Mysterious wound on back? Could use some help ID'ing please

Paul B · Oct 29, 2016

Looks like something bit him from here.

DT Prime · Oct 29, 2016

Paul B said:
Looks like something bit him from here.

Thanks for chiming in! Agreed but I can't imagine what would/could have done it, I only had 4 small red legged hermits and one very small blue leg, a skunk cleaner shrimp, and then some trochus and small Nass snails when it happened. At this point there is just another cleaner shrimp and a couple larger Nass that went in Thursday.

Presumably a hermit crab could have nipped it, but their claws are all smaller than the wound so it would have had to sit there and let it nibble a bit. And it occurred over night and he sleeps in a little hole in a rock...

Paul B · Oct 29, 2016

No, a hermit crab couldn't do it. Maybe it is not a bite then. It is an infection< I just don't know how a fish in a tank with those tank mates would get an infection there. But like was said, it is easy to cure

DT Prime · Oct 29, 2016

Here are a couple pics from this morning, yesterday he seemed a little weak and stayed in his rock a bit but I turned the vortechs down and then he spent the rest of the day out and eating. Today he has been out all morning at normal flow and seems peppy again. The wound appears to maybe be closing a bit but also shows darker around the edges though, I don't know what fish wounds typically do though so can't tell if it's worse or better, doesn't seem like much progress for almost 10 days though

His other side seems to have cleared up a little other than the spot on his fin:

How long would you say he's had the infection at this point? Is it safe to assume it's been since from around the time of the wound or more likely the last few days? So far he is still not showing most of the seemingly more serious symptoms associated with bacterial infection so I'm hoping he can pull through, little guys got gumption and a great mean mug!

Going to a pet store today to see if I can get the QT supplies today, otherwise will have to get them early next week. Thanks again for all the input so far!

Humblefish · Oct 29, 2016

@DT Prime What meds are you currently using on him? Most likely he got cut/injured, and an infection set in after. I'm not sure on the timeline.

DT Prime · Oct 29, 2016

Humblefish said:
@DT Prime What meds are you currently using on him? Most likely he got cut/injured, and an infection set in after. I'm not sure on the timeline.

Currently none, one because I have none on hand and two because my understanding was the medications recommended could not be used in a tank with inverts/live rock/etc. So far just 3x/day feedings with amino acid/vitamin supplements added. Tried to get him to eat some garlic infused spectrum pellets but I think between the frozen foods and all the pods in the tank, which he has to himself, he's a bit spoiled and pellets don't interest him in general.

I was able to find the medicines @melypr1985 mentioned on amazon and should have them here within a couple days but unfortunately the LFS I went to today did not have a suitable QT tank to purchase, so I will have to try to get to a petco or something Monday or Tuesday or order one of eBay or something.

Paul87 · Oct 29, 2016

Hope he makes it! Those assessors are really cool. Looks like your in good hands as far as instructions for treatment.

Empress · Oct 31, 2016

Hi guys. I don't mean to interrupt, but I have a quick question. Cyano is a bacteria, yes? Can a fish get a bacterial infection if Cyanobacteria in the sand bed is stirred up or disturbed? Thanks for any replies.

Paul B · Oct 31, 2016

I do not think so.

Empress · Oct 31, 2016

Paul B said:
I do not think so.

Thanks! I always wondered about that. [emoji316]

Humblefish · Oct 31, 2016

Empress said:
Hi guys. I don't mean to interrupt, but I have a quick question. Cyano is a bacteria, yes? Can a fish get a bacterial infection if Cyanobacteria in the sand bed is stirred up or disturbed? Thanks for any replies.

Only certain strains of bacteria can afflict fish. The vast majority do not. Fortunately, cyano falls in the vast majority column.

However, stirring up a sand bed can cause other problems if a Hydrogen Sulfide pocket is disturbed and thus released into the water column. Usually has to be a DSB though for this to occur.

