6 line wrasse help. Some mouth disease?

Ultrawalrus · Jul 30, 2019

Just feed everything and noticed that my wrasse is basically missing its lower jaw. It is still actively feeding and behaving normal, but something is definitely wrong. Picture is the best I could get. If I think back, he may have had a white spot on his mouth a couple weeks ago. Didn't think anything of it cause he's always picking at the rocks. He's been in the tank roughly 3mo. My question is more should I attempt to remove him (wont be easy) to prevent a spread of whatever is wrong? Or perhaps it was just an isolated infection and not a disease.

Stuartmercer · Jul 30, 2019

It's jaw might be locked

Ultrawalrus · Jul 30, 2019

Stuartmercer said:
It's jaw might be locked

Idk. It definitely looks like it's missing. Is lock jaw a problem with them? Would it fix itself?

Old Fritz · Jul 30, 2019

I kinda agree it does look kinda like lock jaw; hard to tell from this angle. If it is lock jaw there isn't much you can do. If you noticed bacterial or fungal growth on the mouth before than it could've been eating away at the fish's jaw however it rarely grows like that overnight. I recommend treating with furan-2 and kanaplex if possible

Ultrawalrus · Jul 30, 2019

Old Fritz said:
I kinda agree it does look kinda like lock jaw; hard to tell from this angle. If it is lock jaw there isn't much you can do. If you noticed bacterial or fungal growth on the mouth before than it could've been eating away at the fish's jaw however it rarely grows like that overnight. I recommend treating with furan-2 and kanaplex if possible

Assuming it is lock jaw. Is that a death Sentence?

Stuartmercer · Jul 31, 2019

Ultrawalrus said:
Idk. It definitely looks like it's missing. Is lock jaw a problem with them? Would it fix itself?

The jaw is not missing because the skin would be floppy and moving around behind the fish. The problem is that if it doesn't got back in place after a day, it's probably there perminatly. The best thing to do is wait a couple days and if it's not fixed you might have to go in and push the jaw back in place. That is also a problem because it's so small and fragile that the bones can crack easily and if that's the case the fish will starve to death. So either wait for the fish to possibly die, or try and fix it with a chance at the fish dieing. And if worst comes to worst, put the fish down humanly. Hope you won't have too, good luck.

Also fish lock jaw is a disease I read