Rabbitfish Not Doing Well

nim6us · Sep 8, 2020

Hi all I've got a rabbitfish that's not doing so hot. It started out with just a bit of cloudiness around his eyes, but his behavior has gotten worse. I find him constantly pacing up and down the tank, doing laps one end to the other. He's not grazing the rocks like he usually does. He seems somewhat interested in food, as in when I feed if he see's a bit on the sand he'll eat it, but he doesn't swim up to the top and wait with the rest of the fish when it's feeding time. This is going on now three weeks, and just today he developed a red mark by one of his fins (see pics). Also I don't know if it's a light sensitivity but my wife said she noticed he's pretty relaxed with the lights off in the morning, lazily swimming around, but when the lights come on he starts in doing his laps.

Something is not right, and I just can't pinpoint what it is. I lost all my fish to ich a year ago so I'm crazy about QT'ing everything, fish, coral, snails, even cheato and I run UV. I just hate seeing the guy so stressed, I already treated with PraziPro as I thought from the symptoms it was flukes but it didn't help. Thoughts?

Jay Hemdal · Sep 8, 2020

I can't quite see the issue in your photos, but the change in behavior is certainly a concern.. For the short term, you can try feeding it while the lights are dimmer. What other animals are in the tank with it?

Pacing could be a sign of flukes, but the Prazi pro should have helped with that. The slow onset of symptoms rules out the common protozoan diseases.

Jay

nim6us · Sep 8, 2020

Hi Jay thanks for the feedback, sorry about the photo he's just on the move so much it's hard to get a clear picture, will try again later.

As far as tank mates. There's a cleaner shrimp, coral beauty, 5 chromis, and a starry blenny in a 4x2x2. He's pretty docile and gets on with most of them, but the blenny can get territorial and nip at him. I've seen circle shaped bite marks on his body before, but never anything like the red patch by his fin.

He is still eating for the moment but as I said he doesn't seem super interested. I just know usually when they stop eating you're in a really bad spot and I don't want to get there.

nim6us · Sep 8, 2020

Any other ideas?

Anihiel1 · Sep 8, 2020

I recall reading somewhere that cloudy eyes may be normal for this type of fish

Jay Hemdal · Sep 8, 2020

nim6us said:
Any other ideas?

The only other thought I have after re-reading everything tonight is perhaps the prazipro didn’t break the life cycle of the flukes. If you can catch him without tearing him up (and remember these have venomous spines!) I’d give him a 5 minute FW dip, then settle the dip water and look closely for flukes.
Jay

nim6us · Sep 10, 2020

Anihiel1 said:
I recall reading somewhere that cloudy eyes may be normal for this type of fish

Wow I thought you were crazy, but sure enough found a thread on this. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/2-bared-rabbitfish-with-cloudy-eyes.402387/ Like the author I've had my rabbitfish since he was a juvi and his eyes were always clear.

Just another example to me of why there's so much conflicting information and it's hard to pin down an answer sometimes in this hobby. If I just harped on about cloudy eyes and didn't tell you the species I could have dumped tons of treatments into my QT and they never would have worked. Then not only does my fish not get better, but when I'm in a thread and someones asking what they did to clear their fishes problem I'd say "no don't try X treatment, I did it to the letter and didn't work on my fish".

Sincerely thank you @Anihiel1 I still think somethings bugging my guy out, but I had really zero'd in on cloudy eyes being symptom and was skipping any other diagnosis that didn't include cloudy eyes.

Jay Hemdal · Sep 10, 2020

Just to be clear; cloudiness to the whole eye isn’t normal. Rabbitfish, scorpionfish and some groupers have a reflective sheen to their lenses. Run a Google search for Hemdal the eyes have it fish - that’s an article I wrote that covers some fish eye topics.
Jay

Pistondog · Sep 10, 2020

I have a rabbitfish in my 75g, which is 48 x 18 x 21, not far from yours. This is borderline, size wise for this fish. Mine does the pacing thing quite a bit, and his eyes are crystal clear. He is 1 fish that is very obvious about his stress with coloration. Great workers though.
Same behaviors with starry blenny. He's the only one that whacks me when I go in, always a surprise.

Anihiel1 · Sep 10, 2020

@Jay Hemdal agreed! My foxface has cloudiness in the center of his eyes- almost as if he has cataracts. Could the age of the fish matter? He was full grown when i got him, 1.8 years ago. Not sure how to determine his age...?

Jay Hemdal · Sep 10, 2020

Older captive fish do often develop cataracts, but in this case, the reflectiveness of the pupil of these species seems to be normal, and it may be more or less visible depending on the lighting and the way you are looking at the fish.

Jay

Qasimja · Sep 10, 2020

my rabbitfish's eyes look cloudy depending on how the light hits them

nim6us · Sep 12, 2020

Pistondog said:
I have a rabbitfish in my 75g, which is 48 x 18 x 21, not far from yours. This is borderline, size wise for this fish. Mine does the pacing thing quite a bit, and his eyes are crystal clear. He is 1 fish that is very obvious about his stress with coloration. Great workers though.
Same behaviors with starry blenny. He's the only one that whacks me when I go in, always a surprise.

Thanks for that, makes me feel a bit better about the pacing. I don't know if we see human feelings in fish that aren't there sometimes, but he's definitely a high strung fish. Almost anything can just set him off camo colored. But it amazes me 30 seconds later he just turns back to normal color and continues around the tank.

Also yes same with my starry blenny! All the other fish scatter when I'm cleaning, but he just sits there on a rock staring down my hand. Then, the minute I forget about him... NIIIP! It doesn't even hurt, but just startles the crap out of me every time! LOL!