Paul B · Oct 31, 2016

That's what I said, but you said it with so much more Pizazze

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 31, 2016

ugg. This a really bad memory for me and a shot in the dark. I had the legendary rogue crab. I had a small female mandarin that began showing small lesions on her body. Saw a few ,Got worse over night. I was literally setting up the qt and in convo w B Fenner on wet web and went to check on the fish and the wounds had doubled in moments of not looking at her. Needless to say, i lost the fish. Kept trying to Id, that day, tried to figure out where the bobbit worm was hiding when I saw a hermit bieng dragged by a hysterical scooter blenny. Shook it off and the crab kept going after it. It was horrible. Needles to say the floor got very wet, and I dont have a lot of hermits now.

I assumed as the mandys sleep in a coma it was easy prey. Your Gramma, I didn't think they slept as hard. How does this fish sleep and do you see the legions in the am?

DT Prime · Oct 31, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
ugg. This a really bad memory for me and a shot in the dark. I had the legendary rogue crab. I had a small female mandarin that began showing small lesions on her body. Saw a few ,Got worse over night. I was literally setting up the qt and in convo w B Fenner on wet web and went to check on the fish and the wounds had doubled in moments of not looking at her. Needless to say, i lost the fish. Kept trying to Id, that day, tried to figure out where the bobbit worm was hiding when I saw a hermit bieng dragged by a hysterical scooter blenny. Shook it off and the crab kept going after it. It was horrible. Needles to say the floor got very wet, and I dont have a lot of hermits now.

I assumed as the mandys sleep in a coma it was easy prey. Your Gramma, I didn't think they slept as hard. How does this fish sleep and do you see the legions in the am?

Yikes! The gramma died pretty quick about 3 days unfortunately, no visible trauma though. At this point I'm guessing the gramma was an acclimation combined with whatever negative bacteria is now affecting the assessor issue. A few days later woke up one morning a few days later to the wound one the basslet who was fine up to then with no weird behavior or marks. It hasn't gotten any bigger nor have I seen anything remotely similar anywhere else on the rest of him, fins are intact and such, so I don't think he's being harassed by something. He has slept in the same mid sized rock since day one and we wedges himself in the holes pretty tight so I'm not sure a hermit could even fit itself in with it. My main source of doubt stems from how dang small my hermits still are though, the wound is bigger by a 3-4 times than the biggest ones entire claw.

How big was your demonic crab? Here is a pic of my largest and smallest hermits and the other three are somewhere in between, substrate is CaribSea special grade so roughly 1mm for reference:

DT Prime · Oct 31, 2016

Sorry here's a clearer pic, side note is anybody else having trouble posting pictures through tapatalk? I keep getting errors about the forum now allowing photo sharing or me needing to log in to unlock photos...

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 31, 2016

about the size of the one on the right. I forget what species as Ive blocked out most of that episode.

. But A cat can mess up a human.

and good. I hope its just a scrape, it just started to sound familiar.

yea tapa talk is glitchy.

Paul B · Oct 31, 2016

OMG!!! so do you think I should remove this one? I assumed he was a peaceful, vegetarian, filter feeder with a great personality.

DT Prime · Oct 31, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
about the size of the one on the right. I forget what species as Ive blocked out most of that episode.. But A cat can mess up a human.

and good. I hope its just a scrape, it just started to sound familiar.

yea tapa talk is glitchy.

Haha true, mine tries to mess me up occasionally! Just figured it would have had to sit still for a bit to sustain that much isolated damage from those little nippers vs multiple small wounds. 4 are red leg and the little guy is a blue leg, sounds like supposedly the red ones are pretty passive and the blue one is the more aggressive species but I'm sure that's very general. If I noticed another wound I'd probably ditch them all just to eliminate them as a possibility, but so far seems ok and several people seem to think they couldn't have done it in the first place.

At this point I just want the little guy to make it through this jerk infection, so far he seems totally fine behavior-wise so I'm hoping he's fighting it off while I try and figure out how to get a dang QT set up somewhere!