Disease or damage?

[thewedge]

Hi all. Hoping I can get some clarity on what's going on with my Niger Triggerfish. I have had a few instances where I have seen some marks on it's body that made me be afraid he had some sort of disease, only to see it eventually clear up. At some point a week or two ago his tail was hooked upward and the bottom part looked frayed and a few days after that, the damaged part fell off. I've been keeping an eye on him and other than that he has seemed perfectly healthy and eats every meal like it's his last.
Today I took a look at him and he looks quite a bit worse. The tail is a bit more ragged and there are some more of what looks to me like abrasions on him.
Up till now I convinced myself that this is all him hurting himself when he goes in and out of the crevice he likes to hide in. To my eyes, it is very cramped space and I've been amazed he even fits in there since I got him. But he goes in there every night and whenever he is spooked.
I tried to get some pics of him but even with a lens filter, it was difficult because he never stays still to begin with and tends to get spooked when I get close to the tank. I know the're not the best picures but if anyone has some thoughts, I'd appreciate it.
I should also mention that all other fish in the tank look perfect. I have a couple wrasses, a foxface, cardinals, blenny, goby, anthias, firefish and a clown. I never observe any aggression in the tank. the triggerfish is the biggest inhabitant .

 

[Sharkbait19]

Any odd behaviors? Flashing, heavy breathing, loss of appetite?

 

[thewedge]

No odd behavior that I can see. He hangs out in his territory and eats like crazy when I feed. I'm not sure what flashing is.

 

[thewedge]

Any odd behaviors? Flashing, heavy breathing, loss of appetite?

No odd behavior that I can see. He hangs out in his territory and eats like crazy when I feed. I'm not sure what flashing is.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Flashing is when a fish scratches itself on rocks or sand due to some irritant, usually a sign of ich or flukes.
Any tankmates that may be picking on it?

 

[threebuoys]

Tough to see the extent of the damage. Picture or video under white light would be most helpful.

Not sure what may have caused the problem unless you have other large aggressive fish that he has tangled with. Triggers seem to be able to defend themselves well.

I suspect a bacterial infection has set in but better pictures will help confirm that.

Do you have any antibiotics on hand and do you have any corals or invertebrates in the tank with the niger?

 

[Bucs20fan]

Its for sure bacterial. Nigers are very susceptible to eye infections which it looks like yours has from your pictures. It also has a secondary infection in the fins. Nipping fins among triggers is a common thing, they do it to each other from time to time, but this one has become infected. I would recommend removing and treating in a hospital tank with maracyn 2 or a combo of metroplex and kanaplex to cover the bases. Niger triggers are very hardy and difficult to kill, recovery should be easy once treated.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi all. Hoping I can get some clarity on what's going on with my Niger Triggerfish. I have had a few instances where I have seen some marks on it's body that made me be afraid he had some sort of disease, only to see it eventually clear up. At some point a week or two ago his tail was hooked upward and the bottom part looked frayed and a few days after that, the damaged part fell off. I've been keeping an eye on him and other than that he has seemed perfectly healthy and eats every meal like it's his last.
Today I took a look at him and he looks quite a bit worse. The tail is a bit more ragged and there are some more of what looks to me like abrasions on him.
Up till now I convinced myself that this is all him hurting himself when he goes in and out of the crevice he likes to hide in. To my eyes, it is very cramped space and I've been amazed he even fits in there since I got him. But he goes in there every night and whenever he is spooked.
I tried to get some pics of him but even with a lens filter, it was difficult because he never stays still to begin with and tends to get spooked when I get close to the tank. I know the're not the best picures but if anyone has some thoughts, I'd appreciate it.
I should also mention that all other fish in the tank look perfect. I have a couple wrasses, a foxface, cardinals, blenny, goby, anthias, firefish and a clown. I never observe any aggression in the tank. the triggerfish is the biggest inhabitant .

The symptoms it is showing with eye, clamped fins, etc suggest this fish has flukes. The rashes on body are likely from fish itching and trying to dislodge these type of flatworms. Other signs will be gills will be red or swollen with rapid breathing, fish acting lethargic or swimming near the water surface, hiding in the corner of tank or behind rocks, loss of appetite, shaking its head, flashing/darting, and hiding within rocks. They may also exhibit what looks like yawning from gill irritation develop, cloudy eyes and loss of color .
Treatment of choice is PraziPro and while reef safe I prefer QT tank for treating but not necessary. If in dislay tank, remove your skimmer cup but leave the skimmer running as prazi-pro will make your skimmer go nuts. It will produce a truly amazing amount of bubbles so still have your skimmer running to keep the oxygen levels high in the water as some medications like praz-pro can lower the amount of oxygen in the water which is something you want to avoid so I recommend running an airstone in addition to treatment.
Also . . . remove any type of carbon that you have running to allow Prazi to run at full strength which will be 8 day interval, change water and treat again for one more 8 day interval.

You want to remove carbon and do an initial dose known as interval and allow that dose to work for 8 days. Day 9, do a water change then apply one more interval for 8 days then add carbon. Increase oxygen with air stone as Prazi slightly reduces both oxygen and appetite. If changing water, you are interrupting the dosage as there is no way to measure loss of agent other than to add a couple of M/L

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi all. Hoping I can get some clarity on what's going on with my Niger Triggerfish. I have had a few instances where I have seen some marks on it's body that made me be afraid he had some sort of disease, only to see it eventually clear up. At some point a week or two ago his tail was hooked upward and the bottom part looked frayed and a few days after that, the damaged part fell off. I've been keeping an eye on him and other than that he has seemed perfectly healthy and eats every meal like it's his last.
Today I took a look at him and he looks quite a bit worse. The tail is a bit more ragged and there are some more of what looks to me like abrasions on him.
Up till now I convinced myself that this is all him hurting himself when he goes in and out of the crevice he likes to hide in. To my eyes, it is very cramped space and I've been amazed he even fits in there since I got him. But he goes in there every night and whenever he is spooked.
I tried to get some pics of him but even with a lens filter, it was difficult because he never stays still to begin with and tends to get spooked when I get close to the tank. I know the're not the best picures but if anyone has some thoughts, I'd appreciate it.
I should also mention that all other fish in the tank look perfect. I have a couple wrasses, a foxface, cardinals, blenny, goby, anthias, firefish and a clown. I never observe any aggression in the tank. the triggerfish is the biggest inhabitant .

It sure looks like damage, but the list of fish you gave doesn't show any of the "usual suspects". Can you take a short video under white light?

Jay

 

[thewedge]

Thanks everyone. I'll try and get better pics or vid. I am leaning toward bacterial infection. There's definitely no aggression. Any that I've seen has been the trigger chasing away any others that got too close to his crevice, but otherwise he's a model citizen as are all the other fish. He's in a fully stocked 133gal with coral, inverts, etc. His breathing and gills look fine. He's behaving normally. Just looks like hell. I have a 10gal qt tank with erythromycin and air pump, etc. I've just never had to put it to use. Catching this guy is going to be near impossible though, and not looking forward to it. I had an issue with an anthias having pop eye a couple months ago but he perished because I couldn't catch him. There's a lot of hiding places.

 

[thewedge]

Here's a video I just took. Pretty sure you can ignore the white spots on him. They weren't all there earlier and I have fine grain sand which sometimes seems to stick to him. I also just took my filter socks out because earlier today I started using the refugium section in my sump and stocked it with pods. As you can see, I'm dealing with a bit of a GHA issue. I also scraped the glass before I took the video. So there's a lot of detritis floating around. But when the video is clear I think you can get a good idea of what I'm dealing with.