Clownfish mouth stuck open.

[Bugenar]

Hey all, my snow clownfish seems to have its mouth stuck open. It looks like there is bruising around the area, and it is still eating.

The bruising can potentially be explained by where it sleeps, being the sand bed. It probably whacked itself on a rock :(

 

[Bugenar]

The bruising is that black line on the mouth, it’s only on that side.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hey all, my snow clownfish seems to have its mouth stuck open. It looks like there is bruising around the area, and it is still eating.

The bruising can potentially be explained by where it sleeps, being the sand bed. It probably whacked itself on a rock :(

One thing to check first - Is the mouth stuck open, or is the clown breathing so fast that it doesn’t close its mouth between breaths?

Then, is this clown in a tank with another one? It’s possible that they grappled and this one damaged its jaw.

I doubt that this is self-inflicted.

With injured jaws, there is a bone in the jaw that gets stuck. I’ve tried working the bone back into place manually, and that doesn’t work well, but I’ve gotten partial improvement on larger fish with this issue.

 

[Bugenar]

Hey all, my snow clownfish seems to have its mouth stuck open. It looks like there is bruising around the area, and it is still eating.

The bruising can potentially be explained by where it sleeps, being the sand bed. It probably whacked itself on a rock :(

One thing to check first - Is the mouth stuck open, or is the clown breathing so fast that it doesn’t close its mouth between breaths?

Then, is this clown in a tank with another one? It’s possible that they grappled and this one damaged its jaw.

I doubt that this is self-inflicted.

With injured jaws, there is a bone in the jaw that gets stuck. I’ve tried working the bone back into place manually, and that doesn’t work well, but I’ve gotten partial improvement on larger fish with this issue.

It is a pair, this is the larger and more dominant one though… so it would have to be from another fish.

And it seems the mouth is stuck open, almost swollen.

 

[Bugenar]

Hey all, my snow clownfish seems to have its mouth stuck open. It looks like there is bruising around the area, and it is still eating.

The bruising can potentially be explained by where it sleeps, being the sand bed. It probably whacked itself on a rock :(

View attachment 1785159146
hopefully this video works (doesn’t seem to load on the app)

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

It is a pair, this is the larger and more dominant one though… so it would have to be from another fish.

And it seems the mouth is stuck open, almost swollen.

The fish isn’t breathing fast, so that’s good.

If it came on suddenly then I suspect an injury from grabbing at the other clown.
I wouldn’t intercede, the mouth isn’t as wide open as it was on the fish I tried to manipulate - more like how they looked after I did that……

 

[Dom]

Then, is this clown in a tank with another one? It’s possible that they grappled and this one damaged its jaw.

I had this very thing happen with a clown recently.

The best I could tell was that its jaw became damaged during aggressive feeding; the clown and one of the tank mates crashed into each other going after the same piece of food.

There was nothing that could be done. It couldn't eat anymore, and so, slowly became weaker from not eating until I found it stuck to a power head.

Now I turn off flow in the tank before feeding. There is less darting after food and no collisions.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Known as lockjaw, they often have to release on their own
This is common with anthias and chromis