Injury or disease?

learn2reef · Dec 30, 2021

Foxface has a raised hole near dorsal fin. I think it was just a bump the other day and the hole started to develop in the last day or two. The foxface injures himself all the time on theaqua scape. He just bent his front dorsal spine the other day too.

Does the hole look like a disease of some kind?

LAReefer4Life · Dec 30, 2021

Looks like injury to me but keep an eye out for possible bacterial infection. Is it just the image but the eyes look cloudy?

learn2reef · Dec 30, 2021

Eyes do look a little cloudy. I QT him and treated him for Popeye with kanaplex. A while back. He looked clean and was returned to main tank maybe 5-6 weeks ago. It might be coming back, though. I am keeping an eye on that too.

learn2reef · Dec 30, 2021

I’ll also mention I have a hippo tang the same size. And they fight ALL the time (usually initiated by foxface) Could it be a tang barb sting?

LAReefer4Life · Dec 30, 2021

Fighting all the time is no good for either your tang or foxface. You will need to find a resolve to the issue, one may need to go. What size is your aquarium?

is the fish exhibiting any other strange behaviors such as excessive yawning, flashing, scratching? Cloudy eyes can be parasitic or bacterial.

What are your current water parameters? Have all your fish gone through QT?

learn2reef · Dec 30, 2021

Red Sea 525, so 108 gallon display and 31 gallon sump. Foxface, Tang, a clown fish and a coral banded shrimp were first and have been in there since the tank cycled in August. got them from someone who took down their fish only tank. Another clown, sixline, and goby were QT with medication about 8 weeks ago (just before foxface popeye bout).

yeah, I have contemplated finding new home for foxface for a while. They aren’t supposed to be this aggressive.

Foxface is not doing anything abormal.

salinity 35 ppt
Alk 8.6
Ca 450
Mg 1500
PH 7.9-8.1
Nitrate 0.2 today (I have got them down from 50ppm 4 weeks ago with biofuel, microbacter, carbon reactor and more filter sock changes. Working to get them up to 2-5 range. Now just using filtration/skimming)
PO4 0.00 usually. 0.11 today- I’m dosing neo phos and it just jumped today so I skipped the dose today