Black Belt Cichlid Health Issues

[Peiger]

HI, i have been having alot of trouble with my fish. Killer is his name.
well, about Feb of 2006 we put in a Pleco who was much bigger than him and thought he would not mess with him. alas, the pleco lost all of his fins before we got him out of there (hince the name killer), but when we were preparing to get him out, he made a pass as killer and ripped his right fin off.
i treated him with binox when it started to change colors (recomended by the fish guys). unfortunately i had left the state for 2 months and the person incharge of taking care of him never changed the water or carbon. he sat in medicated water for 2 months. when i got back, he had significant fin rot. i changed the water, and did a partial water change before i re-treated him. i was getting him better, and he was coming around.
well.
we moved to another part of the state. and in this move, he became very stressed, and his fins took on a brownish look on the edges. i put some extra stress coat in the water and checked all the levels. they were fine.
within the past couple days, he has formed a large lump over his eye that will occasionally puss. it has pussed out twice and has just gotten bigger. he has a cut on top of his head, i assume from scratching. he sits at the bottom of the tank not moving. when he is sitting, he is all one pale color. when we get around the tank, he twitches alot and gets very stressed. his cheeks become extremely red.
what do i do? i was told a double dose of tetracyclene. we are staying with a relitive till we buy a house, so there will be another move in 3 months. is it worth getting him better, just to stress him again?
i have put alot of time and effort into killer and would like him to be better. any advice would be wonderful
Peige
mailto:Peigeisbackinak@hotmail.com

[Lisachromis]

It sure sounds like he's been through a lot of stress. That doesn't help his health issues at all. My best advice if you want to keep your fish is to do LOTS and LOTS of water changes. This tends to help fish more than medications do. Most people medicate too soon, or with the wrong medication, which can damage the fish too. I honestly have no idea with the puss wound. I've never seen a fish ooze puss before. It also sounds like your fish gets excited when you go by the tank. He's probably begging for food. (Unless he feels you're in his territory)

As for the water changes, I'd go with 40-50% weekly changes at the least. Even smaller ones during the week may help a lot. This is more than I normally recommend but it appears he needs to have the cleanest water possible so he can heal up from his wounds.

Hopefully someone else can comment on whether they think you ought to medicate him for the puss wound.