Scrape or cut on face

[Afkomjorgen]

Hello!
I just noticed this on my orchid dottyback. It looks like a cut or scrape on her left side of her face. Is there anything that this could be or that I can do to make her feel better? Otherwise acting normally and eating well.

tankmates in 48gal :
Bonded pair of clownfish, ywg, cleaning shrimp, 2 anemones

parameters taken yesterday :
Salinity 1.026
Ph 8
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 40 ( normal for the tank, we grow softies and leathers )
Phos 0.05

the fish eat a mixture of frozen blocks from hikari. Mysis shrimp, spirulina brine shrimp, algae mix, coral gumbo

Thank you!


Unhappy faces from her because I was pretending to feed the fish to get the photos and she was not amused by a bubble dinner

 

[Timfish]

Keep an eye on it. Not much yo can do that wouldn't subject it to a lot of stress.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Agreed, there isn't anything you can do about this except watch to see if it grows in size or if any secondary symptoms show up (not eating, rapid breathing, etc.) It is probably a superficial wound with some mucus on top of it, but there is a slight chance it is a rare internal fungal infection known as Ichthyophonus hoferi....but that isn't treatable.

Jay

 

[Afkomjorgen]

Keep an eye on it. Not much yo can do that wouldn't subject it to a lot of stress.

Agreed, there isn't anything you can do about this except watch to see if it grows in size or if any secondary symptoms show up (not eating, rapid breathing, etc.) It is probably a superficial wound with some mucus on top of it, but there is a slight chance it is a rare internal fungal infection known as Ichthyophonus hoferi....but that isn't treatable.

Jay

Thank you both, I will keep an eye on her.

 

[Afkomjorgen]

Hello!
Her face scrape healed up in a couple of days
Today I noticed that she has a chunk of her tail missing.
should I suspect aggression or worry about a potential attack hitchhiker in the rocks?

48 gal reef with 2 occelaris clownfish (I’ve had for 4 years) 1 yellow watchman goby and a cleaner shrimp. The ywg has a burrow on the right side of the tank. The dotty mostly hangs on the left side but swims around a lot more than ywg. Female clown bites me a ton and I see her chase fish off her host but I haven’t seen her pursue aggression.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hello!
Her face scrape healed up in a couple of days
Today I noticed that she has a chunk of her tail missing.
should I suspect aggression or worry about a potential attack hitchhiker in the rocks?

48 gal reef with 2 occelaris clownfish (I’ve had for 4 years) 1 yellow watchman goby and a cleaner shrimp. The ywg has a burrow on the right side of the tank. The dotty mostly hangs on the left side but swims around a lot more than ywg. Female clown bites me a ton and I see her chase fish off her host but I haven’t seen her pursue aggression.

That does look like a bit of missing fin from a bite. I doubt that it is from a "hitchhiker" from the rocks, but it could be if you added fresh live rock directly from the ocean.

My guess as to the culprit is one of the clownfish. You'll probably never see any aggression as this is from a single bite, and that was over in a split second. Clowns are very adept at "playing nice" while you are watching them, and then being aggressive when you aren't in the room. If the aggression is on-going, you can sometimes discover who is doing it by leaving a phone set up to video the tank, and then leaving the room. However, in a case like this, you would need hours, or even days of recordings to ever see it actually happen. The best you can probably do is look for minimal signs of aggression - like the dottyback moving away from a clown if it swims near it.

This injury should heal just fine on its own, as long as new injuries don't show up.


Jay

 

[Afkomjorgen]

That does look like a bit of missing fin from a bite. I doubt that it is from a "hitchhiker" from the rocks, but it could be if you added fresh live rock directly from the ocean.

My guess as to the culprit is one of the clownfish. You'll probably never see any aggression as this is from a single bite, and that was over in a split second. Clowns are very adept at "playing nice" while you are watching them, and then being aggressive when you aren't in the room. If the aggression is on-going, you can sometimes discover who is doing it by leaving a phone set up to video the tank, and then leaving the room. However, in a case like this, you would need hours, or even days of recordings to ever see it actually happen. The best you can probably do is look for minimal signs of aggression - like the dottyback moving away from a clown if it swims near it.

This injury should heal just fine on its own, as long as new injuries don't show up.


Jay

Thank you. The dotty has plenty of places to hide and escape so I’ll just monitor for any concerning injuries. Thank you!