Lineatus Wrasse sickly

[Kyle Sicard]

Hello all,
Here is a little background info on the situation. Somewhere between 4-8 weeks ago a rock fell on my Male Lineatus Wrasse. I came home and a medium size rock was toppled over and my Lineatus was wounded on his side with a gash and part of his fin on that same side was missing. He was swimming very weakly and unable to take the high flow from my vortechs. I had zero tangs at that time so no a tang did not cause the gash/scar on his side. I moved him over to the QT and he recovered quite quickly over about 10 days. So I released him back into the DT.

The large gash and the fins healed back up just fine and you wouldn't have even guessed that he use to have a piece of fin missing and a gash on his side. However, he did have a small whitish cut in the shape of an oval that never healed up fully. I want to call it a lesion but that might be the wrong term.

3 days ago I came home from work and he was swimming super weak once again and several lesions (for lack of a better term) popped up on his head and I for sure thought he was gonna die this time. I switched him back over to the QT to hopefully save him. He was swimming upside down, spazzing/twitching, and laying down on his side and upside down at times. I turned off the light to the qt and just let him rest hoping he would pull through. The next day he was still displaying odd behaviors like laying on his side and unable to swim upright but he was looking a little stronger. My thinking is that the cut that never healed up fully from the rock incident got infected and caused additional lesions. I thought the problem was a bacterial infection so I picked up some Bifuran + and gave him his first dose. Now today (day number 3 since qt) I gave him a second dose in the QT and he is almost fully recovered in terms of behavior and is eating as well as swimming normally again. He does sometimes lay on his side for a very brief time period.

I'm pretty positive that the Lineatus is out of the woods and should recover. I'm going to keep up the Bifuran + doses for a total of 7 days. I'm going to leave him in QT for an extended period of time between 1 month-2 months to make sure he fully recovers this time so this issue doesn't re occur.

Now the whole reason I'm posting this is because I want to be sure that my coruse of treatment is the proper one. Fungal and bacterial infections are easy to mix up and I want to be sure I got the right medication for the job. I'll attach a few photos to show the lesions or whatever they are called, please excuse the discolored water (bifuran turns the QT yellow). Please give me your thoughts on the matter and let me know if I should change anything about my course of treatment. This is my favorite fish so I'd like him to pull through without any issues. Hopefully I provided enough info, but let me know if you need anything else to properly diagnose.

On a side note ich did not come up at any time during this ordeal.

 

[jcdeng]

what other tankmates in the DT? If the lineatus was alpha, and there was a sub alpha wrasse in there, the injury and stress of the lineatus can be sensed by the other fish. While it was weak the sub alpha can and usually will attack him. and those white spots can be missing scales.

Other possibility might be that his swim bladder was injured and thats what is causing him to swim oddly and lay on the bottom.

 

[Humblefish]

I'm not familiar with Bifuran; so I looked it up and the two active ingredients listed (nitrofurazone and furazolidone) are good antibiotics for treating bacterial infections which sometimes occur when wounds don't fully heal. True fungus is quite rare in SW fish, so I don't think you have to worry about that.

I would treat with Bifuran for 10 consecutive days (very important) and then observe after that for at least a couple of weeks.

 

[Kyle Sicard]

what other tankmates in the DT? If the lineatus was alpha, and there was a sub alpha wrasse in there, the injury and stress of the lineatus can be sensed by the other fish. While it was weak the sub alpha can and usually will attack him. and those white spots can be missing scales.

Other possibility might be that his swim bladder was injured and thats what is causing him to swim oddly and lay on the bottom.

The only other wrasse in the tank is a female Leopard Wrasse. They don't even notice each other, I highly doubt aggression from any of the other fish ensued. In the DT I have: golden midas blenny, 2 wyoming white clown fish, 2 lyretail anthias, mandarin, female leopard wrasse, ORA cleaner goby.

I'm not familiar with Bifuran; so I looked it up and the two active ingredients listed (nitrofurazone and furazolidone) are good antibiotics for treating bacterial infections which sometimes occur when wounds don't fully heal. True fungus is quite rare in SW fish, so I don't think you have to worry about that.

I would treat with Bifuran for 10 consecutive days (very important) and then observe after that for at least a couple of weeks.

Thanks, glad I got the treatment correct. I've been dosing every day and doing 35% WC daily in the QT. He's getting better as each day passes.

 

[Kyle Sicard]

Humblefish, is there any reason behind using the medication for 10 days as opposed to the 7 days that the directions indicate? I do not mind dosing for an extra 3 days, but I was just more so curious as to why you recommend 10 as opposed to 7 days.

 

[Humblefish]

Humblefish, is there any reason behind using the medication for 10 days as opposed to the 7 days that the directions indicate? I do not mind dosing for an extra 3 days, but I was just more so curious as to why you recommend 10 as opposed to 7 days.

How long to treat for a bacterial infection can be tricky because the strain you are dealing with and the health of the fish's immune system are never clear. Most harmful strains of bacteria only remain waterborne for 10 days max. So, when dealing with a strain that keeps coming back (as in your case), it's best to just play it safe and treat for 10 days.

Typically, administering 2 full courses (1 course = 4 doses) of antibiotics is sufficient when dealing with a bacterial infection. This sometimes can last even longer than 10 days depending upon how the product's dosage is spaced out. Some get by just administering 4 doses (or less) because the natural immune system takes over after that and finishes up the job. But this can be risky.

 

[Kyle Sicard]

Thank you for the informative reply. 10 days treatment it is. On a side note my Lineatus is getting much stronger and behaving like his old self again. He should make a full recovery, which is a relief =).