SICK ORNADA

Question
Hi there,
My wife and kids are very distraught that our family ornada that we've had for a year and a half has become sick. This past weekend we introduced two more smaller ornada for him to have company. This little guy has what appears to be almost like a flesh eating disease. It started 24 hours ago when we noticed that it had a red sore on the left side if its head. It now encompasses his entire left side of his head. It looks as though he is loosing his scales and appears to be almost raw and swollen. Swollen becuase we can't seem to see its left eye. Also the outer edge of his sore looks white and flaky. The poor guy is just sitting at the bottom of the tank and not really eating. The other two seem to be doing fine. There eating well and swim as if they are young kids sort of like "Nemo". I'm afraid we may loose the larger ornada who we refer to as the "Roxy" fish becuase he sort of looks like our family dog (boxer) that we named "Roxy". Please help what can we do?

Answer
Hi Fernando,
  That's a tough one.   Clearly your fish has a problem but it is pretty hard for me to say what caused it.  It could be a
disease or it could be that the smaller guys have attacked
"Roxy".  If it is the latter, then separating the fish will help.  If it is the former, that's not good.  Sorry.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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