Need help to Identify Lesion on Purple Fire Fish

jmwils1 · Dec 7, 2020

I had a mystery illness wipe out my tank about 7 weeks ago. I am starting to introduce fish after a 6 week fallow period. I have introduced a purple fire fish that was delivered last week after a 30 day quarantine and I am seeing this lesion. I'm not sure if it was present when it when in the tank 4 days ago but has become noticeable in the last 2 days. My guess is a loss of scales from a scrape and a bacterial infection. It would be challenging to get it back out and into a quarantine tank as I have other fish in the QT and don't want to get them sick. Also don't have a second QT. It's eating some and is acting pretty normal otherwise. I have Kanaplex, Metroplex and Focus on hand. The tank is mixed coral with 2 emerald crabs some snails and shrimp as well as a Blue Spot Jawfish. The Jawfish went in on the same day and seems fine.

Temp is 76-77
SG 1.025
pH 8-8.2
Alk 10.18
Ca 511
Mg 1404
Phos 0.09
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0.03

Mastiffsrule · Dec 8, 2020

Evening,

Great looking fish. Let’s see if @Jay Hemdal is around to help.

Jay Hemdal · Dec 8, 2020

Hi,

Is there any chance you can get a photo of the firefish under white light? I may not be able to tell anything more, but photos under blue light for sure don't work (grin).

It does look like an injury. Of the medications that you have, the only one I would use would be kanaplex mixed with focus. That said, dosing of that is really sketchy - there is no real way to know how much medication your fish is actually getting. Another option would be to not treat, as long as it is eating well.

Jay