looks like red hamburger or torn muscles. It is really bad so please help me save my poor fish. thank you

ANSWER: Hi Brittney,
  I am sorry for the delay in responding -- I am actually in the middle of the rainforest in Costa Rica right now and email is a little sporadic.   

  You need to separate her from the kids.  Believe it or not the kids can cause additional damage by pecking at the wounds.  As far as medicines, the most important thing is to watch for fungus growing on the wounds and treat that with an antifungal medication.  Keep in mind that cichlids are tough fish and can sometimes recover from some truly horrific wounds.  

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for getting back to me with some advice. I seperated the kids from her and put the by themselves. Unfortunatly she did not make it. She died about 3 days ago. I think the wound was pretty pretty infercted. For a wound like hers she survuved a long time. longer than i thought she would. thank you for your help and now i know if anything like this were to happend again. HAVE FUN IN THE RAINFOREST!!

Answer
Hi Brittney,
  I am sorry to hear that she died.  The initial cause for all of this may have been either (1) that the male beat her up (sadly this happens and is one of the things I study in my research) or (2) the kids literally ate her to death.  Jack Dempseys along with a few other cichlids have a fascinating behavior that the parents produce mucous on their bodies which the babies eat.  Sometimes the babies get over zealous and rapidly start eating not only the mucous but the parent's deeper tissues as well.  We have seen babies very quickly "consume" their parents, which is both frightening and amazing.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>