Need help with two fish with different illness/ injuries.

[Kobarg]

Hello all, I have two problems I noticed one with a pajama cardinal and the other a lemon damsel.



Today while doing some maintenance to the tank I noticed one of my pajama cardinals mouth was staying open and shifted to one side. It appears to have small white mass inside his mouth/gills. I do have a male and female pajama in the tank but I do not see eggs in his mouth. Attached are some pictures, any ideas?


Also I have a lemon damsel that is normally the tank bully but yesterady I noticed some scales missing and it was not as colorful as normal. I think the fish is just getting bulled by the clowns who may have finally had it and camp out close by but wanted an opinion since I was posting about the pajama.


Both fish are acting normal and ate normal last night.

Aquarium Parameters:
Mixed Reef
120g display with 30g Sump with protein skimmer, algae scrubber
2 a360x's with 2 gyres for flow
at least 4 years established both fish bought at least 4 years ago
Water was tested nothing came back outside the normal ranges aside from my normal slightly elevated phosphates.
Fish are feed rods food 1x a day

In-depth information:
Have you lost any fish to this problem yet? No
Are any invertebrates affected? No
Respiration rate of affected fish (in gill beats per minutes, count for 15 seconds and multiply by 4). Seems slightly fast but is the same rate as other pajama in the tank.
Are the affected fish still feeding? Yes
What remedies have you tried so far? None noticed today.

Thank you for the opinion and help

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hello all, I have two problems I noticed one with a pajama cardinal and the other a lemon damsel.



Today while doing some maintenance to the tank I noticed one of my pajama cardinals mouth was staying open and shifted to one side. It appears to have small white mass inside his mouth/gills. I do have a male and female pajama in the tank but I do not see eggs in his mouth. Attached are some pictures, any ideas?


Also I have a lemon damsel that is normally the tank bully but yesterady I noticed some scales missing and it was not as colorful as normal. I think the fish is just getting bulled by the clowns who may have finally had it and camp out close by but wanted an opinion since I was posting about the pajama.


Both fish are acting normal and ate normal last night.

Aquarium Parameters:
Mixed Reef
120g display with 30g Sump with protein skimmer, algae scrubber
2 a360x's with 2 gyres for flow
at least 4 years established both fish bought at least 4 years ago
Water was tested nothing came back outside the normal ranges aside from my normal slightly elevated phosphates.
Fish are feed rods food 1x a day

In-depth information:
Have you lost any fish to this problem yet? No
Are any invertebrates affected? No
Respiration rate of affected fish (in gill beats per minutes, count for 15 seconds and multiply by 4). Seems slightly fast but is the same rate as other pajama in the tank.
Are the affected fish still feeding? Yes
What remedies have you tried so far? None noticed today.

Thank you for the opinion and help

Both of these issues seem to me to be from mechanical causes - lip locking with the cardinals perhaps? As such, unless you start to see an infection, it isn't "treatable" other than time. Signs of infection would include redness or white overgrowth or expanding lesion size.

Of course, if the issues *were* caused by tankmate aggression, the same fish are still together, and so the issue(s) can happen again.

Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

Both of these issues seem to me to be from mechanical causes - lip locking with the cardinals perhaps? As such, unless you start to see an infection, it isn't "treatable" other than time. Signs of infection would include redness or white overgrowth or expanding lesion size.

Of course, if the issues *were* caused by tankmate aggression, the same fish are still together, and so the issue(s) can happen again.

Jay

i thought the same- the typical cardinal squabbling.

 

[Kobarg]

Thank you both for your opinions!

Normally the damsel does not bug the pajamas he normally is just a bully to the other damsels and occasionally the clowns.

I will keep an eye out for any infection and update the thread if need be.

Thanks again!