DarkMoon, please clean out your inbox! I need to contact you about a fish.

Sorry, so apparently wi-fi is hard to come by in upstate New York!

Is he still having trouble? If so, daphnia would be a good next step. Gotta keep his digestive track moving.

Is it feasibly possible to like . . . pull the poo from him with tweezers? A tiny bit is sticking out but it's just not passing, even after a 3rd dose of mineral oil. And should I attempt to feed him frozen daphnia? I haven't given him any food since this started but I'm at a loss of how to help him get rid of this blockage.

Half the waste is still in there. o.O I gave him a second dose today so we'll see how it goes. You're right, force-feeding a fish is actually a lot easier than it sounds. If worse comes to worse, I guess I'll just take him out of the water and "pet" him once a day to get him to go.

Well fish do seem to poop a lot when they are handled/netted! I'm glad everything is working out for you two. If the opportunity ever arises for you to use the mineral oil, do let me know how it works out!

Okay, DarkMoon, I got the mineral oil. I put a tiny amount in a bent nose eyedropper and made sure the tip of the dropper was saturated in it and put him on a damp paper towel. When he opened his mouth, I got the dropper in and swabbed it around. Hopefully that was enough mineral oil. You'd said a tiny, tiny amount so I definitely didn't want to OD him on it. If the mineral oil didn't work, apparently me handling him had an effect. Half of the waste is out now. Thanks for the advice. :)

It looks like it may have started as a flesh wound and now it's thinking about getting infected. The tissue around it looks a little swollen and red. The eye is definitely just cloudy. So it's okay to medicate armored catfish but not scaleless . . . okay, got that. I'll have to be careful with the dojo loaches since they're scaleless. I really appreciate the advice, DarkMoon. I'll try some salt along with the Kordon Fish Protector and if the redness gets worse, I have Kanaplex. I realize now that Maracyn I and II are useless in my tanks because my pH is 8.0.

I'll PM you links to the pics of him.

Hey Sakura, is the hole a flesh wound or does it look more infection related? The clouded eye could be from an injury. Panda cories are sensitive as far as armored catfish go but they are still armored catfish and are therefore usually less sensitive than your normal fish. If the eye is just cloudy (not swollen) then you should be able to treat with aquarium salt. 1-2tsp/gal should be fine with the same 14 day limit. You should be able to use most medications since it isn't a scaleless catfish but hopefully it won't be necessary.

Hi DarkMoon. 1 Panda cory cat with a hole in his caudal penduncle. I'm scared to medicate because they're so sensitive to chemicals so he's in his own tank with Stress Coat as a water conditioner and Kordon Fish Protector. Anything else I should do? He also has one cloudy eye and I still have no idea how it happened but I suspect high pH. His only tankmates are tetras and guppies and other cories. Only recently did I add a betta, in the last 3 days.

Thank you so very much, DarkMoon. I don't know what I'd do without you. :)