Possible infection on Foxface?

Mariekjeks · Nov 2, 2021

Hi everyone.
We have a big aquarium with different fishes getting along quite well. But yesterday we tried a new method of feeding grass, by using clips to keep a lot of Nori constantly available for the fish.
This resulted in our Acanthurus Sohal to get extremely territorial about the clips and attacking the Foxface over and over again. The Foxface tried to defend himself by using his spikes, but the Sohal is much larger and didn´t care about that at all... It looks like the Foxface used two of his spikes, and I can see the two spikes have sort of loosened from the yellow fin. You can see the white on the spike, like the yellow "skin" has been pulled from it. But it is still there, just white and seperated from the rest of the yellow fin.
But today, I can see he has a got brown/black area right below the spikes he used. Is this from an infection from hurting his two spikes?
Tried to take a picture, hope this helps and that the link works.

https://egms-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/..._no/Documents/Foxern.jpg?csf=1&web=1&e=N0Wa8T

blaxsun · Nov 2, 2021

Nope - link didn't work (asked me to sign in). You should be able to just drag an image or two into a reply here.

Mariekjeks · Nov 3, 2021

blaxsun said:
Nope - link didn't work (asked me to sign in). You should be able to just drag an image or two into a reply here.

Yes, seems it worked

Thank you.

Jay Hemdal · Nov 3, 2021

Mariekjeks said:
Yes, seems it worked Thank you.

Sohal tangs can be such angry fish! What I see on the Foxface is most likely bruising from the injury to the spines. It would be unusual for a secondary bacterial infection show up overnight like that.

Jay

Mariekjeks · Nov 3, 2021

Ok, thank you for your reply

So he will most likely get better in a few days? He seems fine and is eating well.

Jay Hemdal · Nov 3, 2021

Mariekjeks said:
Ok, thank you for your reply
So he will most likely get better in a few days? He seems fine and is eating well.

Certainly you need to watch it closely for new developing symptoms, but as long as the aggression stops, I don't see any reason why the fish won't fully recover.

Jay